In the absence of real, paying commissions, I have decided to just… draw whatever the hell I want. One of the most moving articles I have ever written can be read here. It’s about addiction. So I’ve decided to draw it.
I love poppyseeds, especially on cheese on toast. Judging by that young man’s exceptional writing ability, I found this story to be a great tradegy for those parents. Their whole website is about informing other parents of the dangers of poppyseed tea. Poppyseed tea can kill!
Their website is almost completely text-based. I tend to notice this because I am a visual person. So I wanted to draw an illustration for them that was so cool that people would be a little bit more pursuaded by what the website has to say. I also want to send a message to a generation of youngsters — that you don’t need to take drugs to be creative.
My idea is to render the background kitchen fairly cleanly, although in a stylised fashion. I literally spent hours and hours looking for the right kind of rustic, traditional kitchen. Hours. I wanted shutters on the windows. I wanted cute curtains. I wanted a gas stove. I wanted a certain type of stainless steel sink. I wanted a round wooden table. And I eventually realised that I was probably subconsciously trying to find my ex-wife’s family’s kitchen, over in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain (where I previously lived for some eight years).
I’ll take out the photo after I put in a few more details. I plan to just have this generic chinese-made teapot on the kitchen table, with nothing else on it. And then I would like to have “caustic tendrils” (or tentacles) coming out of the teapot and reaching towards the stove, possibly wrapping around a few other things in the kitchen. At least that’s my plan.
As an aside, I am against all drugs but I think it’s really hard to stay postive in today’s world. I think humans have to ask what the real allure of drugs is? Is it just the effects of the drug? Is it the withdrawal effect? Or are people also simultaneously running away from something in the real world? Wouldn’t it be great if one day real life was superior to the effect of any drug? I know it’s wishful thinking, but if life was better that great, I think people wouldn’t be so quick to try new drugs, would they? So I think we need to question what exactly is wrong with the world today; for people to risk their life by ingesting toxic chemicals just to invoke some kind of artificial euphoria?
Perhaps there aren’t enough trees? Perhaps there is too much concrete? Perhaps there is too much graffiti? Perhaps there is too much ‘ugliness’? Perhaps there is too much pollution? Perhaps there is too much destruction? Perhaps there is too much negativity? Perhaps there is too much bureacracy? Perhaps there is not enough community? Maybe if we combatted some of these things, we might start to win a few battles in the war on drugs.
I think we need to ask what causes the initial pain in a drug addicts life? And what is the thing that pulls some people back from the brink of drug addiction, while others succumb?