by Marty Coleman | Dec 7, 2024 | Sketchbook History Tour |
The Pianist
We lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for many years and attended First Baptist Church of Tulsa. The set up of the altar and stage combined with where we sat made the Pianist front and center to my line of sight. As a result I drew her a lot. The thing I remember is how quietly talented, poised and beautiful she was. After a while I talked to her and told her I drew her and showed her a few of the drawings. But sometimes I wouldn’t because I usually was drawing fast and often exaggerated or distorted her looks and I didn’t want her to think I thought she really looked like that. She didn’t.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 2, 2024 | Series |
This is a little off from what I usually post but I thought you might like to see what I do outside of art and running.
The Big Move
We moved to Texas in 2000 to be closer to our daughter and her expanding family. We found a fantastic house within 15 minutes of her and bought it. The interior was dated but perfect for our needs. The outside however was pretty much an empty yard. There was an old shed in the back and an old car port under a big oak tree in the side yard that the prior owner had used to tinker on his cars. On this blank canvas I envisioned a brick path leading to a large deck with a roof.
The Blank Canvas
The first phase of the project was to build the brick path from our back door around to that car port in the side yard. This entailed digging a trench 3 feet wide by 12 inches deep for the length of the path, which would split off in two branches, one leading to the shed and another leading to the small grill area of the future deck. The digging was hard and laborious and I did it while training for the Boston Marathon, which made it all the harder. There was a time when work was stopped due to rain that flooded the trench. However, it was a great time playing in the muddy pond for our granddog Annie.
Before – grass, dirt and an old carport
Path Outline
Muddy Annie!
Gravel and Sand
Then came big loads of gravel, sand, and brick. I used two different color bricks with the highlight color forming and X again and again the length of the path.
Path Complete!
Once the path was complete I took a break and focused on other part of the back yard, primarily creating border gardens. I started working on the actual deck in the summer of 2021. This first meant planning it all out on paper and figuring out layout, materials and costs. The deck was designed with 3 distinct areas, a small grill area, a large sitting area and a medium size dining area. It was quite big, 400 sq feet to be exact.
The Big Project
Physically the first thing to do was to get electricity out to the deck area. I had a electrician put a new circuit breaker in and wired it to the outside of the house. From there I dug a trench across the yard to the fence. I installed conduit, wiring and a plug over at the fence so I could have power while building and afterward for lighting the deck.
The deck area before
Then it was on to regrading the side yard to be flat. It wasn’t far off from that but it had to be completely flat and just like the path, I had to dig down about 8-12 inches to lay the foundation cinder blocks that the deck would sit on. Once again, hard and laborious and in the middle of a very hot summer!
Throughout the construction I kept thinking the phase I was in had to be the physically hardest part to build so it would just get easier as I went along. This was not true. Every phase turned out to be more physically demanding than the one before it.
Foundation Blocks in Progress
Framing in Progress
After laying the foundation blocks (approx. 36 of them, or maybe 63 of them, I forget now.) I started to build the frame section by section with 2×6 pressure treated pine. Doing it by section was easier to figure things out without being overwhelmed (though honestly it was never not overwhelming!)
Decking in Progress
Then came the actual decking. I used real wood, not plastic or composite, because of the price and environmental reasons. Once again I built by section and made each area distinct by creating a border around each one. Filling in each area was pretty straight forward until I got to the diagonal section and that took a lot of precise measuring. That was a challenge but I did it without making any big wrong cuts. It probably was the easiest part of the project.
Roof Framing in Progress
Once that was done came part 3 of the project, the roof. The carport was basically just a slanted roof over dirt but it was very low, so much so that when the raised deck was taken into consideration in nobody would be able to stand up straight. So the old roof was torn down, and the posts that held it up were taken out as well because they were in the wrong spots. The back of the roof was even with the fence so instead of putting posts there I used the aluminum posts that held up the fence and simply added extensions to them. I had to build a frame for the roof just like I had for the deck itself but this was a lot harder because the roof was at an angle and that meant precision measuring once again.
Staining in Progress
Once the frame was up it was time to stain the entire thing. Before staining I had to wash and clear the wood, which meant using a pressurized pump sprayer to get the wood ready to take the stain. For the stain itself I used a soft car wash brush on a pole to do the entire deck and most of the roof (before putting on the roofing material).
Roof Cover in Progress
The next step was to put on white corrugated plastic roofing, the wavy sort. I took a long time to get them aligned properly, adhered with screws so they wouldn’t come loose in a storm. We’ve had 3 severe wind storms since then and the roof hasn’t moved an inch!
Furnishing
While I was building Linda was shopping. She found a very nice outdoor seating area that fit perfect. She then added 2 rocking chairs and a small table. The area now seats 10 so it’s great for family gatherings.
Aluminum Cladding
The final touch was to clad the bottom of the deck, where it met the ground, with strips of the metal roofing I had taken down from the old car port.
The Deck Complete!
I finished the deck and roof and had it ready just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, 2021. I was very excited to show it off, especially to my out of town family who was coming over the holidays. But the powers that be decided a cold winter rain would fall for most of thanksgiving week and Christmas week so showing it off basically consisted of people walking out, looking at it, saying cool and then going back inside. It would not be until over a year later that a planned family gathering happened when the weather cooperated and we were able to sit out and enjoy the deck!
The entire project, Path, Deck and Roof took a little less than a year, with about 5 months for the path in 2020 and 6 months for the deck and roof in 2022. I did the entire thing myself with the exception of help from my wife Linda on the setting of the roof posts into concrete one afternoon.
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 31, 2024 | Sketchbook History Tour |
Small Portraits, part 1
These were drawn in a teeny weeny (3″x5″) spiral sketchbook with a regular ballpoint pen in 1995-1996. Some were drawn in airport waiting areas, others in church. others who knows where. These micro sketchbooks are great for traveling because they fit in even the smallest pocket.
© 2024 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 22, 2024 | Christianity - 2011-2013 |
Bible People, part 3
Back in June I posted drawings I had done in my bible in 1997-1998. Those were drawings that had thought bubbles that the people might have been thinking. Here are drawings from the same bible and same time period but these have no or few words beyond what is on the page. In most cases these were people sitting in pews listening to the sermon or choir. Sometimes I was creating a message behind the drawing in my head but other times I was just drawing a face I found interesting.
© 2024 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 17, 2024 | San Jose, Sketchbook History Tour |
Eulipian People
In the last post I told about having to commute by bus to my job in Downtown San Jose, California from the suburbs. The job was at Eulipia Restaurant and I chose to apply there because I liked their ad in the newspaper. It was cool and hip and it made me want to be there. I had plenty of restaurant experience at that point and got a job as a waiter. I later became head waiter and manager. This job was going to carry me over until I got a more permanent job or get back into Graduate School. Little did I know I wouldn’t leave Eulipia for 13 years.
What ended up happening was I got into San Jose State University as a graduate student working towards my MFA. I kept the job through graduation. Then I started applying for teaching positions at the college level. I quickly landed a part-time instructor position but a full-time gig eluded me year after year so I always kept my job at Eulipia even as I was working teaching at three different community colleges nearby. Before you know it 13 years had passed. In 1993 I retrained myself to be a computer artist and landed an animator job in Tulsa, Oklahoma and moved away the next year.
Those years at Eulipia were truly wonderful years. I loved the work and the people. I did a lot of drawings of my co-workers both in my sketchbook and larger pieces in charcoal and Prismacolor pencils that got up to 6′ x 4′. I also did extensive photography of many co-workers and made contacts with many customers that led to many photography commissions and projects. I will show those in a later post.
Here are some of the sketchbook drawings from that era, 1981-1994.
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 11, 2024 | Sketchbook History Tour, Travel |
Bus People
Back in 1981/82 my first wife, Kathy, and I were living with her parents in San Jose, California. We had returned to the Bay Area after my failed graduate school effort at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. That’s a story for another time but the result was we returned home with no money and no jobs so living with her parents was really the only option. Once we were there I quickly landed a job at a restaurant in downtown San Jose called Eulipia. To get there from their suburban home I took the bus every day. The first nine are from that year of bus travel.
Drawing on a moving vehicle of any kind is a challenge. You have to let go of precision. It forces you to let your physical action in the world be part of your image of the world. It’s an incredible teaching tool in developing both style and ability. If I was teaching drawing now I would make that an essential assignment.
Fast forward 21 years to 2003 and I am in Europe with my daughters on vacation. We travel by train, bus, car and subway and I draw while on them all. The final three are from that trip to give you an idea of how my style and ability changed and progressed over those 2 decades. While they were drawn live I worked on them quite a bit afterwards so they are much more polished than the earlier drawings.
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 27, 2024 | Sketchbook History Tour |
Interregnum, 2000-2003
In 2000 my divorce from my first wife, Kathy, was final. In 2003 I started dating Linda. In between I dated. Recently I scanned my sketchbooks from 2000 to 2003 and found these drawings of women I dated (or met in anticipation of maybe dating) during that time. Almost, but not all, of these were the result of online dating. Many people tell horror stories of online dating but with few exceptions my experience was overwhelmingly positive. None of them turned out to be who I was fated to marry but the women I met were smart, kind, sensitive, aware, interesting, attractive and wonderful. I learned a lot from that time and those relationships, even if it was just one date in some cases, and going through that made me confident when I finally found Linda, that she was the right one for me!
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 25, 2024 | Sketchbook History Tour, Travel |
Las Vegas Drawings
Linda attended a conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and I tagged along because why not. I did what I usually do when traveling and that is get up early, get a coffee and pastry and do some drawing. I was on my own the last 2 days while she attended the conference so I spent some time at the pool and drew there as well. I also found a great opportunity during lunch at a noodle place.
I took the opportunity to draw in my big sketchbook and use my copic Gasenfude brush, which is very much like using a sumi brush. The one exception is the ‘Early Morning Coffee with Phone’ which is with my regular Copic pen and in my smaller sketchbook.
People often ask me how long it takes me to do drawings like these. On average each drawing took about an hour to an hour and a half, except for the one in the smaller sketchbook. Beside each drawing but one is a photograph of the scene itself. These were taken after doing the drawing so the original people have often changed positions or left completely and have been replaced by others.
One of the interesting things about this type of drawing is whether the person I am drawing realizes they are being drawn. I try to be discreet enough so they aren’t conscious of me drawing but sometimes it happens that they notice. ‘Alone at the Pool’ is an example. I had just started drawing her head when she seemed to be aware of me drawing her. I wasn’t sure but I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable so I directed my attention to drawing the surrounding structures and scene. She soon forgot about me and by the time I came back to her she had moved into a completely different position and I had to make up most of her body. It turned out I sort of blew it and had drawn a structure where her feet should be, as you can see.
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 11, 2024 | Sketchbook History Tour |
Masked People
Long before Covid struck I was drawing masked people. It first started with beauty masks that people put on. I guess my wife must have done it a few times and I thought it looked really cool, I don’t remember for sure. But I know that ever since I’ve loved the image of a woman with a beauty mask on. Somewhere along the way I started drawing faces with patterns on them, like ‘plaid person peering’ and recognized that as another type of mask. Back in the 80s and 90s I was doing a lot of figure drawing, either in the classes I was teaching or on my own. I got bored with just drawing the figure so I started playing around with layering translucent clothing on top of the body, mostly just to see if I could develop the skill to do it. But that lead to me thinking about covering and uncovering one’s body with clothing and that led in turn to the idea of a mask on one’s face.
The first time I drew a person with an actual mask on was when I moved to Oklahoma. I got a new dentist, Dr. Laura Murcko, and we hit it off. I always bring my sketchbook to my appointments and at one point, after she had given my novacaine and we had a few minutes before it set in, I asked her if I could draw her and since she had her mask on that is how I started the drawing. I did just a quick sketch then did the rest later. I don’t know if I ever showed it to her because she moved away shortly thereafter.
I would occasionally draw someone with a mask, like my daughter when she was going to a masquerade ball, but for the most part if I drew someone with a mask, it was a made up image, at least the mask part was, like the church image. I really did draw the violinist but of course she did not have a beauty mask on at the time.
Of course then came Covid and there were people all around with masks on.
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