Sketchbook History Tour
1972 – Present
Sketchbook History Tour, 1998
In 1998 I took a trip to New York to visit my sister. I went into Manhattan a few times via the Long Island Railroad to visit museums. I drew along the way. Looking back I saw 3 different types of portraits I was creating. I still do the same three types. A...
Sketchbook History Tour, 1997
We started in 1972 (6 months ago) and now are at the 25 year mark in my sketchbook history tour. We went to Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa for many years. I spent many hours drawing in this church. I spent an extra long amount of time on this one after the...
Sketchbook History Tour, 1996 – Four Interesting Portraits
A portrait of my first wife, K. We were married for 20+ years (1979-2000). She had her moments of being bummed about things and I was visualizing one of those little moments in this drawing. This was in my very small sketchbook I carried with me at the time....
Sketchbook History Tour – 1995
I don't really have an explanation for these drawings from 1995. I was just goofing off and came up with this series of women dancing in their bathing suits. I like them, they make me laugh. Which one is your most favorite and least favorite? Why? Drawings ©...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1994
1994 was a big year. It was the year I gave up on a path and started to forge a new one. In May of 1994 we moved from San Jose, California where I was teaching part-time at 3 Community Colleges AND working as a manager at Eulipia Restaurant to Broken Arrow, a suburb...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1993
I got some markers in 1993. It allowed me a lot more color freedom and I went to town with them. You can see from the background landscape that they haven't changed much over the decades. I always return to distant hills, ocean and receding paths. The horizontal...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1991, Ballet Mothers
In 1991 my two oldest daughters were taking ballet lessons. I would sometimes be the one to take them and wait. When I did I would sometimes draw those around me. On this day in 1991 I happened to capture two very interesting mothers while they watched and...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1990
The 1990 sketchbook isn't as good as the one from 1989 for some reason, not sure why. But there are some interesting images. I had started to make a habit of drawing over some earlier odd or incomplete sketches with nudes from the drawing class I was teaching....
Sketchbook History Tour – 1989 – Three Pen and Ink Portraits
I like my 1989 sketchbook. There are a lot of these sorts of fine detailed portraits as well as my usual bizarre assortment of oddly populated cartoon images. These are all done with a simple ball point pen. If you are ever tempted to draw in ink it's a great way to...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1988
Welcome to 1988. We are still living in San Jose, California. All three of our kids are born and growing. I have started to draw a fantasy series in my sketchbook of various creatures in the act of worshipping other bizarre creatures. Bet you didn't know there was...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1987
Rebekah, our oldest daughter, was born with 'double elevator palsy' in one of her eyes. What that meant was that the muscles on the top of her eyeball weren't strong enough to allow her to lift her eye up to the same degree as her 'good' eye. She spent almost 9 years...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1985, the first known napkins
Look what I found! The first example of my amazing aptitude for drawing on napkins, haha. In 1985 I was working as a waiter/manager at Eulipia Restaurant in San Jose, California. I had just graduated from San Jose State University with my M.F.A. and was in my...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1984
I used to take public transportation often. I loved drawing while on a bus, subway or train. There is something liberating about knowing you can't control the line, you just have to create within the parameters of a jostling, bumpy series of movements. It's a...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1983
While in the MFA program at San Jose State University ( I had left Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan after one year without an MFA) I started doing large scale photorealist drawings of people and objects that also included large expanses of grass. At the same...
Sketchbook History Tour – church, 1982
See, even back in 1982 I was drawing in church! In 1982, after we moved to San Jose from a year in Michigan, Kathy and I found out about this little church in San Jose called 'Bread of Life'. There had to be no more than 50 people max that attended. As a result we...
Sketchbook History Tour, 1981 – Distraction
In 1981 I was still in graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. I was contemplating doing a multi-colored woodcut dealing with the idea of distraction. For me, a young male at the time, an obvious example of distraction was a man...
Sunday Sketchbook History Tour
Today we travel to 1980 In 1980 we move to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan so I could attend graduate school at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. I started thinking about narrative ideas and images for our initial assignment in the printmaking department. We had to do...
Sketchbook History Tour -The Bomber Jacket – 1942/1977/2010
The Bomber Jacket Skeets Coleman (2nd from right), 1942 - Goleta, Calif. When I was negative 13 years old (1942) my father became a US Marine. He was assigned to a fighter/bomber squadron training in Goleta, California. Later it would be the home of...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1976 – Pete and Rusty in Hollywood
Sketchbook History Tour - 1976 In October, 1975 I was forced to leave Brandeis University. My family just couldn't afford it anymore. Around the same time several of my best high school friends decided to take a year off from college and move to Hollywood. Pete and...
Sketchbook History Tour – 1973
Sketchbook History Tour - 1973. I have sketchbooks dating back to 1971. Each Sunday I will post a drawing, going through the years. Sunbather at a Country Club, 1973 During the summer after I graduated from High School I got blown up in a boat explosion. My...
Archive Sunday – Bruce Hall, 1972
Remember last week I mentioned I had counted up my sketchbooks and I found I had 29 of them? I decided to to through them and pick out one per year to post on Sundays for a while. This is from the first sketchbook (1971-1973). I was 17 when I painted this, my junior...
I Draw In Church – The Milky Way – updated 2018
It's 'I draw in Church Sunday' here at The Napkin Dad Daily. I draw a lot. In bookstores, trains, plains, waiting rooms, and my favorite place to draw, church. She sat in front of us on a warm summer day at church. I enjoyed seeing the cosmic message from the...
I Draw in Church: Textures – Updated 2018
I love seeing people all in a row with strikingly different hair, skin, fabric and style. Church is perfect for that sort of people watching. Drawing © Marty Coleman Drawn 7/12/09, All Souls Unitarian Church, Tulsa, OK
Pleas and Directions – updated 2018
It's 'I draw in church' Sunday. Sometimes I am not drawing a scene or person in church, but an idea that germinated from the sermon. This one had something to do with prayer, but I don't remember the specifics (it was 19 years ago, give me a break). Drawn...
Perturbed Poetry in Venice – updated 2018
A perturbed couple at an Italian poetry reading at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy 5/31/03 They were perturbed because us crass Americans (me and my daughters) were not in their expectations for the night. My response? To draw the perturbed couple...
The Dental Patient – updated 2018
Here is another Sunday drawing for you. Except it wasn't drawn in church. It was drawn in a dentist's waiting room. I just happen to like it and wanted to show it to you. Drawn 2/21/95 in Dr. Murcko's office © Marty Coleman