Priscilla Coleman has worked as a
court artist for
ITN
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...
and newspapers in the UK for over 20 years, having originally started her career in America.
Coleman studied fine art and graphics at
Sam Houston University
Sam Houston State University (SHSU or Sam) is a public university in Huntsville, Texas. It was founded in 1879 and is the third-oldest public college or university in Texas. It is one of the first normal schools west of the Mississippi River and ...
in Texas. She worked for advertising agencies and a printing company laying out pages for publications before moving to the UK when her English husband wanted to return home.
["Capturing the moment" ''Benchmark'' (Judiciary of England and Wales), issue 49, March/April 2011, pp 16-17]
She became a court artist when her art college teachers recommended her to cover a big case near where she went to university. With her background in graphics she was able to produce images for television news reports.
In London, she was taken on by ITN.
When working, she prefers to sit in the court rather than in a media annexe, where the cameras tend to concentrate on who is speaking and the images are frequently too fuzzy. She does not actually draw in court - to do so would be illegal - but like other court artists takes notes in shorthand, for example about size of head, shape of nose, tie colour, haircut, without taking their eyes off the accused, as well as cryptic comments such as "gt bones... v. pretty silver hair... a v. glam older man... like an eagle" (
Lord Hutton).
[Gordon Bur]
"A brush with the law"
''The Guardian'', 27 September 2003
For her court sketches, she uses oil pastel and water-based sticks because "they look like chalks, but are durable and don’t smudge".
Among the high-profile cases Coleman has covered are the trials of
Rosemary and
Fred West,
Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr,
Barry George,
Colin Ireland
Colin Ireland (16 March 1954 – 21 February 2012) was a British serial killer known as the Gay Slayer because his victims were gay. Criminologist David Wilson believes that Ireland was a psychopath.
Ireland suffered a severely dysfunct ...
, and
Raoul Moat's accomplices. She also covered
Gillian Taylforth's unsuccessful libel case against ''
The Sun'',
,
[ the Hutton inquiry and the inquests into the deaths of the ]7 July bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorism, Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on Transport in London, the city's ...
.[Catherine Baksi]
"Legal Hackette Lunches with Priscilla Coleman"
''Legal Hackette's Brief'', 6 April 2016
Apart from her work as a courtroom artist, Coleman produces silk screens and colour block graphics for interiors.
References
Further reading
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External links
Selection of Coleman's work for the ''Daily Mirror''
"Capturing the moment"
in ''Benchmark''
Archive
at MB Media Solutions Ltd
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, Priscilla
Courtroom sketch artists
Living people
Sam Houston State University alumni
American women illustrators
American illustrators
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American women artists