I drew the napkin and wrote the commentary way back in 2012 but it is an evergreen post that is always appropriate to revisit at the beginning of any year. Let me know your thoughts.
Think of all that has happened in the last year (2011). I started speaking at conferences for the first time, three of them to be exact. Over a year ago I submitted a proposal for an exhibition of my photo-collages but hadn’t heard back anything by 1/1/11. Now I am 4 days away from the exhibition’s opening night (Living Arts of Tulsa, Friday, January 6th, 6-9pm). I had one daughter living in Tulsa and one in Seattle. Now I have one in parts unknown and one in Berkeley, CA. Those are just a few things among many. Two of those events I made happen by putting myself out there. My daughter’s life events I had very little control over, watching mainly from the sidelines.
What about you? What happened this year? What happen that you had some control over? What happened you had very little control over?
Stuff is going to happen to you in the next year. Stuff you can’t control and have no say in. But there will be plenty of things that will happen ONLY if you decide to make them happen. Are you going to push to make things happen, believing they can happen if you set your mind to it or are you going to let opportunities pass by, believing you are not able or being fearful of possible bad outcomes?
Will you look back on 1/1/13 and feel you did what you could?
This is a napkin drawing and commentary from the last day of 2010. I am republishing it on the first day of 2019 as the first in a year long series of looking back at the evolution of The Napkin and myself. I hope you enjoy!
Make your resolve in 2011 (and 2019) to be about what YOU can control. Don’t make a resolution for your husband or wife, your child away at college, your boss, your neighbor or your friend. Resolve to be, change, move, defeat, create, win over, help, build, enlighten and grow yourself. If in that process you save the world, great. If in that process you are just a better mother or father to your baby, then guess what? You have just saved the world as well.
Drawing and commentary @2019 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
When I was a young boy I was big into model building. My dad was an aviator so I made a lot of airplane models. But what I really loved making was monster models. I had them all, from Frankenstein and Dracula to the Creature From the Black Lagoon. I spent hours gluing, filing the edges, and painting them. I had them on display in my bedroom and was very proud of them.
A few years ago I got the bug to read some of the original monster novels. I read Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde among others. They were all over the top in emotion and language, and they were a hard slog to get through. But I did it and it gave me a new appreciation for the subtlety of these characters as originally invented in the mind of the authors.
In 2018 I decided I would draw some of these characters. Not as they had been imagined in the books or in the movies, but just as I saw them in my own imagination.
Here are the first two in the series, Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein. The first, Frankenstein’s Monster, was done on my iPad mini using the Sketchbook app. Bride of Frankenstein was done in my sketchbook then reworked digitally in Photoshop.
The Elegantly Dressed Beautiful Woman | Ink on Paper | 2004-2018
‘The elegantly dressed beautiful woman with the cat as her carry-on wearing black and an orange scarf and visiting her parents in San Diego who can’t have pets and thinks her nose is bigger than I drew it but was flattered and thinks I am lucky.’
I created the line drawing portion of this drawing in December of 2004 while at the airport waiting to go to San Diego. The woman and I kept in touch and I sent her a photo of the drawing. 14 years later I decided to finish it with color.
Susan seldom saw herself in this space. But between bouts of binge watching and bra burning she brought herself before the bastion of beauty. With wonder and wisdom she willingly wept at the way in which the wayward artist had winnowed down the wasteful and worthless and wicked and woeful and was left with only the worthy and wonderful and winsome. She decided to dutifully display the divine art in her dining room where her dependents would, no doubt, demand she defend her decision to ditch the dog do drivel that had been displayed before the divorce. Susan sat sassily at the Sunday soiree surrounded by so many sons and smiled and said see I shall show something satisfying to myself and you shall simply sit and suffer. The brothers busted out a big bah ha ha and then, being boys, blabbed about the ballgame.
I have been going through old sketchbooks recently and one in particular has stood out for having some amazing drawings. Not because of technical skill but because of the bizarre content. I have always drawn some pretty odd scenes but this one sketchbook seems to be filled with them. I am not sure why. The only thing I can think of is the size of the book. It’s bigger (7″x10″) than the average sketchbook I carry around with me. I think perhaps that allows me more space to create a scene and when I create a scene out of my imagination I tend to get pretty out there.
Once upon a time there were six sextuplet sisters. The were named Wendy, Sally, Debra, Fiona, Angela and Gail. They all looked exactly the same when they were born. But as they grew they started to look different, one from the other. How they looked ended up being how others saw them, even if they weren’t really like that.
WENDY
Wendy had high, arched eyebrows so people thought she was always wondering. But she was not. She was wonderful and winsome and woeful and wicked and wired and wonky. But she was not wondering.
SALLY
Sally always looked like she was trying poop so people thought she was stressed. But she was not. She was scary and soulful and silly and sacred and sturdy and scandalous. But she was not stressed.
DEBRA
Debra had blue hair and green skin and so people thought she was depressed. But she was not. She was doubtful and dangerous and dorky and definitive and debatable and dramatic. But she was not depressed.
FIONA
Fiona had a head shaped like a football so people thought she was a football fan. But she was not. She was fastidious and fearless and fabulous and farty and forgetful and forebearing. But she wasn’t a football fan.
ANGELA
Angela didn’t smile much so people thought she was always angry. But she was not. She was angular and ambitious and absolute and ambulatory and arboreal and agnostic. But she wasn’t angry.
GAIL
Gail liked dark makeup so people thought she was goth. But she was not. She was garrulous and grand and gifted and goofy and gleeful and gorgeous. But she wasn’t goth.
The six sextuplet sisters loved sailing and shuffleboard and star gazing and sharing souffles and sauntering together. But they didn’t like being judged only by their looks. Their parents taught them to pass by people who did that and instead just go forward being who they wanted to be, always believing in each other and being best buddies. They had a fabulous family and faithful friends because of that.
I saw a new person in the orchestra this week. I liked the wave of her hair and the shape of her face. I couldn’t see her once we sat down so that was all I had in my head as I started the drawing. From there she gradually turned into a bust of a Goddess or Queen or whatever you think she might be.
I drew this a number of weeks ago when I was playing around with profiles and symmetry/assymetry. I enjoyed making everything about them color opposites while their sentiments were exactly the same.
This style harkens back to when I first started coloring my napkin drawings, way back in 2008 and 2009 when I would just follow the lines I had drawn with colors.
