I joined the Thursday morning hiking group of the Florida Cracker Chapter of the Florida Trail Association for, what turned out to be, a strenuous 6 mile hike through San Felasco State Park. There are many more photos at the Swampy’s Florida site. You can see those by clicking here.

Along the way I got some sketchin’ done, too. Not as much as usual. Below are a couple of the slight scribblings I made along the way.

While hiking it’s always good to be prepared for emergencies by carrying a well stocked Pez container!

We found ourselves in an empty bed of a cypress swamp.

This should be under at least some water. Below is a lonely cypress knee.

Here’s the birthday illustration I made for my father this year. Reading a Mike Shayne mystery novel inspired me to combine the detective with the frog. This is a watercolor painting, 11″ x 14″.

Below is a photo of my father on his birthday caught in the act of retrieving a glasses case from his shirt pocket with his requested steakburger ready for consumption.

Above is the mysterious Marie who asked me to create the caricature she’s holding. I did the whole thing at Bubbalou’s Bar-B-Que in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Look for a post about it on Swampy’s Florida next week. The restaurant was a great meeting place to get the artwork done and for good food.

  Here I am in the midst of getting the caricature done.

My last Christmas visits had me a bit closer to home and a chance to see lots of Christmas lights. Above are lights in Leesburg at Venetian Gardens and in Downtown Ocala. I just wish I would think more of taking photos when passing along Christmas cards. Something to work on next year!

After nearly 30 years got the opportunity to meet with a classmate in high school, Steve Brewster. He was also a fellow artist at the time. Now he lives in Gainesville. One of his hobbies is showing old horror movies on Blog.TV. You can tune in here on Saturday nights to see Steve in action.

Steve also has a mutual interest in cartoon toys and has his own collection. I did a drawing of him during the meeting.

Below is another classmate, James Holding and his wife, Susan. Though, James was a few years younger than me as we went to through school. I tutored cartooning  with James when he was attending Robert E. Lee Jr. High School.

James still cartoons to compliment a business he is in as a biblical apologist. You can see much, much more on his site by clicking here. Click here to see some of his animated spots on YouTube.

The annual Christmas Eve visit to, my dear friend, Lucile Fair, is always fun. A month before her 104th birthday and she is as full of energy as ever.

Here’s a page depicting discussions our Socrates Cafe group had at Chelsea Coffee Company on Tuesday.

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.

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.

Did the caricature thing Saturday. Here are some photos from the fun event!

Was doing the live drawing again using Justin TV and in 3 hours got a ton done! below shows the lot drawn which includes Tuesday’s editorial cartoon, Tuesday’s Swampy’s Florida, a bunch of book illustrations for a client, a character sheet for another client, a drawing of Ronald Reagan for a Justin TV viewer, etc. The Sketch O’ Week is also in the mix and shown above. Contributing subjects were Joe Read, “Monkey” , and TDebondt, “Fire & Baseball”. That was a tough one, but I did draw it right on the spot after the subjects were provided.