Here is the fourth installment of The Buddy System, the series where I send out the start of a drawing and ask friends to respond however they wish.
For this assignment, I sent out a doodle of a floppy man:
The shape of the man reminded Seth L of the brightly colored spiders that crawled all over his body one night at a college party back in the 1990s. He may have eaten something bad that evening, I don't know. Seth said that despite their scary look, the spiders were actually pretty friendly.
Like her submission for
The Buddy System II, Morit G took a high-minded, expansive, approach to the assignment and created a beautiful, multi-layered, surrealist drawing. Here are some of the themes that may or may not be addressed in this piece: the passage of time; memories; aging; interconnectedness; family; nostalgia for old bathing suits; ghosts; competition; marriage; Pelé; county fairs; botany; living kites; human kites; and old-timey prison chain-gangs.
The next submission has a decidedly cinematic feel to it. Anna U, my sister, thought the man was being pursued by a terrifying little yogi. The floppy man is straining to hold the door of an apartment closed while the little mystic concocts a spell to gain entrance. This one sends shivers down my spine.
And, as always, the final submission comes from me. This piece represents the CORRECT interpretation of the drawing.
In my version, an irrationally happy man crawls onto the roof of a stranger's car and refuses to get off despite the frantic pounding from inside. The driver and passenger took a look at the man's maniacal grin as he approached and are now afraid to get out of the car.
That's it! If you have your own ideas for how to finish the drawing, please download the image and send your version to
[email protected]. Late submissions are always accepted and they'll be added to the original post.
UPDATE Saturday, July 25: René S, a photographer from Rotterdam, Netherlands, was following along over Twitter and decided to join in the fun. René incorporated the image of the man into two of his photographs. One shows a spectacular back-flip dive into a canal and the other shows a crowd of tourists marveling at the giant marshmallow man that is about to crush them. (Click the images to see larger versions.)
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