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.

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.

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!

Here’s a bit of step by step of a painting I’m working on for 2012 Pine Castle Pioneer Days festival. Here is the prepped for painting step …

It was park day last Sunday, October 2nd. It was also the 121st birthday of Groucho Marx. A trip to Homeland Heritage Park and Mosaic Peace River Park was in store. Had a great time with Terisa Glover and Sparky as we traversed the area of Homeland, Florida. More photos of the trip will show up at Swampy’s Florida.

It was from the boardwalk at Peace River Park that I drew the sketch above. Below is video of part of the sketch.

Above is a photo of the natural wonder you can take in at Peace River Park.

Here’s a church, which is part of the Homeland Heritage Park.

I later ran over to the week old opened Marshall Hampton Reserve near Lake Hancock in Lakeland. There’s a photo of that soon to appear on the Swampy’s Florida site. My non-Swampy photos didn’t turn out well. Very wild there. Posted as open to foot and equine travelers and apparently to bikers, who nearly ran me down.

On the evening of September 23rd, I was scheduled to help the Herman Cain campaign in a room in the Rosen Centre hotel by donating time and drawing caricatures at that evening’s meet and greet with Cain. As I approached the room there was already a long line of people waiting nearly an hour before the event started. As the time for the event approached there were 4 of us in the room: me, a fellow with NBC chronicling Cain’s campaign, the Florida ground coordinator and the state head of his campaign and the crowd outside the room got larger and larger. When I arrived there were about 75 waiting. Soon there were 150… 300…500.. The problem was the room was only to hold 125. Apparently Cain’s handling of the Republican debate the night before and a speech to the gathered delegates earlier in the day drew in an unexpected response.

Now the really big problem. The hotel was full of meet and greets. There were no new rooms available. Others were full of other meetings or meetings that were constructed for other events. It appeared there was no where to go. This was a problem for the hotel also. They couldn’t turn the crowd away and they couldn’t have, what was by this time for the scheduled start of the event, around 1000 people coming into a room for 125. They pulled epole from everywhere to clear an assembled room for a large gathering next morning.

The new location was just across the hall. The trouble was that there were around a thousand people in between outside. So we headed for the service corridor in the back of the room and started running the length of the service hallways to the new room. I was hauling my easel with lights attached and the NBC guy had his camera over his shoulder.  We got in the room as a fit team was hauling hundreds of chairs and tables and podiums out of the very large room as fast as they could.

Quickly the room was cleared and an area was set up for Cain with a podium and a roping to keep folks a distance away. The meet and greet concept had to be set aside. There was no way to meet and greet a thousand people during a two hour period. Above is a photo of the final room with the NBC guy, coordinators, Cain’s communications director and hotel staff – The calm before the storm.

Soon the doors opened and the crowd, who at different points had been collectively singing outside the doors, streamed in and filled the room. Being in a corner on the opposite side of where Cain spoke, I really had trouble hearing him through the thick crowd. I was also busy drawing as many people as I could during a short period of time. Below are photos of a few that I drew.

Did the caricature thing Saturday. Here are some photos from the fun event!

Terisa Glover and I had a blast in Tarpon Springs Sunday while doing research for an upcoming Swampy’s Florida coloring book. Above and below are a couple sketches done during the trip. Unfortunately, a trip to Ozona, Florida found that one of my favorite Bar-B-Q places, the Ozona Pig, was closed for the day. Sooooo, it’s a trip across the street to Molly Goodheads for fish food. Because of that the drawings ensued.

Earlier in the day we teed off in Tarpon Springs and was welcomed by the sign below. I figured it meant ‘Beware of Hurricane Ahead’.

It’s fried shrimp time at Hella’s Restaurant! Wanna see what Swampy had? Check out Swampy’s Florida Sunday.

Penny for your thoughts? Getting a scrunched official Tarpon Springs penny.

For those who know the story, Sunday, the 5th, is also Taylor’s 19th birthday. I had my annual banana split at a restaurant in downtown Tarpon Springs in honor of his birthday. These folks don’t usually make banana splits, but did an excellent job!