It was here that he learned the formal techniques of draftsmanship under the influence of Walter H.Everett, a teacher of illustration and one of the most highly regarded technicians of his time.

At this point, much of Coleman's work was for newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the now defunct North American; for book jackets; and for religious publishing houses.

[1] During World War I he worked in the Marine Camouflage Department where he and several other artists directed the painting of both combat and merchant vessels.

[2] "High, Low and Close" was the first story which Ralph Pallen Coleman ever illustrated for The Saturday Evening Post.

But he would have to wait until the Depression Years to be a regular in the "big leagues" of Curtis, Crowell-Collier and Hearst Publishing Companies.

During the Thirties, Ralph Pallen Coleman's career flourished with assignments to illustrate stories for W. Somerset Maugham, Louis Bromfield, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Booth Tarkington, Sir Phillip Gibbs, Rex Beach, Clarence Buddington Kelland, and Edison Marshall.

In 1931, after a hiatus of four years, Coleman returned to the pages of The Saturday Evening Post, still being edited by the legendary George Horace Lorimer.

It was during this period that he began to use his brush to present his viewers with exotic scenes of faraway places they would never be able to visit in person.

Quickly, he became one of the most sought-after illustrators of exotic stories laid in the South Seas, the Far East and Africa.

[citation needed] Using extensive photographic research provided by magazines like National Geographic, the artist turned out a body of work depicting pith-helmeted explorers, bare-breasted natives, lithe jungle cats native to a Tropicana that he personally had never visited.

[citation needed] Even during the Twenties and Thirties, when his output was primarily for the popular magazines, Coleman turned out a steady, if limited, stream of religious and Biblical paintings for Providence Lithograph Co. and various denominational publishing houses.

[2] With the advent of actual photography being able to be reproduced in the periodicals of the day, the "slick" magazine illustrator had to turn his talents primarily to paintings of a religious or Biblical nature.

"[citation needed] In his later years, Mr. Coleman designed a series of stained glass windows on the life of Christ for Grace Presbyterian Church[2] and lectured extensively in the Philadelphia area showing slides of his paintings.