Artist Daniel Moore Reveals Sketch of Iron Bowl Gravedigger Pass

Sports artist Daniel Moore is hard at work, spending hundreds of “easel hours” on commemorating the jaw-dropping Gravedigger pass that effectively ended the electric Iron Bowl last month.

Moore has painted some of the most iconic moments in Alabama football history, and when the Tide converted a fourth & goal from the 31 to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Jordan-Hare Stadium and preserve their hopes for a national championship, he said he knew immediately another work of art was inevitable.

On Monday, Moore unveiled a sketch of what will be “painstakingly rendered in on canvas in the detailed-rich tradition of the Old Masters,” according to his site.

Moore joined the Steve & DC morning show on Tuscaloosa’s 95.3 the Bear last week to talk about the new piece – a diptych – and his vision in creating it.

“A diptych is a two-panel painting, or a painting divided into two sections – I’ve done that on a couple of paintings in the past,” Moore said. “Like the Crimson Connection – Bryce’s pass to John Metchie in the endzone – when you have something equally weighted. I mean, you don’t do it without Isaiah Bond and you don’t do it without Jalen Milroe.”

So it’s the quarterback on the left, scanning the end zone with his arm back to pass, and Bond on the right, Milroe’s perfect pass arriving into his open hands.

The new work will be available in five print editions – including a cheeky 431 Collector’s Editon Giclée – and two very limited canvas editions. Moore says it will be available in Spring 2024 and pre-orders are available now.

Moore told the radio hosts that the entire process involves a titanic amount of work.

“Sometimes it’s weeks of research – I look at videos, photographs, watch the game several times, and decide which angle to attack it from,” Moore said. “Once I get that down, I start the sketch, then after I complete the sketch I start the more laborious work, which is the painting itself, but hey, it’s fun. I enjoy every minute of it and it’s really a blessing.”

After taking down Auburn and upsetting No. 1 Georgia in the SEC Championship, the Tide heads to Pasadena for a New Year’s Day showdown with top-ranked Michigan in the Rose Bowl – time will tell if Moore has another painting to plan when that one wraps up next month.