The Signs of Death is a still life drawing with a focus on how a specific color palette, either warm or cool, can create tone and emotion in a piece. The analogous color scheme is meant to replicate the warm tones seen in western movies, and gives the piece a homely yet unsettling tone. Uses of cooler colors, such as blue highlights in the background and the green of the bottle, are still given warmer tones to fit with the piece, or help to make the background grayer so the skull can stand out.

The piece features many common death flags seen in cinema, a skull, a bell, and a bottle of alcohol. The western aesthetic of the piece gives an air of uncertainty and danger. The skull is given more grain and texture compared to the relative smoothness of the other items, and it adds to the uncanniness of death, the ways in which it haunts and follows you.