Jill Soukup: A Masterful Process, Step by Step

Norman Kolpas

More than a thousand people had gathered in The Lodge at Denver’s National Western Center this past January 8th to attend the Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale’s Blue Jean Preview and Awards Reception. The show’s kickoff gala set a record with more than $1.2 million in sales, and everyone present eagerly anticipated the evening’s highlight: an announcement of the artwork deemed “Best of Show” from among some 400 pieces on view.

Colorado-based painter Jill Soukup—one of the artists in the lineup—modestly stood toward the back of the room. A veteran of the show, she was first selected to exhibit in the Coors in 2009 and has appeared almost every year since, winning the People’s Choice Award in 2011 and the Southwest Art Magazine Award in 2012. She was also the Coors Featured Artist in 2013. “This year’s reception was held in a beautiful new space, but it was very crowded, and I couldn’t hear the guest speakers,” Soukup recalls with a chuckle. “So I wandered off to look at the art.” 

About halfway through the night, while Soukup was still perusing the artworks on view, she ran into her friend Sophy Brown, another longtime Coors participant and one of Soukup’s favorite equine artists. “Sophy congratulated me, and I wondered what she was talking about,” Soukup says. “Then she told me that my painting, Blue Impulse, had won Best of Show.”

Making Magic

The prizewinning painting is the result of several months of trial-and-error work in a creative process that combines rigorous discipline with playful serendipity. The piece represents a milestone in Soukup’s artistic evolution. Like most of her works, it began with a reference photo she took on one of her frequent travels across the West—in this case, a draft horse competition at the 2014 Calgary Stampede. 

The artist found herself pondering the photo, taken more than a decade ago, again and again. “What kept bringing me back were the two amazing horses,” she says, “but I didn’t know how I wanted to handle them.”

Finally, the right impetus arrived in the spring of 2025. “I always knew that this image would work well as a large painting,” Soukup continues. “The size and subject matter made it perfect for the Coors show.”

Follow along to gain insight into the working process behind Blue Impulse …

STEP 1
After cropping the reference photo to focus just on the horses, Soukup lightly painted a value study in cool black gouache on a 10×8-inch sheet of rough watercolor paper to determine the painting’s underlying structure in the simplest form of a dark-and-light pattern. 

STEP 2
Before deciding on the painting’s color palette, the artist executed four, 3×2-inch color studies in oil with dramatically different background hues. “Although the horses are black, I wanted the painting to be bold and splashy, in high-chroma colors,” Soukup says. Her first background choice was red. “What better color for conveying the emotion of these hot, energetic, powerful horses?” That hue, however, almost dominated the steeds.
She tried orange, another warm color. It was still too dominant. Then she did a study with more neutral earth tones. “That was just blech,” she laughs. Her next idea was blue. “I didn’t think I’d like it, but once I added tiny notes of red to the study—marking details in the horses’ bridles that had been embellished with silk ribbons or silverwork—it clicked. That was all I needed to give the painting its color intensity.”

STEP 3
Next, Soukup painted an 8×10-inch gouache color study to clarify the overall composition, nuances of value shifts, color placement and edges.

STEP 4
To endow the piece with an underlying warmth that shows through here and there, Soukup covered a 521/2×43-inch canvas in a thin wash of oil paint with a generous amount of mineral spirits.

STEP 5
The artist blocked in the composition first by following a projection of the gouache study on the canvas and then—once that became too restricting—by referring to a printout of the image.

STEP 6
Soukup gradually worked her way across the canvas, continually fine-tuning various elements of the painting as she went along. The preliminary studies guided her process throughout.

FINAL
Soukup’s final touches to Blue Impulse included sharpening some of the edges and adding a bit more color in certain areas.

About the Artist

Jill Soukup earned a BFA from Colorado State University. Upon earning her degree, she initially pursued a career in graphic design while continuing to paint part-time. After 11 years as a designer, she switched to full-time painting. Her work continues to gain recognition as she receives awards, appears in national publications, and shows in important juried and one-woman exhibitions.

About the Author

Norman Kolpas is a writer and editor specializing in lifestyle topics. He teaches in The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension, where he has been named an Outstanding Instructor in Creative Writing.

This article was excepted from the 2026 July/August Artists Magazine.