Flight
18×14
Oil on Stretched Canvas
This is the second of four oil paintings featuring a horse racing theme.
Like most of my horse racing art, it is based on a combination of personal experience and photographs I’ve taken. In this case, the photographs were the result of a visit to the small, local track near where I grew up in Michigan, Mt. Pleasant Meadows in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.
Mt. Pleasant Meadows features live racing throughout the summer for Quarter Horses, American Paint Horses, Arabians and Thoroughbreds. The beauty of this track (to me as a horse lover and artist) is that it’s small enough to allow me to stand at the outside rail and be almost close enough to have dirt fly over me when the horses thunder past. How cool is that?
I spent many sunny afternoons (and some not so sunny afternoons) shooting photographs, sketching and otherwise soaking up the atmosphere of that small track. I even had a live television interview in the stable area one crispy, misty morning many years ago.
Flight is a direct result of one of those visits. The photograph upon which it is based caught my eye the moment I saw it, but it was several years before anything was done with it. It seemed like there was always a portrait to work on or some other obligation to meet.
Even now, with Flight finished and framed, the photograph still calls. What else might I do with it?
Flight portrait of racing competitors. Two horses and riders matching strides. They have reached that level of engagement in which all else ceases to exist. They are the only horses on the track.
The only ones that matter, at any rate.
This is the sort of racing that memories are made of. The all out struggle to be the best, the fastest.
It takes place at every track around the world. These two horses could be any horse. The race could be any race.
It is that intangible ’something’ inside every good race horse. That intangible spirit that gives them the look of eagles and lets them take flight on the track.
Flight is available unframed for $650 or framed in cherry for $950 to the first buyer. Custom framing is also available upon request.
All of my horse racing art can be seen on my web site by clicking on the links to Horse Racing Art or Michigan Harness Horse Art.
©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.
Here is today’s work on this Western themed watercolor. I worked more on the clouds..again. The men, the horses bridles and the rocks in front of the Buckskin. Mostly picking now, at details with a tiny brush.
