Roy Jones Jr., acrylic on canvas panel

 

Roy Jones Jr. Acrylic paint on 12" X 16" canvas panel. Art by Coyote Duran

Years ago, my friend Brad Cooney contacted me about doing an acrylic commission of former pound-for-pound great, four-division champion and (as of next year!) International Boxing Hall of Famer - and Brad's friend - Roy Jones Jr. as a gift for Jones himself.

Hell, I jumped at the chance. I mean, who wouldn't? The problem was I didn't - couldn't, really - jump all that high at the time.

You see, back then, I was going through a divorce. I was damn near homeless without the grace and generosity of my parents preventing such an indignity and I drank anything that wasn't nailed down just to get through my day. (I still drink but back then, I think I drank a sandwich, a stapler and half a bicycle pump. It was rough.)

Days, weeks and eventually months went by and I was only drawing for me, just to remind myself that I could and so I could get my emotions out on paper. Rightfully so, Brad was disappointed but he understood. The piece never saw the light of day.

However life got better. I got better. My Tracy and Makayla came into my life and fixed what was broken. My art came back to life and so did I. Yet I still didn't do this piece.

Until last year.

The Four Kings of Boxing: Part two (Or Coyote Duran invades Las Vegas...kind of)

The Four Kings of Boxing (Clockwise): Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, 18" X 24", Acrylic paint on stretched canvas. Art by Coyote Duran.

It's been a year-and-a-half in the making (yes, just about 18 months) but my "Four Horsemen/Four Kings of Boxing" painting is finally finished! Now before you get all judgy about my work rate/ethic, just know that this piece was never initially a commission. Originally this was just something to do between commissions and my regular work as an online editor for RingTV.com and UCNLive.com (free plugs for one and all, baby!) while working on a surface on which I hadn't in a while: a stretched canvas. All in all, looking back, the process was rewarding and easy as pie. I often work with acrylic paint on canvas panels and Bristol Board, so this wasn't really a stretch. (See what I did there?) However I don't own an upright easel, so I had to be mindful about how heavy my right hand and not lean on my surface in any way.

Who ultimately changed this piece into a commission the girlfriend of our cousin Allen Medina (whom everyone affectionately calls "Bud"), Cynthia Salinas, who actually does medicals for Top Rank, one of the biggest boxing promotional firms in the world.

(Bud and Cynthia are actually both steeped in Our Sport, as Bud's son is a rising amateur boxer, as well. They all really know their stuff, Howlers.)

Last year, as I was sharing steps in my penciling and initial paint processes, Cynthia contacted me about perhaps buying this piece to present it as a birthday gift to someone very special in her professional circles, some time in February.

That person? Top Rank matchmaker Brad Goodman.

Good(man) enough for me.


Now some of you who have seen the previous steps might have noticed that I shifted my process somewhat in certain details. My associated Instagram posts will actually clue you into the sections I've changed, specifically details in Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran's hair.

For a bit, I just couldn't see the overall balance and felt a little dismayed but couldn't figure out why. Well, adding the little light pockets in Sugar Ray's hair and the highlight slashes in Duran's hair just wasn't cutting it. Had I left them, I would have had to change the overall tone of the piece and that might have been too much work for too little impact. And sometimes, too many ingredients can way spoil the chili. Believe me; I know...and I also know chili.

So I took a risk and relied on my pop art sensibilities. I'm going to let less say more and allow the remainder of the piece help do the talking. So while I reinforced what I already had going on, my risk (or reluctance to take a further risk) paid off.

And now my Four Kings now has a new and happy home in Las Vegas with one of the finest players on boxing promotions. Thank you, Cynthia and Bud for your confidence and a new opportunity to show off my work. And I hope you Howlers love it just as much as I do!





Questions? Comments? Complaints? Commissions? Hit me up at coyote@coyoteduran.com. You can also follow me at twitter.com/CoyoteDuran, instagram.com/coyoteduran and facebook.com/CDCreationNation.

The Four Kings of Boxing: Part one

The Four Kings of Boxing, Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns, 2h graphite layout on 18" X 24" stretched canvas to be finished in acrylic paint. Boxing art/painting by Coyote Duran.

On the heels of my two most recent boxing paintings (a watercolor Manny Pacquiao and an acrylic Denny Moyer), I thought I would tackle another boxing piece, prior to jumping on a commission, but I wanted to do something different, something surreal and reminiscent of a time in my youth that helped influence the artist I am today. And that time was all about comic books.

Remember the older Marvel Comics that has the panel in the upper left-hand corner that featured the faces of team members in the X-Men, Fantastic Four and the Avengers? Well, this approach somewhat reminded me of those issues in the 1970s and 1980s. This approach also features my four "comic book heroes" of boxing: Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns. These guys represented everything right about boxing during hat time and - get this - they all fought each other. That's kind of a difficult thing to ask for in this day and age, right?

With that in mind, I wanted to work BIG (well, bigger, that is. I decided to render this piece on an 18" X 24" stretched canvas). I think, when one works as big as he or she can, it allows for better and freer attention to detail. You can also take more chances.

Now I know you're probably looking at my floating heads and thinking, "Yeah, they do look more comicky than realistic." And you would be absolutely correct! See, when the paint goes down, that's when the fun begins, like working further with values and depths, past the maximum one can lock down with just mere graphite. And sure, I could have made these fellas look more realistic in graphite; however, I also wasn't working on a graphite-finish-friendly surface (like Bristol Board, for example) and wasn't using my typical graphite pencil for finished renderings (my trusty Ebony pencil).

So in the spirit of my previous Instagram-happy blog posts, howzabout we do a recap of what's been shakin' with this piece thus far?

Manny Pacquiao: Part one...The pencil stage

The start of my latest Manny Pacquiao painting. (Pencils on 11" X 14" cold press watercolor paper.) NEXT: watercolor paint and ink!

So, currently, I have a couple of art projects in various stages around the Coyote Den and that's a good thing. It means I always have something artsy to do when I'm not working my gig as a boxing news editor.

However, I needed to do something bigger when we in the media learned that eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao was likely to cancel a very short-lived retirement after defeating Tim Bradley in their third bout last April. At the same time, it also gave me the opportunity to start using my Periscope (a live-streaming video application) account.

HOWLERS! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! You helped make my very first #Periscope #art/#MannyPacquiao #layout broadcast.a success! The best thing? My Baby, #MrsCoyote paying the live feed a visit. That meant the world to me, Honey. I LOVE You. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ And the rest of you guys are awesome too! Stay tuned; I'm gonna make this a habit! #Boxing #BoxingArt #BoxingArtist #Illustration #Portraiture #Drawing #Portrait #Sketch #Champions #Artist #ArtLife #CoyoteDuran #CreationNation

A photo posted by Coyote Duran (@coyoteduran) on Jul 14, 2016 at 4:00pm PDT