Ghost Riders
Ghost Riders
Acrylic on Canvas
6' x 4' 1/2"
This piece was made for a drawing class final using one of one hundred drawings
that we produced in sets of three minutes each. However, I already had a concept for this
piece that was in the back of my mind for about a month based on a song I was listening to often at the time. The song was "Ghost Riders in the Sky", specifically the version by Johnny Cash. This version was first recommended to me over summer, and I initially listened to it because it had the same tune to a song I already knew called The Portree Kid. The content of the lyrics reminded me of stories my great grandmother used to tell me and my sister. Specifically, the one that comes to mind is Coyote, where the main character Coyote was described in a bright yellow with intricate patterns. I specifically remember the significance of the bright colors that the animals would be described in, which visually set the animals apart as spirits. These colors are drawn from that of southern Native American myth and even more contemporary myths like the alebrije. My great grandmother, who we called Mamaw, was part Native American and maintained some stories from the culture, and I used the same palettes from these myths in this artwork. Specifically bright primaries for the horses to make them look less of this world. In the same way I gave the ghost riders and their steeds shading from top down, opposite to how shading on earth would work with the sun directly up ahead, making it even more clear the ghost riders are from a different plane.
that we produced in sets of three minutes each. However, I already had a concept for this
piece that was in the back of my mind for about a month based on a song I was listening to often at the time. The song was "Ghost Riders in the Sky", specifically the version by Johnny Cash. This version was first recommended to me over summer, and I initially listened to it because it had the same tune to a song I already knew called The Portree Kid. The content of the lyrics reminded me of stories my great grandmother used to tell me and my sister. Specifically, the one that comes to mind is Coyote, where the main character Coyote was described in a bright yellow with intricate patterns. I specifically remember the significance of the bright colors that the animals would be described in, which visually set the animals apart as spirits. These colors are drawn from that of southern Native American myth and even more contemporary myths like the alebrije. My great grandmother, who we called Mamaw, was part Native American and maintained some stories from the culture, and I used the same palettes from these myths in this artwork. Specifically bright primaries for the horses to make them look less of this world. In the same way I gave the ghost riders and their steeds shading from top down, opposite to how shading on earth would work with the sun directly up ahead, making it even more clear the ghost riders are from a different plane.
