Announcing a Swampy’s Florida Kickstarter program to get five Swampy’s Florida books produced! In the past three years I’ve produced 14 Swampy books, 37 prints, 2 DVDs and seven cards. There’s lots more to come! However, I’ve poured a ton of time in all of this and have more than run out of resources to produce more without backing. Funding will ensure more educational and activity books available to help young people know more about the great state of Florida.

Click here to head over to Kickstarter!

There’s a goal to get five funded by June 21st! Lots of goodies! I’ll even try to hand deliver the goodies if the donor falls within my travels this Fall.

The five books are:
–  Historical Women of Florida
– Florida History Puzzles and Games
– A Short History of  trains in Florida
– Birds of Florida
– Fish and Aquatic Life in Florida

All five will be coloring and travel guide books and able to be used in home schooling or just for fun!

There will be constant updates here as I build all five books.

But wait! There’s more!
There are four other books involved that are left over prior to the new arrangement with The Knowledge Exchange. These four will also be completed at the same time:
– Polk County- Titusville
– Dunnellon
– Marion County ABC
The funding will also loosen my time to wrap up these four books.

All will be available by Fall.

I hope you will help me in getting these books out and to beter help educate our young people of Florida’s incredible history, heritage and culture.

Thank you to The Knowledge Exchange, for so much help, and Dave Stewart, who produced the video on the site and gave sage advice, for all their help putting this together. I’ll have to share the video here as the next month goes along.

Thank you to all that donate to this project!
I’ll be posting updates here as this Kickstarter program continues!

Today penciled and inked this illustration for a five mile run – for people – coming up this fall in Silver Springs State Park in Florida.

Tim and Daniel Reynolds, of The Knowledge Exchange, the publishers of all things Swampy, delivered over a thousand copies of my brand new ‘Swampy’s Florida: Silver Springs State Park’ book to Deb Wilson, ranger, at Silver Springs State Park. – http://swampysflorida.com/?p=9928

First hike in awhile along a new trail in Pine Lake Park in very west Lake County. The main trail is just over a mile long. I’ll be placing a more involved post on my Swampy’s Florida site in the next few weeks.

Took a short hike in a park I’d never visited before in Sumter County. Lake Okahumpka Park sits in between Leesburg and Wildwood in north Central Florida. It is clearly created for the nearby The Villages, that houses mostly out of state retirees.

Found a great sight for a future Swampy’s Florid watercolor painting! See the pitcher plants? Saw a boatload of them at Clear Creek Nature Trail near Milton in the past hour.

Been drawing caricatures today to help raise funds for Hospice of Marion County, Florida. Here are a few I drew today.

Afterwards, I took a quick stroll over to The Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway for a three mile hike. Trying to get a little exercise before a trip to San Antonio, Texas, next week.

Taking another much needed hike. This time on the Florida Trail in the Pruitt Section of the Cross Florida Greenway.

Took the short mile and a half loop trail in the Oakland Nature Preserve. It’s an easy trail mostly through scrub. I’ll have more about the trail and photos later this week.

Hiking a trail in Wekiva Springs State Park right now and wishing everyone’s 2013 trail is a happy and successful one!

This is Estus Whitfield, who has been an environmental adviser to four Florida governors and one of the most respected of Florida environmentalists. He co-authored the Save our Everglades program that setup initiates to help clean water for the future of South Florida and it’s residents. He has also steered a series of other outdoor programs critical to the state of the Florida outdoors and all of us who live here.

I recently finished a series of paintings of speakers who spoke at an event I was involved at Silver River State Park back on June 23rd. The event was created to help educate folks about water and springs issues here in Florida. I’ll feature the 5 illustrations in the next week.