“Broken Promises” Illustration Underway

"Broken Promises - Comanche Indian Tribe"I’m taking a slight detour and tackling a new illustration project based on Native Americans, the Comanche tribe to be more specific. The Comanche were known to be fearless warriors and were the dominant tribe on the Southern Plains, one of the first Indian Nations able to engage in combat while still mounted on horseback. As warriors they were known to often take captives from weaker tribes during warfare, selling them as slaves to the Spanish and later Mexican settlers, including captives from the Spanish, Mexican and American settlers.

The basis for this work is the numerous broken pacts and commissions that took place in the late 1800s between American Indians and settlers, culminating with the forceful relocation of the tribes by the signing of the Cherokee Commission in 1892, a really sad chapter of American history.

 

"Broken Promises - Comanche Indian Tribe"

This is a rough digital sketch in development, that will be transferred to illustration paper for the actual fine art work.

 

 

“caballo de belleza” – Completed

The “caballo de belleza” pastel piece is completed, and has a nice Tuscan feel to it.

Caballo de belleza

 

 

 

 

 

This piece is second in the caballo series and has been given the dubious honor of falling into the category of pride through physical beauty.

I placed various elements of these attributes throughout the imagery to further develop the concept…

Caballo de belleza

“caballo de guerra” – Work in Progress

I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to really free up my approach to fine art, my freedom of line-work, strokes and color. Because of my digital design background I have a real tendency to sometimes confine myself, by mathematic precision and the desire for perfection.

"caballo de guerra" - Work in Progress

 

 

 

 

 

In my newest piece “caballo de guerra” (Horse of War), I’m really trying to break out of some self imposed constraints, I’ve begun utilizing an “old world” color palette, and laying down oil pastel color strokes quickly and sometimes rather rudimentary.

"caballo de guerra" - Work in Progress

 

Dream of dark horses – “sueño de caballos oscuros”

"sueño de caballos oscuros"

I recently completed a digital sketch for an upcoming project I’ll be working on. All who follow my work know how much I’m influenced by multi-cultured folk art styles, well my newest project will reflect more elements using these approaches. I’m moving towards a bit of an “old world” color palette on this piece (this seems to be a bit of a current trend in decorative art), and keeping with very simplistic, yet bold imagery.

The digital sketch will just be used as a basic template, so I’m assuming once it is placed onto canvas and the painting process begins that similarities between the finished images will be very remote.