This is a painting of Manley Fuller who is president of the Florida Wildlife Federation. I painted five of these for those who spoke at a water and springs awareness event back on June 23rd at Silver River State Park. I’m involved with a great group of folks called the Silver Springs Alliance that sponsored the event.

Charles Lee is the director of Advocacy at Audubon of Florida and came to speak at our event at Silver River State Park June 23rd. He spoke about how water is used. About 50% of our water resources in Florida are used to water grass.  As Charles points out, grass is just for decoration and yet swallows up so much of our water. Something to add is that the decorative grass is also responsible for the poisons of fertilizer and bug killer being added to the soil that filters it’s way into our Florida water supply. His talk is below and was recorded by Live Oak Production Group.

This is another in a series of five watercolor paintings of speakers from a conference I was involved with this past June 23rd.

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.

35 years ago today Groucho Marx died and the news was virtually lost as folks kept checking to be sure that Elvis had died 3 days earlier. Even the anniversaries of the death of the greatest raconteur of the insult and quick quip are buried by the showy warbler & hip shaker. Well, I’M not going to let the anniversary go by! So, here I place an illustration I drew of Groucho a few years ago and salute with a leer and a wiggle of the eyebrows!

The last of the caricatures I drew last night after an intense 4 hour event. Surprised I got a likeness at all! 🙂 This is Alexandra who was placed to assist me during the event. Turns out she knows & lives near dear friends of mine, comic book artist, Don Perlin and his wife. More than twice as many came to the event as expected and had me in full speed mode.  The event was for an opening of a school in St. Johns County, Florida, at the Caddy Shack Restaurant there. Hundreds of children attended and I did my best to draw as many drawings as I could for them.

Been knocking out art right and left. Here’s a caricature finished today!

Here are some drawings from a couple of events!

Was in JPnte Vedra, near Jacksonville, drawing golf enthusiasts at the Players Club at Sawgrass Country Club. GREAT crowd! They each had so much to say about themselves and I got to really work out my creative juices in the storytelling of most of the drawings. Here are some photos!

Had two hours to render these during a public forum on water issues here in Florida. Got all done but had to finished watercoloring one and a half at the end. All are 11″ x 14″. The big one below was fun as Professor bob Knight with the University of Florida brought attention to the days when Silver Springs had Tarzan of the movies was swinging around. I added another movie star in the picture that also was filmed in Silver Springs, The Creature of the Black Lagoon peeking through the water.

If you are from the area you might recognize a few of these folks like Barbara Fitos and Guy Marwick. The issue at hand involves 32,000 acres to be famred and demanding a huge draw down of our water supply while we struggle with a drought. I’m a big fan of farms, but this is most dangerous due to also including tens of thousands of cows on the land along the Silver River, which has already been severly damaged by development in the area. the big question: How much does this all hit taxpayers? A lot, it seems, for cleanup and potential dry wells for thousands of homes in the area.

Here are some photos of folks I drew on the 25th!