Paul's recent drawings were featured art work for Ian Tyson's latest album, Carnero Vaquero,
This Ram skull drawing and others by Paul Rasporich are featured on Ian Tyson's latest album
which has had great reviews, and is even mentioned in the latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine. This is the second album cover in which Paul has collaborated with Ian Tyson, as he also did the painting for Tyson's last album - Raven Singer.
Another album cover painting by Paul Rasporich has done for Ian Tyson
Paul shows Ian Tyson what the finished album will look like at the T-Y ranch in the Spring of 2015.
About Carnero Vaquero, Paul says,
"Ian wanted something like a colourful photo like other artists that might sell well at Wal-Mart, and I fought him on that. I said that it needed to look like an old Will James book. I had no idea that at the time he was planning to redo his song Will James for this album. I did a lot of drawings of random things at his ranch. The ones he liked best were the ram skull, a horseshoe, and one of him riding his horse Bud, which we end up putting on the back cover. Neither Ian or I could come up with a name. I suggested that he have a contest on his Facebook site, to which he said - "That ain't never gonna work, Rasper." Well, I convinced him to post the artwork the next day, and ask for submissions from facebook and his Fan Club, and we had over 600 names in just two days! Ian liked the name Carnero Vaquero submitted by a lady in Missouri named Cindy Ford best, which means Ram/Cowboy in Spanish. What was very eerie about the whole process, was that when I was driving over to Ian's to show him the finished artwork, over the radio came the news that the World's largest Ram had just been announced to be one that was found struck by a car, not five miles away from Ian's ranch."