Looney Landscapes

Lessons in composition via Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner

Have you ever taken inspiration from cartoons? Study the backgrounds of the Wile E. Coyote & Roadrunner Looney Tunes and you’ll find fantastic compositions of an otherworldly landscape.

A rocky landscape with Wile E. Coyote removed! He was prepping some dynamite, the little rascal.

There is plenty of fine art inspired by the American Southwest - e.g. Georgia O’Keefe’s New Mexico landscapes - but the artists behind Looney Tunes give it the feeling of spiky collage, of a fully alien planet.

Coming from a damp grey green country, these landscapes are fascinating to me. I can understand how the extraordinary rock formations invite cartoonists (and fine artists!) to play.

Roadrunner backgrounds

I’ve been doing studies of Looney Tunes’ striking designs and trying to apply those lessons to reference photos from the American Southwest.

Roadrunner scene: sketchbook study in pencil & fineliner

My studies of real landscape photos are closer to reality, but I had fun with the colour palette, picking up the bright colours and contrasts of the cartoons.

The landscapes are so unfamiliar to me, making it easier to play around with them - I feel less constrained by reality!

There is also a monumentality that invites you to use broad strokes, to create a general impression rather than focus on small details.

I’ve written about England’s green spaces and my love of tree sketching, but deciduous trees are both complex and familiar in a way that makes them challenging to get right - it’s obvious if they’re done wrong.

The jagged landscapes in the Roadrunner cartoons are invitingly different; it’s a representation of a natural space without the rules I’m used to (more akin to the portrayal of the moon in Wallace and Gromit).

Studying these landscapes is like an introduction to abstraction for someone who is afraid it! I struggle to connect with and to create fully abstract art, but the American Southwest looks, to me, like natural abstraction.

As an (aspiring) illustrator I love to see how the Looney Tunes landscapes can conjure a specific, real landscape while playing with the natural world and leaning into the exaggeration.

I would love to hear about the landscapes that inspire you!