Attended a grand opening event this morning with a bunch of friends. That’s Donna Wilson and her husband and school board candidate Ed Wilson, Marion County historian Judy Delk, me and Morrey Deen, who’s done more for our military veterans than can be counted!

I’ve been chosen by Jeff Parker to post seven of my favorite books, no explanation, no words.

Well, you get words anyway: Most all of you know I love politics. i just don’t post any of that here. But here is my favorite book of politics that is THEE best I have ever read. All politicians should be like former Orlando Mayor Carl T. Langford. Besides the book I LOVE hearing the many stories my dear friend Grace Ann Wendorff Chewning has of Mayor Langford she experienced as his City Clerk. I’m so honored i got to know him a bit during his last years and always shocked how he remembered my name!
Langford was a stronger leader with a wonderful sense of humor. I wish every politician would read Langford’s book…if only they could find this long out-of-print book.

Was a guest speaker for, my friend, George Pieper’s cartooning class in The Villages. It was a particularly inquisitive class. I did my usual audience participation illustration involving a dog, golf and a watch.

I had to drive into Seminole County for some client business which fit nicely with a nearby symposium at the University of Central Florida. My pal Robert Bauerle joined me there.

The event featured two speakers of different political parties and still different views of issues both speaking about government. They are so different the cable channels don’t know what to do with them so they don’t put them on. 😀

I LOVE discussion of issues from all kinds of viewpoints. It’s why I enjoy getting together Wednesday mornings with two friends from the opposite political party as myself who also don’t agree with each other. We get to discuss ideas, viewpoints and learn from each other. I sure know I have!

The UCF symposium brought YouTube favorite Dave Rubin and Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute together. It was a terrific discussion and lots of great questions from an audience of mostly students.

If any of you know of symposiums like this in Central Florida, please let me know. If I can work it in, I’d love to attend more. It’s the working it in that is the tough part. 🙂

The toughest part of the event was the massive show of security and security wands. It helped s bunch of them are with the security group that handled an event I used to be really involved with, Spring Fiesta in the Park coming to Orlando’s Lake Eola Park this April 7th and 8th. I thanked them for their help each year and hope to see some of them when I visit my Fiesta friends next week.

After the event, Mr. Bauerle and I slid over to a nearby Steak ‘n Shake

to have our own discussion of what we heard at the event. 🙂

Just got back from 9 hours on the road with almost 5 hours of nonstop drawing. I’m pooped. Glad I stuck to studio- mostly paper- work on Friday!

It was a tough crowd that couldn’t shake the idea of the tourist trap caricatures and mostly didn’t open up to me. That just hasn’t been happening. I did what I could, though definitely not my best work.

Monday night is a return engagement with a group of parcel carriers and, I expect, better work from me!

Lots more drawing in the 2018 SprngsFest coloring storybook and seeing more friends learning about our water and springs in #Florida!

See individual pictures for descriptions!

I admit these two days hit me like a herd of trains. It’s good to have a workout like this to realize how out of shape I am for it. Time to do some real workout ….-and get some rest!

Let’s keep me drawing and revisit fun we had a couple months ago.

Post either a favorite animal place or something you like to do.

Next week I’ll post what I do with some of them. You can either pick up the original from me or I’ll try to deliver it.

We can repeat this next Friday!

This is Gio and he loves werewolves and science fiction.

I took a further step tonight with my “caricatures” to making each more of an illustration. Instead of beginning to draw faces and ask questions, I asked a couple first to start rolling a layout of images in my head and placing the head somewhere on the page to draw out from. Then I made the rest of the answers fit into the illustration. I really liked how so many of the drawings turned out.

This was also an event I turn down: Children’s birthday party. In this case I worked with the mother, who knows my work and insisted I be there. So, i took the approach I developed at the Florida Parent Educators Association convention last year and flipped from drawing one way for the children (Favorite animal to something they love to do) to the adults. First time doing that and it worked very well.

Frank loves Lord of the Rings and works toward better education options for children.

Bill, a former State Senator, works in actually wrestling involving young people going to the Olympics. He also works to clean up the internal problems the Olympics has had.

Juan strums guitar & saxophone for his church and with classmates. He also loves tigers.

Fun and very challenging seeing how much more I can get storytelling into each illustration.

Marion lives on a small island off the cost of Spain. She loves to paint cubist art and has a mess of pets, including chickens and cats.

The cake was amazing! And not for the sugary faint of heart. That is a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting made by AnnMarie. Kit Kat bars were used as was wood used to build a fort. AnnMarie then used a rubber band to seal it all together.

Next she added M & Ms in the middle, mini-Reese’s cups and mini- Hershey bars.

I had a slice and it was extremely good. But, at my age, one slice was enough! 🙂

I stopped at the Sheriffs Ranches Thrift Store to peek at the books quickly.

While looking I learned they were having trouble finding room to place two carts of books and organize them. I told them not to worry, I’d like to look through them anyway.

Almost two hours later, a lot of cardio flexing and meeting other book lovers, the carts are clear, books put away and I got some exercise in!

Maybe go to the Raid tomorrow. Right now, I have a gig to perform at!