Here’s Lieutenant Governor Jeff Kottkamp, me and the caricature I drew of him at a fundraiser last week. I was very pleased to learn that the Lt. Governor loves history and the caricature was all about that.

I wanted to post the birthday card for my dear friend, Lucile Fair, whose birthday was last Tuesday. She is now 102 years old! One the other side of this card are signatures from my fellow cartoonists who were on the trip to San Antonio, Texas, the week before. I’ll keep those private as the messages are meant for Lucile…. but there are some pretty cool drawings on it!

I was going to do something very different for her birthday until it struck me in the hotel room in San Antonio that maybe my friends might sign a card. So, I whipped this up in about 20 minutes. It’s watercolor on Carolina one-sided card stock.

Also, Tuesday Sketch’s theme is “Happy Birthday!” and since Tuesday was also Lucile’s birthday, this really fits in.

I’ll be presenting the card to Lucile at a special birthday celebration for her on Sunday after church.

The Illustration Friday word is clumsy. As I drew this live on UStream last night, two viewers, Coffeeness & HotPopcornWater, suggested the critters. I then cobbled together the drawing. You can see the film by clicking here. It’s the last ten minutes.

Haven’t done this in a while. The Illustration Friday word is ‘Wilderness’. I did two. The first I drew was the raccoon below romping through a Florida forest.

Then I decided to sketch a scene from the Second Seminole War from about 1839. Here a few of Jesup’s men in the thick oak forest spy a few Seminoles as the indians make their way along the Withlacoochee River.

I sketched both at the meeting mentioned on the 18th. Later I realized the Seminole scene would have more than likely been reversed with the Seminoles spying on the Army soldiers making their way out in the open across the river. The soldiers would also more than likely have been crossing the river without a boat or canoe.

Here’s Margaruitte Cavanaugh at our monthly Republican Executive Committee meeting pointing this and that out.

Here’s a sketch I slipped in amongst the maestrom for, what is called, “Tuesday Sketch”. Almost a Tuesday late!

Here’s a snowball I assembled with the snow we received today.

Inked and ready to color! A portion of a magazine cartoon I’m working on right now.

Above are the last 9 books I read through November and December. I went to simpler fiction to get to the 52 number. Quite different from the start of the year where the bulk of my reading was non-fiction. I’m aiming for 55 in 2010. Let’s see if I can make it.