For those who know The Rest of the Story – Here’s my annual tribute for Jacob’s birthday. Now off to get the annual banana split!

Above is the prepped version of the illustration for watercolor. This is an illustration for the Pine Castle Pioneer Days. It’ll be used for the poster, sign and other collateral materials.

This is the watercolored version.

Here is the finished version.

Here’s a bit of step by step of a painting I’m working on for 2012 Pine Castle Pioneer Days festival. Here is the prepped for painting step …

It was park day last Sunday, October 2nd. It was also the 121st birthday of Groucho Marx. A trip to Homeland Heritage Park and Mosaic Peace River Park was in store. Had a great time with Terisa Glover and Sparky as we traversed the area of Homeland, Florida. More photos of the trip will show up at Swampy’s Florida.

It was from the boardwalk at Peace River Park that I drew the sketch above. Below is video of part of the sketch.

Above is a photo of the natural wonder you can take in at Peace River Park.

Here’s a church, which is part of the Homeland Heritage Park.

I later ran over to the week old opened Marshall Hampton Reserve near Lake Hancock in Lakeland. There’s a photo of that soon to appear on the Swampy’s Florida site. My non-Swampy photos didn’t turn out well. Very wild there. Posted as open to foot and equine travelers and apparently to bikers, who nearly ran me down.

On the evening of September 23rd, I was scheduled to help the Herman Cain campaign in a room in the Rosen Centre hotel by donating time and drawing caricatures at that evening’s meet and greet with Cain. As I approached the room there was already a long line of people waiting nearly an hour before the event started. As the time for the event approached there were 4 of us in the room: me, a fellow with NBC chronicling Cain’s campaign, the Florida ground coordinator and the state head of his campaign and the crowd outside the room got larger and larger. When I arrived there were about 75 waiting. Soon there were 150… 300…500.. The problem was the room was only to hold 125. Apparently Cain’s handling of the Republican debate the night before and a speech to the gathered delegates earlier in the day drew in an unexpected response.

Now the really big problem. The hotel was full of meet and greets. There were no new rooms available. Others were full of other meetings or meetings that were constructed for other events. It appeared there was no where to go. This was a problem for the hotel also. They couldn’t turn the crowd away and they couldn’t have, what was by this time for the scheduled start of the event, around 1000 people coming into a room for 125. They pulled epole from everywhere to clear an assembled room for a large gathering next morning.

The new location was just across the hall. The trouble was that there were around a thousand people in between outside. So we headed for the service corridor in the back of the room and started running the length of the service hallways to the new room. I was hauling my easel with lights attached and the NBC guy had his camera over his shoulder.  We got in the room as a fit team was hauling hundreds of chairs and tables and podiums out of the very large room as fast as they could.

Quickly the room was cleared and an area was set up for Cain with a podium and a roping to keep folks a distance away. The meet and greet concept had to be set aside. There was no way to meet and greet a thousand people during a two hour period. Above is a photo of the final room with the NBC guy, coordinators, Cain’s communications director and hotel staff – The calm before the storm.

Soon the doors opened and the crowd, who at different points had been collectively singing outside the doors, streamed in and filled the room. Being in a corner on the opposite side of where Cain spoke, I really had trouble hearing him through the thick crowd. I was also busy drawing as many people as I could during a short period of time. Below are photos of a few that I drew.

I attended Presidency 5 on September 22nd and 23rd at and near the Orange County Convention Center. The gathering is of Republicans from all 67 counties in Florida, along with delegates who participate in a straw ballot to determine who the state is supporting for the presidency on the G.O.P. side.

I found myself wearing many hats during my time there which was okey dokey with me. Manning the information booth at the Rosen Plaza for a few hours for the Florida Federated Republican Women, of which I am an associate member, had me making use of my extensive knowledge of the area. On the 23rd I went onto the main concourse of the Orange County Convention Center and helped out in the Herman Cain campaign booth folding t-shirts and making tickets for an event the night of the 23rd, which I’ll detail further in Part 2.

The sketches above are from day 1, the 22nd. Below is a view of the concourse at the convention center from one point in both directions. This is at the end of the day and we were closing down. The night before this area was filled with people waiting to get into the Presidential debate.

For a short while I drew caricatures for the Florida Federated Republican Women. This is George Mann, who is a multi-generation Florida native whose family has been in the cattle business for over a century in Florida. He also is a Cracker storyteller.

On the left is Ann Archer (with her daughter Pam Archer) who is the longest serving on the Florida Executive Committee. At this point over 60 years. She was at one time in Dade County. On the right is the first black woman to serve on the Dade County Republican Executive Committee. I introduced these two and they shared stories of their times in Dade County.

More than 40 years ago political cartoonist for the St. Petersburg Times switched over to draw for The Orlando Sentinel and moved from Pinellas County to Orlando’s Orange County, here in Florida. He brought with him his Cartoon Museum that he had started in St. Petersburg. The Cartoon Museum was an early version of the comic shop you see today. He also had a slew of original comic book and illustrators artwork. He re-established The Cartooon Museum and started Central Florida’s first comic book show, The Orlando Con. Jim brought in the top in the cartooning profession and even motion picture celebrities.

The Con had it’s long time home at The International Inn on International Drive in Orlando. It’s owner at teh time and now, Harris Rosen, had a father who was a caricaturist who had his celebrity caricatures up in the Waldor-Astoria in New York City. Harris, being a cartoon fan, gave Ivey a terrific deal to have the Con at the International Inn and it was a success for all.

When I was young, my family would stay at The International Inn and then attend The Orlando Con each year. It was great fun and I have very fond memories of the Inn, the Con and Jim Ivey. Harris Rosen has been going around and, wisely,  renaming hotels he owns in Central Florida with his name. The International Inn is now The Rosen Inn.  Recently I was near the hotel and wished I had a reason to stayt there for old times sake. While planning on attanding the political convention, Presidency 5, I realized I had a reason to stay there and did this past September 22nd.

When I got there I ran into a fellow, Chuck (above), who has worked at the hotel since about 1980. He told me about his helping Jim setup the Con in it’s later years to it’s end in the late-80s (It is now known as the Mega-Con and held at the Orange County Convention Center.). He showed me around where the Con used to be, now part gift shop and work room. He remembers meeting folks who drew for MAD, Car-Toons, etc. He loved being around the whole cartooning motif.

I had to draw him as my little thanks for his help. He’s holding the drawing above. It’s him opening a closet at the hotel and superheroes and comic books falling out. Thanks, Chuck,for helping bring the joy of comics to Central Florida!