PHOENIX — Many people don’t believe Kyle Nash when he tells them his hyper-realistic portraits aren’t photographs.
The 40-year-old lives in Phoenix but travels all over Arizona and New Mexico with his family, selling his art at different tribal events.
“I would say maybe half the people, once I say these are drawings, they’re like, ‘wait, what, what? I thought they were photographs,’” Nash said. “They get more enticed when I say it’s a drawing.”
Like many children, he spent a lot of time doodling in class as a young boy.
Nash sells his artwork at the Heritage Festival in June. (Alexandra Wittenberg/NHO)
“When the teacher would see me I’d act like I was doing my homework,” he said.
Nash was born in Shiprock and grew up in Kirtland, N.M., raised in the Diné ways. His early doodles were culture-related, like bows and arrows, he said.
He took one art class at Kirtland Middle School, but beyond that is self-taught through trial and error, copying photos out of low rider and tattoo magazines.
“I saw a lot of graffiti back then. I never got into writing letters, I was more attracted to the facial features of people,” Nash said. “After high school is when I would start drawing more people. I had a desk and would just sit there and start sketching out stuff.”
He still sketches based on photographs today. Some are sketches of photos of tribal warriors like Geronimo, others are photos he has taken at events, like a White Mountain Apache ceremony.
In May, he used his son as a model, dressing him in a Pendleton blanket, headband and turquoise jewelry. He then snapped a black and white photo of him, printed it and clipped it to the corner of his easel. He spent a few hours sketching out the proportions, filling in the details with a black colored pencil and adding shading.
Kyle Nash shades in details on a portrait of his son, with a photo clipped to his easel for reference. (Screenshot/NHO)
“It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of layers,” Nash said. “I might have to go over it multiple times with a single pencil to darken the light and get the blends to smooth out.”
How long the portrait takes depends on the size of the canvas, proportions and how much time he has outside of his full-time job doing rendering and 3D models for a construction company.
Once he finished a commission in eight hours, other times it can take up to a month.
Primarily he sticks to just using black pencils, but lately he has been adding pops of yellow or reds here and there.
“I did splash a little color on some of the drawings and I might incorporate that a little bit more because I think that highlights it, I think it’s a little more eye catching,” Nash said.
He has also been experimenting with manipulating his finished portraits on the computer, taking one portraits and making it face four directions for prints and shirts.
“The overall challenge of doing something like that enticed me,” Nash said. “I think there’s a lot of symbolism in art work. As Native Americans we have symbols with four directions. One of (my) drawings is named ‘Four heads,’ and so that would be symbolic of the four directions, the four sacred colors and four sacred mountains.”
A family affair
Nash met his wife, Celeste Bonito-Nash, at an art event decades ago. Bonito-Nash is White Mountain Apache, Akimel O’odham, Piipaash (Maricopa) and Cocopah. The two have four children, ages 13, 15, 17 and 22.
“We definitely celebrate (all our) cultures at our house and we really believe that our kids should know everything they can about each culture,” Nash said.
Their daughter will be having a Kinaaldá as well as Sunrise Ceremonial to celebrate her coming-of-age in both the Navajo as well as Apache ways.
When she’s not working at Banner Health, Bonito-Nash also makes art – abalone and beaded jewelry. Their kids paint and create other art as well. The family’s small art business is called Farmball Creations, FARM being an acronym for their children’s names, and ball for all the basketball and baseball in the family.
“All in all we’ve been having a blast traveling, meeting so many awesome people who are willing to help us in the business,” Nash said.” We try to listen, we try to take everything in and try to be smart as far as the business. We definitely want to build on this.”
Farmball Creations met the Nygrens at the Crownpoint Fair in 2023 and gave them some of their apparel.
Nash has been sketching for over two decades and won’t be stopping any time soon, but hasn’t stopped learning as he goes.
“It’s definitely a craft. It’s a constant upkeep of sketching daily, reading about this or that or different techniques,” Nash said. There’s always a big love for it but you have to keep yourself motivated as well which sometimes is a struggle.”
Follow Farmball Creations at instagram.com/farmball_creations and tiktok.com/@farmball.creations.
