Skeleton Mariachi with Guitar

Day of the Dead by way of stage portraiture. A grinning skeleton in a black mariachi jacket and floral-embroidered sombrero leans into a guitar; an enormous red bow tie sits at the throat where a chin should be. The background is split: half flat black, half hot saffron yellow, with the sombrero brim curving across the line.

The piece runs on three colors doing a lot of work — bone cream, blood red, mustard yellow — plus the riot of small embroidered flowers dotted along the lapels and hat. Best for colorists who like detail-dense surface pattern, because that embroidery is where the design earns its keep.