Larry Holmes vs. Mike Weaver I

Larry Holmes vs. Mike Weaver I, 14" X 17", Prismacolor Ebony Pencil (Graphite) on Bristol Board. Art by Coyote Duran.

Hey, I'm back, Howlers! ( I know; I know. Who cares? Just bear with me...) It's been too long a stretch not posting anything here and that's something I've been meaning to change for a good looooooong time. So without further ado, here's a blog about my latest commission, one for my pal and boxing guy Dave Wilcox!

Dave is a major fan of former longtime heavyweight champion Larry Holmes and former WBA heavyweight titlist Mike Weaver (with whom Dave is also a friend) and wanted a reproduction of a renowned moment in their first battle, for Holmes' WBC title, on June 22, 1979.

Now these days, I'm rather reluctant to recreate a scene or pose for which an established photographer is responsible but it's at the request of a customer and, with my particular style, it's not an exact copy. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Dave also requested a black-and-white rendering and asked if it could be done in pencil. Well, my favorite way to do a fully-rendered pencil piece is to lay it out on Bristol Board (my favorite, on which to pencil. In this case, 14" X 17") with my trusty Alvin Drafting leadholder (in 2H lead) and finish with a Prismacolor Ebony pencil, topping it all off with a blending stick.

The image above is the finished rendering and the following in-progress images are courtesy of my Instagram account.

Denny Moyer in acrylic

Former undisputed junior middleweight champion Denny Moyer, acrylic paint on 12" X 16" canvas panel

I didn't realize until yesterday, when I was talking to my UCNLive.com co-worker Bill Tibbs, that I haven't done a strictly acrylic painting since 2012. Over four years, man! That's way too long!

I mention Bill because he recently commissioned this painting (acrylic paint on 12" X 16" canvas panel) for a friend who's a huge fan of the late undisputed junior middleweight champion Denny Moyer. Moyer won the very first WBA junior middleweight title when it was put up for grabs in October 1962. He defeated Joey Giambra for the distinction via 15-round unanimous decision in  Moyer's hometown of Portland, Oregon.

Moyer would go on to unify the division by capturing the inaugural WBC belt a mere four months later when he defeated Stan Harrington in Honolulu, Hawaii. Unfortunately Moyer lost the unified championship to Ralph Dupas two months later in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Just as interesting, however, is that Moyer split a pair of bouts with the great Sugar Ray Robinson, winning the rematch four months after his 10-round unanimous decision loss.

Throughout his storied career, Moyer defeated Benny "Kid" Paret and Emile Griffith but lost to Carlos Monzon in a bid for the legendary Argentinean's undisputed middleweight championship in March 1972.

So you can imagine it was an honor putting this one together for a guy who exemplified what it meant to be a fighter's fighter. Moyer retired in 1975 with a record of 98-38-4, with 25 knockouts. Out of those losses, he was only stopped within the distance seven times. Not freaking bad at all.


A little daunting indeed was getting just the right photo reference. Tibbsy presented me with the following, a black and white autographed example. But I needed to re-imagine this in color and the only active era photos available were what looked like grainy stills, obtained by stopping either a reel-to-reel projector or taking a quick photo of a live fight from television with a cheap camera.