Headed over to Silver River State Park about 5 miles. Above is a sketch from across the Silver River at the boat landing at the end of the River Trail.

After that I took the Fort King Military Trail. Below is a sketch from that I added color to.

At the boat launch all these little children were squealing about seeing a turtle. The softshell poked more of his head out and part of his body. He was a huge sucker. I pointed out to the little folks that the turtle was about the size of a little red head there and he was probably hiding under the launch to keep away from hungry gators. Their eyes got all big and scampered back so they might spot the shy critter again. Below is as much of the turtle I could get in a photo.

There’s more about this hike at Swampy’s Florida.

My newest Florida illustration! Prints available soon!

Here’s a Florida illustration in progress. More to come as it comes along.

Here are a few caricatures I drew last Wednesday.

Every year I donate my time to help raise funds for the SPCA in Lakeland, Florida. Here’s a few images from the event April 17th, 2010.

We had a book signing of ‘The Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 2010’ at Barnes and Noble in Orlando at the Colonial Plaza. Myself and Dana Summers, editorial cartoonist for the Orlando Sentinel, first had a cartoon talk about the business. Below are photos from the event. Many thanks to old friend Richard Scott for taking many of these photos.

Here I am talking about something of other.

Here’s Dana!

Here’s me and my old friend who I went through grade school with, Richard Scott.

The towering Mitchell brothers, fellow cartoonist Dave and Gary, over the diminutive me.

My old buddy and gag writer, Ken Culotta joined us and signed books, too. Here he speaks to Dana and Dana’s friend Michael Bell.

Dana signs the book by drawing a tall Obama.

Fellow cartoonist/ comic book artist, Orlando Pagan, stopped by.

Dana passes along advice to a fellow. Robert Baurle came by. Robert, Ken and I often get together and discuss politics and joke around. Robert is brilliant about the geo-political world and is planning to start blogging about it. I look forward to his writings and his thoughts!

Here’s a group shot of us who care about politics!: Dana Summers, Ken Culotta, myself and Robert Baurle.

Friend & writer Kathy Hagood was posting about flowers blooming and the flowers have been blooming around the house here. So, I went outside to take some photos of the blooms, but found this fellow instead buzzing around.

Here’s a caricature of my friends Kritine and Mathew from this past weekend.

I attended a 3-D showing of ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’ on March 16th, 2010. I had a great time visiting with friends I was surprised to run into there, Paula Large, Jerry Darkey, Priscilla Rose, Dan Stapleton, etc. I got to finally meet Holly and Dolly of ‘Holly and Dolly’s Bar and Grill in Casselberry. The twins were also former dancers at Church Street Station and mermaids at Weeki Wachee. To the left is a sketch of someone at the theater.

The best part of the film viewing is that Ginger Stanley attended. Ms. Stanley was the stand-in for Julia Adams in ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’. She spoke before and after the film about her experiences in the film and answered questions. After the viewing she was outside the theater greeting fans and signing autographs, which she did for hours. Below is the autograph and below that is a photo of Ms. Stanley and myself.

Back in December I got a call from a fellow named Cory from ABC’s Extreme MAkeover: Home Edition’. The request was for artwork, of course. The big part of it was that they neeeded two wall murals in 48 hours. So I skipped a nights sleep and got it done. The program aired Sunday and, as I was to keep all this a secret, I can now show a bit of the artwork above.

Click here and the episode can be seen from their website.

Here’s the first books of the year! I kicked the year off with a Vince Flynn thriller. Then I moved on to reading of the 2nd Seminole War. That lead me to read of the life of Thomas S. Jesup. I went back to Flynn’s third book. I wandered into the Everglades and back to war with ‘Discovering the Civil War in Florida’.