By Manuel López

SHG invited East LA-based artist Manuel Lopez to share his coloring book with our community. The images are inspired by his day-to-day life and environment and are available for download to color, with button below. This is a fun stay-home activity to do with loved ones, away from the smoggy outdoors. Don’t be surprised to see familiar places and objects in his pages!

A Not So Typical Day-to-Day Coloring Book

This coloring book was created with children in mind. I have substituted in elementary classrooms, and both noticed and admired how teachers arrange and decorate their classrooms, especially when it reflects their concerns, not just as educators but also as cultural workers. I have substituted at Anahuacalmecac, a school located in the Los Angeles neighborhood of El Sereno, a predominantly Mexican-American working-class community. School children spend most of their day at school, and it is important for them to see their culture surrounding them. Help them realize that the culture of their parents, grandparents, and ancestors is alive, relevant, vital, and connected to them. 
That being said, on one occasion, during my lunch break, I began drawing the interior of a classroom precisely for that reason. As my lunch break started, I ate and began to draw, and before I knew it, I was completely immersed in the drawing. When the lunch break was over, the drawing was done, and it was at that moment that I got the idea to make a coloring book for the students. 

I dismissed my cold food, ran to the copy machine, and made about 25 copies to hand them out to the students as they walked in. As they sat and got a better look at the drawing, they realized that it was their classroom, their chairs, and their tables. It was their space. Their eyes were darting back and forth from the coloring page to the actual room, and then back to the page, finding things within the drawing. 

The accessibility to view art in museums or galleries does not come easy for these students. And even then, rarely does the art at these institutions reflect them, their streets, or the people around them. In other words, it does not reflect one of the largest minority groups in this country. I wanted to make the students realize that art is important. That it reflects and reveals, but it also becomes part of our reality, and that it is approachable and tangible. 

I am very much indebted and influenced by the drawings made by children. There is an immediacy, not self-conscious, and it comes from the brain but also very much from the heart, with a sincere wish to communicate things that I strive for in my work. 

My practice is personal, and it documents people, objects, landscapes, and interiors. It is about the encounter with everyday situations and turned into drawings. These coloring pages depict, among other things, a woman grinding corn, numbers, and phrases in Nahuatl, and the Mexica deity symbolizing wind. The still lifes include plants, books, and maps scattered throughout the scenes. The Los Angeles landscape is drawn on location, depicting the neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, City Terrace, South Central, and Angelino Heights, which are rapidly changing due to gentrification. 
I started distributing coloring books to friends and family during this pandemic as a kind gesture. I hope these drawings evoke in you, the viewer, a childlike approach to coloring. A big thank you to Self Help Graphics for making this possible. Thank you for reading. Enjoy!

Manuel Lopez is an artist from East LA. His work has been in numerous group exhibitions in institutions, galleries, and museums nationwide, and you can find him with his pen and notepad sketching the streets of the Eastside.