Here’s a bit of art from an upcoming Swampy’s Florida book. More as it comes along. Should be done by the end of the month.

Had a great, fun lunch today with long time friend Craig Zablo and his wife, Doralya, at Steve’s Famous Diner in Daytona Beach. We talked about Florida travel, education, Jack Davis, Jim Ivey, Sun Bank, etc., etc..

The food and company were excellent!
Thank you, Craig and Doralya!

The photo, above, is of Craig and I. Doralya had to beg off, something about witness protection or something like that. 😀

It was after this lunch and a caricature gig after that I realized how blasted out tired I was. I blew out the bulk of my energy prior to lunch taking a 1.2 mile hike in the heat in a park and literally running around the Downtown cities of Eustis and DeLand taking photos for Swampy’s Florida. Knew I was feeling a bit off during lunch and that was why! Ferget I’m adding the years on and that kind of activity is going to take a toll.

The photos taken should be showing up on the Swampy’s Florida website over the next months. I’ll be making a separate post about the caricature events in the next day or so.

Yesterday I posted the prepped artwork for watercolor. Here’s the watercolored version.

I’m going to try and post more here. It’ll be tough when on the road. Otherwise, I hope to increase artwork posts to, at least, three to four a week.

Here’s a caricature I’m working on. I worked from a few photographs of each person. It’s penciled and prepped for watercolor, which I’ll add tomorrow. I should be posting the finished artwork tomorrow.

Had our monthly Socrates Cafe meeting tonight and, for the first time in about a year, I broke out the sketchpad during it. Part of the reason is that I’ve been lax posting art here and knew this would give me something to place here artwork-wise.
Our discussion started with the question as to how much we carry our family history throughout life. Brought up was the ability to pick and choose our traits. Next came a discussion about a story heard on the radio about a child being left out of a game with other children and what should a person’s reaction to that be. Discussion went from cooties to hammering morality.  Last discussion involved whether we should all just have a revolution and get it all over with. This led one of the group, Robin, to declare that she is willing to take the world over, be queen, sell books and become a church onto herself for the well being of all.

Here’s my newest watercolor painting! This one is of Six Gun Territory. The scene is lifted from a postcard and the humans are replaced with frogs. This is the Father’s Day card I gave to my father this past week.

Savage Texas by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The seemingly never ending Johnstone literary legacy continues. I had to suspect that this relatively new entry into the fray might not live up to the early days of the Johnstone western series thirty years ago. With Johnstone himself long gone and seemingly a team of ghost writers pumping out volumes of books every year, I wondered if these spin-offs of spin-offs could sustain quality.

Well, this one does. It’s clear the framework setup by Johnstone oh so long ago is being strictly adhered to. The story draws you in and keeps you turning pages to the end. It’s a wonder why this rather innocuous series isn’t better known. This was far better written than any of the recent fiction I’ve read by contemporary authors. My usual complaint of over explaining everything is somewhat found here. But in no way to the degree of what i find in the current best seller market.

Someone else here found something that I, too, found. Part of the book is missing. I was mighty confused when one of the characters is alive one minute and dead the next. If the other contributor is correct, then the page count is the problem. However, my copy had even less pages- 314.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book.

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It’s Taylor’s 21st birthday! Here’s the annual little bit of animation to celebrate and below is a photo of one of two banana splits a year I have in honor of. Hoping Taylor has a tremendous birthday today!

This is the latest I’ve posted for Taylor’s birthday. Being on the road for the past five days, along with car problems, got this out later than I’d liked it to get out.

Got to meet up with old pal Jeff Parker this evening in Tallahassee during a brief stop there. It’s the first time I’ve seen Jeff in two years. Great catching up and we exchanged some goodies. Hope to see Jeff again before two years.

Killing Castro by Lawrence Block

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Block’s book follows a handful of folks out to kill Castro. The story is very good and the outcome of the task is interesting as the reader learns about the ones out to take out Castro. Block does a very good job of crafting the relatively short story. The best part is the history of Castro and Batista and their rise to power interspersed throughout the book.

Block starts the book in Ybor City, near Tampa, in Florida. Considering the atmosphere of Ybor City at the time this book takes place in the early ’60s, it’s a shame Block didn’t know more about the area to be more descriptive.

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Finished this back on Friday during the Florida Parent Educators Association conference. It’ll be available during an auction to raise money for the American crocodile on June 29th at Reptile World Serpentarium near St. Cloud, Florida. This painting will also be available as a print soom. The setting is Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge south of Miami.