A few hundred miles later I am back home after performing for an event for a client that has used me for almost 30 years! Had me reflecting on the past 3 decades. Golly, a lot has happened since they first hired me!!! I hope you all take time and reflect on what has happened and what can occur in the next 30 years.

Did some hunkering down Friday night to draw like crazy finish the Swampy’s Florida comic I planned for Free Comic Book Day.

Here’s the finished painting I had shown in progress earlier.
It’s of a family who own a restaurant, Dee Dee’s Cafe, in Ocala, Florida.
The owner loves television programs about royalty and I then interspersed various other interests of the husband and sons.

The scan muted subtleties of the watercolor painting. The board is Crescent Board.

From Bradenton to Lake Mary and a wedding. Here are just a few of the drawings done there:

I ran into fellow city of Orlando employee Elaine, who started when I did at the City. She retires in April with 31 years in Streets and Drainage.

Shirley is the mother of the bride. She sews her own dresses, including the one she wore that night. 

Here’s the dress Shirley made.

Sherry claims to have far too many purses. Thus the situation I drew involving trying to purchase a movie ticket.

From Gainesville to Bradenton and an “independent living facility”. Here are just a few of the drawings done there:

Nancy loves singing hymns and helps as a school crossing guard.

Sandra has two last names: Wall and Knight. Two last names that are legends in Florida history. She is also a painter. I highly recommended her persue painting members of her family, like the infamous Tampa mobster, Charlie Wall.

Jack has traveled a bit in his life to be where he is now. A kayak is his favorite way to get around these days.

Alice is a fellow Florida native and worked years for Tropicana orange juice. She also loves playing cards.

Betty loves to sing.

On my way to Cocoa Beach on January 24th to perform for a wedding I felt a developing cold. By the time I got there, I had a cold – and still have it. But, the show must go on! But could I continue my further altering my approach to caricature to some thing a bit more comic-booky illustration?

Somehow I did, in between sneezing and feeling awful. After the 24th event I rested and did all I could to be prepared for the next event on the 27th. Still sick for this event near Clermont, I really worked at not having a set place for the head and working harder to get each person’s story into the illustration….in between a runny nose and taking in many cough drops.

The 27th event had a lot of young people at it and worked on the larger paper for each. Three of those are the last of the pictures here.

Please let me know how you like this approach. I love, my friend, Trisha Kirby’s response of this approach. “It’s like an entire comic book or illustrated novel wrapped into one image.”

Here are a few from both events:

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! 🙂

Travelled to Dade City, Florida, for the bi-monthly Pasco County Historical Society meeting, of which I’m a member. Being a bit buried in work at the moment knew I had to get some work done while there. So, during, guest speaker, Susan NcManus’ talk I did scribble some work out!