Above are the inks for the color illustration below. I used a brush pen from Jet Pens to ink this with.

All this for Swampy’s Florida wishing Happy National Poetry Day!}
Swampy and Zuber dip into the wonderful poetic pool of Don Blandings. Blandings wrote rivers of poetry but is best known for his ‘Vagabond’s House’ collection of poetry. To the point that he’s often referred to as Vagabond. He’s also well known for ‘Floridays’, his collection of prose and illustrations he produced from his home, at the time, in Fort Pierce. – http://swampysflorida.com/?p=11284

I attended the Pasco County Historical Society meeting tonight and broke open the sketch book for the first time in months. Here are a few I drew tonight.

Trilby, Zuber and Alva get in the pirate mood above. A couple centuries ago the above might not be such an unusual scene on certain parts of our Florida coastline. There were many pirates that thrived on getting treasure from passing ships.

Zuber protects the egg he has for Chicken Month. Feel free to post a name that you chicken the chick inside should have when hatched. It should be a name related to Florida. We’ll find out the chick’s name at the end of September, Chicken Month.

Meeting tomorrow to go over these rough sketches of Christmas card art for a few businesses. I’ll post more as the art comes along.

If you would like me to illustrate a Christmas card for you or your business, let me know!

You have much to celebrate today! So happy you have gotten through so much! Hard to imagine so many years have passed, but glad part of it is well gone. A nod to the past and a charge to the future! The best is yet to come! Happy Birthday!

On the #drawing board today: Signed and drew in lots and lots of Swampy’s Florida books today at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park for “Speak Up Homosassa Springs”. Here are a couple photos from teh event.

The young fellow was funny. I asked him about what he likes and found him very articulate. So as he spoke of how he would like to wash things, I asked what he would like to wash. A car. How will you be sure the cars get washed? Will you be a manager? Yes. And on it went. He’s a thinking youngster and hope he stays that way!

After a long day of signing 150 Swampy’s Florida books at Homosassa Springs State Park, I crazily decided to take a 3/4 mile hike through the Chassahowitzka Salt Marsh birding trail…finding out along the way it’s mostly under water. Now I’m tired and wet.

In the past week I’ve been illustrating the celebratory days of the week. For example Tuesday is ‘Work Like a Dog Day’. My art for that is on the upper left. Click here to learn what that is about.

Swing over to the Swampy’s Florida website and watch the rest of the artwork turn into color. Return each day so you can know what to celebrate each day on the Swampy’s Florida website or the Swampy’s Florida Facebook page.

Another of the images being used for upcoming Swampy’s Florida Christmas cards! It’s ready for color!

Here’s the Retirement card for my friend Professor John Scolaro who retires from Valencia Community College at the end of the month after teaching for 25 years. It was a crowded room today in Building 11 of Valencia Community College during the Scolaro celebration. Students, faculty and faculty leaders gave John quite a send off. I even knew a few people there such as Andrew Ray, who teaches architecture and engineering at the college.

Later most of us headed to Número Uno restaurant and a dinner was held.

I was a bit setback from the dinner part. Learned earlier that another friend had had a brain anyerisum and happened to be at a hospital down from the restaurant. So, I quickly assembled a get well card and ran down to the hospital to deliver it. Upon arriving I learned that my friend had been moved to another hospital. Also happens I’ll be going by the other hospital Saturday.

This friend us Larry Moore who, with his wife at the time Christine, got me productively involved in politics back around 1987. I can never thank them enough for all they did.

Here is artwork for a set of card artwork that can be yours with a donation to the Swampy’s Florida Kickstarter program. This is a  set of three birthday cards and a Halloween card. There’s more to come, including getting these four colored.

Here’s where you can donate for neat rewards of cards, books, original artwork, etc.”

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/swampysflorida/swampys-florida-educational-activity-and-travel-gu