Creating A New Visual Narrative: Part One

I've been commissioned to do a piece for a friend commemorating his wedding anniversary. He has given me free reign to create anything I want (which is a gift but is also somewhat scary to me) but it does need to be about a city-specifically, it should be about New Orleans. This city holds special meaning not only to my friend and his wife, but also to me as I used to live there and still have family there. I've been mulling it over in my mind and I keep getting stuck...how do I create a piece that depicts a city yet is still in my style? I've never done a city before....I mean, what would it look like? I called this post "Creating a new visual narrative" because in a sense that's what you do as an artist when you set out to create something that has your unique look to it--and it's not always easy. I'm showing you my sketchbook here with some beginning twigs of an idea...(now you can see how bad a sketcher I am.) These aren't the first sketches of this piece by any means, but this is the first one that actually has promise-at least to me. To you it probably looks like chicken scratch, but to me I know what to start on now. A title "Saints and Sinners" popped into my head so I've drawn some saints flying overhead and also contained within boxes (Saint in a Box-THAT should be a product:). Now to create the scene: I'm thinking of trying to do a wrought iron gate along the bottom with a 3-dimensional Saint Louis Cathedral behind the gates. Not sure yet how to build the church, possibly out of wire with either fabric or papier mache over. I'll keep posting my progress here in case anyone else is interested in how a piece comes together. This is what I'd call "Part 1-The Struggle". I know something's going to work out, just not sure what yet!