Category: Drawings

Cartoony Drawings & Sounds of Museum Lobby

Dave Williams4 Comments
Introduction screen that reads Cartoony Drawings and Sounds of Museum Lobby.

In my spare time, I’ve been working on videos to play with my writings and drawings in a different format. Narration, for example — you can check out my narration of 5 poems on YouTube.

Also, I had the idea of a video with a slideshow of my drawings, and the sound would be from the lobby of a museum. I went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and sat on a bench and placed my phone, screen side down, next to me. The only recorded visual was darkness — no people.

I like that this was a sound recording of a specific time and place: Sunday, August 29, 2021, around 1 pm, for 7 minutes.

And I like how the video gives the illusion of a public space while I watch it. Not necessarily a museum, but a large space with people talking. Generic sounds from a public spot.

Please note that my drawings were not exhibited in the museum, nor am I implying the drawings belong in a museum. I was simply curious about the experience of connecting the drawings and audio.

If you want to view the video on YouTube, click here.

Brook Trout for Cormac McCarthy

Dave Williams7 Comments

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road is a bleak read, as it centers on a man and boy’s experiences in a post-apocalyptic landscape. It’s rough for what some survivors do to keep surviving.

The novel’s last paragraph stunned me. That doesn’t happen often as I read, but a handful of writers have had that affect on me with the emotional impact and precision of their language. Besides McCarthy, other authors include Karen Russell, Ray Bradbury, Kelly Link, and Harlan Ellison.

Let’s steer back to The Road. After reading the novel, I felt inspired to draw my interpretation of the last paragraph. The above drawing is the result. Apologies for the watermarks. I spent a lot of time on this drawing, and I didn’t want someone to grab it and use it in their own project.

I won’t quote the last paragraph here, since I believe a large part of its impact comes from the journey of reading all the paragraphs before it. A full journey on the road, rather than flying to the end.

But if you want to skip all those other paragraphs, you can read the last one here.