Here’s a page depicting discussions our Socrates Cafe group had at Chelsea Coffee Company on Tuesday.

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!

Was doing the live drawing again using Justin TV and in 3 hours got a ton done! below shows the lot drawn which includes Tuesday’s editorial cartoon, Tuesday’s Swampy’s Florida, a bunch of book illustrations for a client, a character sheet for another client, a drawing of Ronald Reagan for a Justin TV viewer, etc. The Sketch O’ Week is also in the mix and shown above. Contributing subjects were Joe Read, “Monkey” , and TDebondt, “Fire & Baseball”. That was a tough one, but I did draw it right on the spot after the subjects were provided.

Had a dental emergency last Friday which threw behind a stack of artwork I needed to get done. So I jumped on Justin TV and knocked out some 30+ illustrations in about five hours. Included in that are the two cartoons shown here. The one above is taking in two suggestions from watchers on Justin TV and quickly coming up with a funny scene. Above is involving Terisa Glover’s “Rollerblading” and Joe Read’s “Boxer”.

Below is a second one from Read and a friend also watch Justin TV. There suggestion involved their Aunt and flowers.

Below is a bunch of the artwork I drew today.

During the Justin TV broadcast asked for two contributions from those listening. “Artform” provided ‘tripping on a shoelace’ and “Filler1008″ wrote ‘Chef”. I took it from there and the artwork is above.

During a live stream on Justin TV yesterday I thought I’d try another of the sketches many fellow artists did in March. Two watching contributed: “Coldchain” offered Swimming and “Rtb243002” added Lion. So I drew the drawing above.

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!

Here’s a small sample from the Trilby, the baby alligator, mini-comic book that will be available next week at THE GENERAL STORE (May 6th) and Coliseum of Comics (May 7th) in Lakeland, Florida, for Free Comic Book Day.