This oil painting was for $150 (including this unique, one piece of old weathered board, cut out to receive the canvas).  The painting is done on canvas hard board with three coats of gesso and three coats of Gamvar varnish.

The painting is from an Erwin E. Smith photograph taken in 1908-1909.  The caption on the photo read: ” An XIT Stray Man by the campfire rolling his bedtime cigarette with Bull Durham tobacco.  The cattle are bedded down and his horse is hobbled.  Three Black Ranch New Mexico.”

After a long day on trail and supper of frying pan bread, beef, canned tomatoes, beans with bacon and coffee, Charlie rolled the cigarette paper between his fingers and charged it with tobacco, and sealed it with his tongue.  He struck a match across his pant leg and lit up.  Someone was playing a jews’ harp  and he began to sing.  Don’t bury me out… on the lone prairie, where coyotes howl and the wind blows free…