These images weren’t first created with apartment buildings in mind. It was after they were done that I started to see personalities and interactions, conflict and companionship, connections and structure and found the tie-in to close living. Click any image to see the slide show.
Typically when I am creating a design on my ipad I start with a line or a shape and let it tell me what the next line or shape should be. I eventually discern a pattern and will build on it until I am happy. It sounds funny but I know I am done with a piece, on paper, canvas or screen, when I feel happy. By that I mean it feels like it is what it is supposed to be. There is no time frame for this, it can take minutes or it can take years. My digital work doesn’t usually take very long but I do have drawings and paintings from the ’80s and ’90s that I have taken out of a drawer and started to work on again, finally finishing them 30 to 40 years later.
These are available for purchase as NFTs (nonfungible tokens) or as prints. Message me on instagram or FB (thenapkindad) or email me @ marty@martycoleman.com
I listened to an audio book recently titled ‘All the Light We Cannot See’. It was a fantastic book about two young people during World War II. I highly recommend it.
In the book there is a good friend of one of the main characters. He is brutally beaten at one point which results in permanent brain damage. This main character visits his friend later and finds that he spends his days sitting and doing nothing but drawing spirals again and again. It was a very sad part of the book.
I thought about this idea of someone being reduced to doing the simplest of drawings and I decided I would do the same. I would start with a simple spiral and see where it led me.
While there are other shapes in some of these drawings I made a decision that spirals would be the main focus in each image or it wouldn’t be included in the series.
Most of these have been done digitally on my iPad mini but some are watercolor or marker on paper.
Here are two more monsters in my series, Dracula and The Wolfman
My favorite of all the monsters from my youth was The Wolfman. He was hairy, scary and primal. I liked that The Wolfman was a normal guy until the full moon came out, then he became a super powerful animal-man. Who wouldn’t want to be that!? He was hip and cool, even if he did rip a couple people to shreds now and then.
Dracula was my least favorite because he was a pale, stuck-up wimp. Also, Dracula was stuck always being Dracula. Even when he changed, it was into something gross, like a bat. Who wants to be a bat? He also didn’t get to go out in the sun and had to sleep in a coffin. No thanks.
I spend time each evening drawing on my iPad Mini. I do this usually when I am in bed, right before I go to sleep. I don’t pre-plan what I am going to draw, I just let it happen. Here is part 4 in the series. You can see the others by selecting ‘digital work’ from the ‘series’ drop down menu.
This is a continuation of my digital drawings, the first batch of which I published earlier this year. I have gotten into the habit of drawing for 10-20 minutes after I get in bed each night and these drawing are the result. I use an iPad mini and the Sketchbook Pro app by Autodesk. I usually use my finger to draw or a digital pen. These are all about the artistic challenge of getting the most sophisticated emotion out of the least sophisticate technique. After I am done I usually post the image to my instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you want to connect with me at any of those social media platforms just search for ‘The Napkin Dad’ and you will find me.
click on any image to see a slide show of them all.
I like to draw on my ipad, especially at night when I am sitting in bed before falling asleep. Most of the time I use my finger but I also use a digital pen on occasion. I use an app called ‘Sketchbook’ from Autodesk.
The goal in all these drawings was to do the most with the least. My focus was to do simple visual drawings that had complex emotional messages.
Here are some of my creations, some with commentary.
The Barbed Wire Boy – 2018
The International Woman Enjoying Not Smiling – 2018
I drew this on the International Women’s Day. Â I’ve spent over 40 years photographing women and I have combated the idea that they have to be smiling or somehow they are unhappy. I love having them NOT smiling actually because then I am more likely to get a genuine emotional look from them.
Add to that the refrain women so often hear from men telling them they should smile more. That is simply a way for a man to say his comfort is more important than him understanding who that woman really is.
He Was Very Upset She Was Smarter – 2018
She Scribbled Herself Across the Land Scape – 2018
She Felt More Fraught Than Hot – 2018
This drawing’s title is reflective of something I have seen over the years. Â In all my work over the decades drawing and photographing women I have learned that their outward appearance, how they appear to others, often has very little to do with how they feel about themselves. Â It isn’t always this way but it isn’t uncommon to find the typical ‘beauty’, admired by all, is filled with doubts and hatred for their looks while the one that passes under the radar and is not seen at all much less as a ‘beauty’ sees herself with confidence and strength. Â I liked using the rhyming play of ‘fraught vs hot’ to express that idea.
The guy Who Was Always Shocked – 2018
She Never Knew What Hit Her – 2018
Originally the face extended all the way down to where the chest is now. But as I continued I had trouble making the features do what I wanted and decided to shorten the face and add a body.
She Realized Too Late She Wasn’t Ready To Split – 2018
He Felt So Stoopid – 2018
She Wondered What People Thought Of Her – 2018
Much of the look of these drawing are a result of experimentation with various pen settings in the app. In this case I brought all the features of this one pen style to their max settings and started drawing. This was the result.
The Man With The Th ick Brows and Neck – 2018
I don’t know in advance who or what I am going to draw when I do this digital portraits. In this drawing I started with the thick brows and was actually envisioning a woman but as it went further the blockiness of the shapes led me to make her into a him.
The Winging Woman Worried – 2018
Sometimes I just have a fleeting glimpse of a person and later use that glimpse as an inspiration. It isn’t a portrait of anyone in particular but it was inspired by a woman at an airport on my recent trip to California
Playing
If you are an artist then playing with line and color is a great way to experiment with ideas. You aren’t trying to accomplish something grand ,even if you end up with something grand. You are simply enjoying creating playing. No pressure, no expectations, no stress. One of the great things about this freedom is that it allows your creativity to flourish. As a result you can very easily end up with something pretty cool.
I have been playing with image making on my ipad mini for a few years now. I started by making digital portraits and eventually that led to overlaying patterns on top of the portraits that I would then play with. Eventually I started just playing with the patterns minus the portraits. This is what you see here.  Let me know what you think!
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