it's pretty much my own fault.

day of the dead. dio de los muertos. the lovely festive post-halloween mexican holiday in which the dead ancestors of a family and heralded and celebrated by the living instead of mourned. so we have a lovely image of the feast of one particular family through three decade-ish periods, with everyone gathering and loving and sharing, so though even as those the table, well, um, grow old and die, they remain with the family in spirit and it's precious. watercolor and ink. the holiday is generally full of almost caustic colors and garish imagery, so my idea was to communicate the idea of the holiday and the vitality of the palette and decorations with less intense saturation. it came across a little more muted than i would like, but i like the inking, i think. this piece was a big ambitious one for me, when the assignment was "something day of the dead-themed" and i said, "hmmm, hyper-detailed triptych sounds like a brilliant plan", i was probably asking for trouble. but i'm pretty okay with it.