Cowboy & Bee

᪥COMMISSIONED᪥

10 × 10 × 0.6 in
Acrylic on canvas
2025

Unvarnished

Background
My sister was flipping through my sketchbook and came across my rough sketches of the Cowboy that was done a nice while back to get some ideas flowing. She requested to have a painting done of it and told me I could take it in any direction I like regarding the final work.

To be honest, it was a bit stressful given I never made any paintings for those close to me, definitely family, since I would get hyper-focused on making it perfect. She also gave me full authority over where to take it beyond the sketch which was very kind but also did not help out my situation at the time lol.

Eventually, I moved forward with making decisions based on what I associate my sister with. These include:

• Dominate color being green: She always liked green items since we were younger, and so, whenever I come across a green item, I often think of her.

• Tile and peeks of blue / purple: Patterns and small points of interest (such as texture, small details, asymmetry, etc.) are things she has been increasingly into. As we got older, similar to me, she also adopted being into checkers/gingham given our mom’s influence.

• Addition of the bee and ants: She enjoys to collect cute themed things such as stickers, pins, and prints, so I thought to increase the cute-factor by adding these small insects.