Mitchell's Cowboy Folio 9

 On the back of this drawing I wrote, 'Initiation of a new Cowboy to the Ranch', but in retrospect it seems an austere test indeed for a new employee. The perpetrator seems to have admitted as much by his gagging of the unfortunate who is under his lash. 

The original sketch had a plain background but the description and the 'hands above the head' bondage implied a location with a structure overhead, like a barn. However, while tidying up the drawing for publication, I decided to embellish it with a remote, desert location instead, where the punishment can proceed without risk of interference. The recipient's wrists are tied to a tree branch or a tall cactus like the one in the background. This change creates a scenario akin to the malicious rancher, Grainger, persecuting Clay in the 'Cactus Kid'*. The tenor of this punishment seems more appropriate to that and it has the same imbalance of age, he's even got blond hair!

The reference number of this picture (93) is directly followed in sequence by the Bunkhouse Bondage image with which I started this series and they have similar compositions. The male figures were both inspired by the Colt Studio images of the '80s. The highly-detailed chaps were inspired by (and probably copied from) the Marlborough Man ads. The treatment of the whipper's jeans reflects my enduring debt to Tom of Finland.

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