Here’s a color caricature I did of these two lovely ladies today. Met them at Beefy King in Orlando and drew and painted the whole thing there.

Some drawings from this past weekend….

I took advantage of free entry into Florida State Parks Saturday and got to eight parks… and sketched away. I also got a lot of Swampy photos some of which can be found over at Swampy’s Florida.

To the right is a sketch I drew at Crystal River Archaeological State Park.

Next are fish lingering over the spring boils at Rainbow Springs State Park.

The turtles are from Homosassa Springs State Park.

I ran across ‘The Monkees Go Mod’ while perusing a bookstore and I thought I’d share a couple pages of cartoon artwork from the 1967 book. Both are drawn by Dick Hodgins, Jr. If the style has a Dennis the Menace type look, that’s because Hodgins was an assistant to Hank Ketcham drawing Ketcham’s strip ‘Half Hitch’ and helping with the Dennis strip.

Hodgins’ dad was also a cartoonist. For years he was staff cartoonist for The Orlando Sentinel in Orlando, Florida. While at the Sentinel he drew a history of Orlando comic strip and a ton of other art. Later Hodgins, Sr. joined his friend Jim Ivey at Jim’s ‘The Cartoon Museum’ to teach cartooning classes. I was one of the lucky ones to take one of those classes. I’ll have to post some Hodgins, Sr. art sometime.

I headed over to Cocoa Beach to participate in ‘Hands Across the Sand’. My #1 reason was because I know tourism is far more important to our commerce and quality of the state than having oil platforms dotting our shores of Florida.  I should mention I’m not nutty and flat out disagree with other reasons the hundreds of people got together Saturday. Above is a sketch of a few in the very long string of people at the beach.

Parking near Lori Wilson Park gave me a chance to take their nature trail and do the sketch above.

Afterward I attended ‘Jeannie Day’ not far from where ‘Hands Across the Beach’ was. That is better covered at ‘Swampy’s Florida’. To the left is a sketch of the organizer, Ray Osbourne.

I then shimmied over to Titusville for a shake at the Moonlight Drive-In and a stop to say Hello to Lauralee Thompson at Dixie Crossroads. Then lots of stops for lots of photos including to a few parks. The sketch above was drawn as the sun set behind a cabbage palm.

After the National Cartoonists Society annual meeting I found myself hanging around Philadelphia courtesy of Debbie Schafer. I pulled out the sketch book and doodled these last June 1st around Downtown Philadelphia.

A very busy past week. Above is one of many completed pieces.

I attended the 102nd birthday party for my dear friend Lucile Fair in Orlando. Above is Lucile, me and the card I presented to her signed by the 8 other cartoonists (Jeff Bacon, Jeff Keane, Ed Steckly, David Mowder, Milburn Taylor, Bill Hinds and Rick Kirkman) who were also in San Antonio, Texas, the week before.

That afternoon had tea with James Saunders and Dena Wild (sketched by me above). Also there was a friend of Dena’s whose name slips my mind, as names always do. Knowing James for 30+ years and Dena for 25 years is the only reason I remember their names!

Later I met up with Ken Culotta at a Denny’s to gag some gags!

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.

Part of an Illustration I’m working on for Florida attraction, Gatorama. Learn more about clicking here.

Here are some new covers gathered. The ones above and below are from romance novels. I love the multi-levels of the one below.  Great art for 10 cents each.