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For over 20 years, Warren Saul kept a daily self-illustrated diary he called "Sketchnotes." It ran to some 55 volumes, including many thousands of quick sketches, comments, and watercolors on all conceivable topics. His notebooks at times are reminiscent of an almost Leonardo DaVinci-like rambling, but entirely serious visual inquiry into the world around us. Sometimes, the drawings are just stream-of-consciousness cartoons done while my Dad sat at the kitchen table, at a meeting, or in a waiting room. He sketched from his car in a parking lot, or at a stop light or drive-up window. I like these the best. They are his take on his own life, seen through his own eyes.

My father also produced a considerable number of more formal watercolor, acrylic, or oil paintings. I think his best work may have been his quick watercolor sketches. These never took him longer than about 20 minutes, usually much less. Most of his watercolors are copies of, renditions of, or tributes to the work of his favorite masters. Chief among these would be the French and American impressionists. He was especially keen on the c.1900 "Ashcan School" of artists who liked to draw just about anything, and did.

Just like Pa. He would sketch what he saw, sketch what he thought, and sketch what he read. His work constitutes a slice of American life, from the start of the second World War until 1996. Most of the work published here is from the last twenty years of his life, a prolific period indeed.

Warren E. Saul started both his art career and his everyday work career as a sign painter in the late 1930's. After WW II, he became a patent draftsman and, with variations on this theme, would continue so until his retirement in 1986. He called this "tight" work, and though he was a fine illustrator, he did not especially enjoy industrial drawing. He preferred to paint fast and loose, often dispensing with a brush altogether and using only a palette knife. Or, he would make a quick line drawing somewhere, probably on his lunch hour, and later add watercolor to it at home. His spartan ground-floor studio at our home was also known as "The Kennel," because the family dog slept there at night.

I watched him paint a lot. It was not because I was a dedicated, precocious observer. It was due to the fact that Pa painted practically all the time. He sketched while in church. (1) He drew after (and during) meals. He painted signs and posters for charities and civic organizations, always free of charge. He lettered trucks for friends and neighbors. He also taught mechanical drawing for a time, briefly at the college level and even more briefly in high school. As a father with a wife and three sons, he went back to school and earned a master’s in art history. And he studied portraiture with Stanley Gordon, renowned painter of Popes and presidents.

But most of Warren Saul's professional life was spent behind a drawing board at Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, NY. He executed many, many patent drawings during this time. Although patent illustrators are not allowed to sign their work, Pa did so anyway. He used Morse Code, and concealed a "W E Saul" into each drawing's broken shading lines. So, if you really want to, you can go to Washington and find just which ones he did.

For years, I remember him saying that when he retired, he was going to play golf every morning, and do paintings every afternoon. His surviving sketchbooks confirm that he kept at least the second part of that pledge to the letter.

Of his tens of thousands of paintings and sketches, this online archive consists mostly of my favorites that were small enough to scan into a webpage. For every item here, there are a hundred more waiting to be seen.

(1) Mind-Wandering Doodles During a Church Service (Ink, 1988)

More Cartoons During Church (Ink, 1986-88)

Pa Saves a Life

Raised very much as a boy, in the 1950's and early 60's, I had my usual assortment of heroes. My Dad, of course, was one of them. I remember one of our usual wretched snowy Rochester winters. Pa took the bus to work at the time, and had a short walk from the bus stop to our house. Half way home from the bus stop, there was a sidewalk plow, really a tractor with an oversized snowblower in front, that had been clearing the walk of at least two feet of new snow. The operator was trying to clear a stick or ice chunk from the blades with his heavily booted foot. The only problem was that the fellow had left the machinery running, and it was stronger than he thought. It took the end of his foot clean off, boot and all. There was blood gushing everywhere, scarlet spatters all over the white snow. Pa never missed a step. Instantly, he grabbed the man, pushed a big handful of snow onto the wound, and held it there. He carried the fellow to the nearest house, a two-family orange brick apartment. He pounded on the door, an old man opened it, and in they went, blood and all, all over the man's carpet. An ambulance was called. The man lived.

I never found out what happened to the man’s toes.

Andrew W. Saul

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