The Girl with No Name

Now this is a happy accident. This is like free association drawing. I was bored. It was lunchtime at my work. I had eaten my food and had time to kill so I whipped out a mechanical pencil and stole a sheet of paper from the printer and started doodling. (Why don’t I just take a set of pencils and a sketchpad to work?)

Why I drew a girl with a gun crouched down in the corner of the page? I can’t say. I just did. Then later on I was looking at it, saying to myself, “Hey, that doesn’t look half bad. I should add to it!” So I added some detail, started shading, and so I had this nice little render in the corner of the paper.

Later still the background was added bit by bit pretty much the same way, “Know what would look neat? A brick wall, maybe some birds, and a clock tower ...” The whole drawing evolved that way. I knew I wanted the shading to be rough and deliberate. I knew I wanted there to be a trashcan with crap around it juxtaposed to the girl (don’t ask, I don’t even know why.) But beyond that, I had no clue what I was going to wind up drawing next. Something just came to mind, and if I thought it would look interesting, I added it.

With that said, it’s a miracle the image is comprehensible and not just a glorified Roscharch test (you art critics, hush.) Overall I’m getting better at composition, getting more subtle with the flow of the image—compare this with the contrived Moonlight Dance or Shadows of a Pearl. Also the depth and perspective in this spontaneous doodle is more believable than the aforementioned planned renders.

And because of the sheer spontaneity behind the drawing, a little bit of trivia for ya, this image doesn’t really have a name. I called it ‘Alleyway’ just for lack of any other title. Maybe I could pay tribute to Sergio Leone and his Dollars Trilogy? Hmmm ...