This week's picture is a scene from a graphic novel project I've been kicking around for a while. The novel would cover an investigation by a fictional detective in a futuristic landscape which would resemble the desolate landscapes of all those dreary post apocalyptic sci fi movies like Star Wars which relentlessly portray the future as taking place in the desert because it's cheap to film there. And the people and aliens and spaceships and buildings look grimy and steal and lie like love-able street urchins because it's cheap to hire them. As you can see from the picture, my graphic novel will resemble those hateful post apocalyptic sci fi movies almost exactly, because I have no idea how to draw it any different.
The two characters depicted in the picture are beautiful women who have mutant powers and hang out in a van in a riverside park. I have not finished the picture and probably never will without the aid of computers. I meant the window in the upper right to be looking out onto the trees and bushes at the edge of the parking lot. I believe I drew the tree fairly well, but experienced a total failure at the curb and gutter, which dominate the lower left corner of the window. I failed at the gutter because I have not practiced drawing actual curbs and gutters and because my left brain meddles with all my pictures like an insufferable backseat driver who periodically lunges forward and grabs at the steering wheel if my right brain shows any weakness or hesitation in the middle of a drawing project. Ideally, the analytical left brain should perform navigation while the right brain drives. If the right brain has a problem drawing a gutter, the left brain should say; "pull over and let me navigate. Do not stop in the road. Okay, there's a real gutter outside, let's go look at it. We'll use it as a model. All the real artists do that."
But my hemispheres draw like we've got a hotel to get to and pulling over is not an option, so my drawings tell a tale of discord and strife, they record a ferocious struggle at all the spots where a real artist uses their training in perspective and composition, but where my pen trails off in confusion until the left brain lunges forward and slaps the right brain's hands away and seizes control and downshifts and executes a five year old's version of a gutter with lots of mistakes and heavily emphasized redrawn lines and incomprehensible proportions and then gets bored and lets the flustered right brain take over and shakily continue the mangled picture in an atmosphere of sad denial and dreamy defeat. And the hotel is booked except for a room where the so-called second queen is a hide a bed in the couch and the bathtub doesn't have a working shower head and the bathroom fan roars like a jet engine whenever anyone needs to get up and use the bathroom, and the kids cartoons playing on the large and loud and dominating TV make it impossible to read and there's no time to draw, and the next day is all driving through the post apocalyptic wasteland to another hotel
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