Red Iguana ... and ghosts

I had this photo of my friend Richard standing in frond of a fast food joint somewhere in Utah. I thought it would make a cute sketch and good practice exercise for perspective drawing. The pencil sketch was relatively ok. It is when I added color and people that nothing was ok anymore. The foreground figures ended were disproportionate and so ugly that I decided to cover them with collage and continue painting on top of them.

I ended up with a funny scene that could be made into a story - if ever I will have time to start writing again. Maybe in another lifetime.

I should have done thumbnail sketches, but I totally forgot. There is all this empty space in lower right corner that bothers me on paper, but that I totally ignored in the photo. And practice sketching the figures before adding them to make sure there are no ghosts! I am planning to retry this at some point ...when, it remains to be seen.