Here’s a cartoon illustration for an upcoming Swampy’s Florida book for Marion County, Florida. The ‘Swampy’s Florida: Marion County Museum of History’ coloring book is an A to Z count of items in the museum in coloring book form to help educate young people about the history of Marion County. I’ll post more images as they I get them drawn.

Here are a bunch of photos from an event I drew in Boynton Beach a couple weeks ago. Below is a photo of a lady who likes fantsy stories and is a manager ay a Publix. So, here she defends her employees in the cereal aisle against an approaching dragon!

De Soto Didn’t Land At Tampa by Rolfe F. Schell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

‘De Soto Didn’t Land in Tampa’ is a hard book to review without balancing it with other accounts as to just where others think Hernando landed. Author Schell does an outstanding job making his point in under a hundred pages and it would seem he is correct. Punta Gorda sure feels he is with all their recognition of Hernando.

I’ll press on with my reading and have a few texts that have alternate ideas. I might come back and change my rating of the book and this review.

I’m giving this such a high rating because of how thorough Schell has accomplished his goal. The comparative chart of separate diaries of the explorers is very impressive. Schell’s knowledge of Spanish and his translation, further adds to his credibility.

I’m very familiar with the territory of the state that Schell lays out in his narrative as Hernando’s trail. Most all makes sense with the exception of the location of Ocali. Though, I think we may have spent too much time trying to interpret something that is not interpretable. We know names changed over the years and even Schell points out the trouble of multiple names for a single location.

Nevertheless, Schell’s effort in this book is impressive and I recommend it for those who wish to chase this ghost of a mystery.

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Storm Haven by Frank G. Slaughter

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The research author Frank Slaughter did to accomplish the ability to put the reader in the very throes of each scene must have been exhausting. This book is amazing in its narrative. Knowing quite a bit about Florida history, Slaughter went beyond even extensive knowledge of Florida in the 1860s. Today writers would be pulling internet sites to get the details he does. I’m guessing Slaughter got as close to the source of the time period. Writing this in the early 1950s, he likely went beyond books to people, grandchildren and the like, to get as close as he could to accuracy. It’s a truly amazing accomplishment.
One scene well describes the Devils Millhopper near Gainesville. The name is never mentioned, but if you know the area, you know the spot by his writing. You also know the crossing of South Florida to the Withlacoochee, the setting around the living areas in the Panhandle (Being cagey here so I don’t spoil the story) and the scenes along the Ocklawaha. His descriptions of the peripheral events around the battle at Olustee are enlightening for those of us who have read of the battle. This book puts you there in the surgery area and the effects of the battle on both sides. I could go on.
Now, I must write this is my first Slaughter book. I’m guessing he does this in all his books. I look forward to wading into more.

I also need to add that the actual story was a bit predictable by today’s standards .
I highly recommend this book

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Made one of my twice-a-year trips to my friend George Pieper’s cartooning class to be a guest speaker. I demonstrated drawing the various presidents we’ve had since Carter and a bunch about my Swampy’s Florida project. As always, I ended the talk with a drawing made from suggestions of the students. Above is George and myself and the drawing drawn from suggestions.

Swampy’s Florida Prints – Picnic at Biscayne Bay.

Here’s the last of the nine watercolor paintings of Biscayne Bay beach set. This was the last one I needed to finish and I only found time today to do it. This wraps up the set and will show all nine when they are set for the gallery catalog they are going in.

Still navigating through sickness. Much better than last week. One way I could tell is by the most recent caricatures I drew at recent events. Above is last Saturday. Below is the Wednesday a week before, where i felt just rotten. I was not up to par on that Wednesday.

The toughest part drawing with a nasty fever was trying to get my brain to grasp proportion and depth. I couldn’t get my head to agree with my hands. I also knocked out a quick set of illustrations during this time and the result was lousy as I couldn’t get the foreground to work with the background. Now feeling better I didn’t have that problem this past weekend.

The next two are also from Saturday near Lake Mary.

The next three are from this past Sunday in Sarasota.

This fellow was great to talk to. He’s 90 and spent World War II in the western Pacific as a signal corp man for the Army. He told me he wished people today showed the courage and commitment that they did back then. I feel the same way and included it in the drawing and asked others in the family to make copies of it to spread around to the youngsters so that they might get his important message, too.

Pirates of the Spanish Main by Hamilton Cochran
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this book that covers many aspects of the industry known as piracy. It views them from both the good and bad and does a great job mapping out motivation, action and results. I also like the follow through as to the closing of the careers of these mostly bad guys. The interesting focus near the end of two of the best known of pirates and another about a few female peers were excellent in closing out the volume. The illustrations are outstanding and further underline the world in which the pirate world lived. In that it is an overview, it does what it should in enticing a reader to want to learn much more. So I shall.

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Have been drawing at quite a few events in the past week including one fro Gasparilla. Here are some photos of folks with their drawings. The one above involves hiking in space and the one just below was great fun. It involved drawing a scene from ‘Wuthering Heights’. Then it’s a former engineer mapping out plans for travel and lastly a native Tampan bicycling the historic buildings in Ybor City.

Pirates and Buried Treasure on Florida Islands by Jack Beater

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very good collection of supposedly true pirate stories that took place along the Florida coast. Jack Beater is a good writer who helps make the stories seem true, though there may be more legend than accurate history in the tales. He bases much on the legend of Jose Gaspar and tethers further tales to the legend. There are no footnotes, which doesn’t help the question of what is real and not. Much is based on hear say. Not that I think Beater is trying to pull the wool over one’s eyes. I believe he truly believed the stories he penned. It’s just that over time, many pirate tales have come into question. One assurance is that he does know the geography of Florida and accurately describes the various locations mentioned, thus if the stories may be suspect, locating where the nefarious pirates may have plundered and lived can easily be understood.

You can purchase a copy of this book by clicking here or below.

Just chug-a-lugged out eleven pencil drawings of a series of beach scenes I’ll be doing later in February.

Stopped for dinner at Ashley’s Restaurant in Rockledge, Florida, for dinner and to get a little work done. Ate a fine prime rib and got the 11 drawings done in two hours and a half!

More to come as I work on each. Suffice it to write that I’ll be using lots of yellow ochre and cerulean blue!