Monkey Sue Acres, LLC

03/13/2025

This property has so many opportunities for a new design!

01/07/2025

08/02/2023

Some of our collection has made it's way to a new wall. Original paintings by Airabella and Roxy can now be seen and purchased at Federico's Jewlers in Traverse City!

06/17/2023

Come visit us at the Traverse City Horse Show today!

04/12/2023

We are very excited to announce that our website is now live! We have original paintings by Roxy and Airabella available, as well as some prints of our favorites. Check it out!

Monkey Sue Acres LLC is home to old mission peninsula's best equine artists. Find one of a kind art created by talented Rocky Mountain Horses, Airabella, Roxy and Reddy.

03/11/2023

Lake Michigan by Roxy!

02/17/2023

The girls have been busy! They've created several paintings in the last couple of weeks, but here are our favorites.

Airabella's 'Lavender Vera' is the first in a Flora of the Farm series that we'll be attempting with Airabella. The color palate was selected by her trainer Monica. Different brushes were used to create the varying marks (fan brush for flowers, fine round brush for stems, flat brush for background).

Roxy's 'Red Stick Horse' was certainly a surprise. We're not really sure what's going on here, but Roxy did receive a jackpot reward for the creation of the red figure in this painting.

We're working on building our painting horses a website of their own at the moment. We'll have a digital gallery and will be offering some of their original paintings and eventually some prints for sale. Stay tuned, as we'll be posting the link to the site here on our page as soon as it's up and running.

01/23/2023

Airabella painted one colorful explosion last week! This was her largest painting yet (16inx20in) and we think she did an excellent job using the additional space.

A few people have been asking us if the horses choose their own colors and the answer is sometimes. When they are just learning to paint their trainer, Monica Jones selects the colors for them and then hands them the loaded brushes to paint with. Later on in their training they are presented with a couple different color options and select which one they'd like by gently mouthing the paint bottle of their choice. Airabella selected most of the colors in this painting and we are exploring ways to add more artistic choices to the horses' paintings.

We'd love to know what our horses see in their own paintings. Horses have dichromatic color vision, meaning that they have only two types of cones (color receiving cells) in their eyes as compared to our three (typically). So Airabella's rainbow explosion could look completely different to her than it does to most of us!

01/12/2023

01/11/2023

Our two artists have been begging us to let them into the studio stall this week. They are loving their painting sessions and can't seem to get enough!

Airabella (chocolate/silver) is our original artist and has been working on covering more of the canvas. Roxy (black) is our newest artist and is working on finding her style.

We use painting sessions, along with other positive reinforcement based sessions to provide mental stimulation, foster confidence, curiosity, and to bond with our horses. This, along with the wonderful temperament that the Rocky Mountain Horse breed is known for, is what gives our horses such wonderful personalities!

12/31/2022

While patiently waiting for her forever home to find her, Roxy has been working on expanding her resume. She has been learning how to paint! We think she has quite the eye for creating some visually interesting, abstract pieces.

Roxy's painting behavior has been trained using positive reinforcement and her participation in her painting sessions is always voluntary. Because of this it has quickly become one of her absolute favorite things to do. She will lead herself into her painting studio (a converted stall) and wait for your assistance in loading her brushes with paint.

If you are interested in learning more about Roxy her full ad can be seen here as a post on our Monkey Sue Acres business page.