Back in 2015 LInda, Caitlin and I took a vacation to London and Paris. I did many pen and ink drawings in my sketchbook. I didn’t paint any of them at the time but always had the intention of getting back to them to do that. When I got home from my 2025 trip to Europe I took out my old 2015 sketchbook to compare drawings from the two adventures and decided it was time to paint.
I chose to only partially paint the drawings as an experiment. I like them this way. what do you think?
She did everything fast, frenetic, like a bird. She built her nest in the seat next to mine as we flew over the Atlantic.
She wasn’t sure what I meant when I said I wanted a shot of coffee but it was my fault while in London because I didn’t know but the tall guy told me that they call it filtered coffee and then she knew.
She ate her oatmeal as she thought of the love of her life far away but happy.
She had crutches and was eating a paster and I drew her arm wrong and had to make up for it as best I could.
Self-portrait in an iPad while I Periscope in a coffee shop, Il Molino, in Lavender Hill in London, UK and eating pastries.
I didn’t meet them so I made up a story about them but it isn’t true so I will tell it to you now. They were lovers breaking up in a french cafe but were from Rome and one wanted to go home and the other pretended to care but had a secret.
The woman looked so French with her big bow and loose bobbed hair that I had to draw her but it was the woman eating in the back who noticed me drawing and came over wanted to see and told me about her favorite museum that I didn’t end up going to.
Caitlin didn’t know I was drawing her but the shy asian girl with the stylish hat did and it made her smile and blush and happy and I gave her my card.
She was in Paris and was bringing home gifts to her family but wished she could stay because the kind man in the train station who saved her from having her wallet stolen and they had talked and he walked her and her friend over to the cute cafe for a glass of wine and they talked more and he helped them find the store selling a certain type of Macarons and then to dinner where they ate escargot and drank more wine and she thought she was too old for that sort of thing but felt the tingle and was happy.
© 2025 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
