This was a commissioned project of the publisher of the Orlando Sentinel and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. The request was of a caricature of the publisher and of his travels back and forth between cities. Request was to include plane and car he traveled in. Also, to include Marriott he stayed in Orlando. I asked for more likes of the publisher to fill out for space – and make it more fun for me. I added the city scapes. On teh Fort Lauderdale side I included the Sun Sentinel building, a few other well known structures and the founding structure in the area, the historic Stranahan House. On the Orlando side, the Sentinel buidling, otehr structures and the Lake Eola fountain. My knowing both cities was a big help getting this done.
This is a 16″x20″ watercolor painting on Arches watercolor board.

Here’s the inked art for #Inktober today!

Here’s the Swampy’s Florida post: http://wp.me/p46j33-2Xk

Here’s the inked art for #Inktober today!

Here’s part of the Swampy’s Florida post:
Swampy says Happy World Octopus Day!
More about the legend of the St Augustine Monster:  http://swampysflorida.com/?p=11318

Drew my Swampy, the Swamp Ape, as Batman for ‘Batman Day’. with him is Trilby, the baby alligator, as Robin.

I attended the first meeting of the new Central Florida Expressway board meeting this morning. The organization previously had been racked by scandal and accusations. This new board for the toll roads in Central Florida will hold sway of toll roads and soon-to-be-toll roads in four counties- Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola. Members of the board acknowledged to previous problems and sought not to repeat them.

It was a standing room only room. Seemed it was mostly filled with road builders and contractors. The fellow who oversees construction of the organizations roads was kind enough to get me a chair, after standing for a good part of the meeting. Once seated, i pulled out the sketchbook and doodled the above and another page of sketches.

This is the atart of a new project from a client that didn’t know I know how to draw alligators. Apparently the end client is being very specific about the guitar. So, i expect this artwork to change before I get to the color part.

Really the title should be – “A Few Days Ago on the Drawing Board”. Working waaaay to late Tuesday night had me miss the Orlando Remembered, a board I serve on, meeting at the Orange County Regional History Center early Wednesday morning. Sara Van Arsdel, curator of the museum for the past twenty eight years is retiring. I remember her taking the position so many years ago as, Orlando native, Jean Yothers stepped down after ten years in the position. Hard to imagine so much time has passed!!! I sure admit I have not been a fan of certain activities at the museum. I have been a cheerleader of the unbelievable job Sara did of keeping the history museum in the 1920’s former Orange County Courthouse. A tough task, especially when Orange County was seeking office space for an expanding government in years past. It took her having exhibits that I hated to keep the museum in the courthouse alive. Kudos to Sara for that and for being in charge of the museum for 28 years!

This painting was done last week and passed on to long time dear friend Grace Chewning on Sunday, thanks to help from my father. Grace carted the card for folks to sign and the photo above was taken.

This time at a private event in Central Florida. This young lady wants to travel and visit places with black and white animals, like zebras, pandas, etc. First place she wants to visit: Galápagos Islands, not known for their zebras.

A few days ago I posted the setup for this watercolor painting. Here’s the finished artwork. It’s for a show of Florida artists at the Pine Castle Women’s Club in south Orange County starting June 1st. This will also be available as a Swampy’s Florida print (#38) soon.

The Pine Castle Women’s Club art show is comprised of Florida artists presenting Florida history in various mediums.

Announcing a Swampy’s Florida Kickstarter program to get five Swampy’s Florida books produced! In the past three years I’ve produced 14 Swampy books, 37 prints, 2 DVDs and seven cards. There’s lots more to come! However, I’ve poured a ton of time in all of this and have more than run out of resources to produce more without backing. Funding will ensure more educational and activity books available to help young people know more about the great state of Florida.

Click here to head over to Kickstarter!

There’s a goal to get five funded by June 21st! Lots of goodies! I’ll even try to hand deliver the goodies if the donor falls within my travels this Fall.

The five books are:
–  Historical Women of Florida
– Florida History Puzzles and Games
– A Short History of  trains in Florida
– Birds of Florida
– Fish and Aquatic Life in Florida

All five will be coloring and travel guide books and able to be used in home schooling or just for fun!

There will be constant updates here as I build all five books.

But wait! There’s more!
There are four other books involved that are left over prior to the new arrangement with The Knowledge Exchange. These four will also be completed at the same time:
– Polk County- Titusville
– Dunnellon
– Marion County ABC
The funding will also loosen my time to wrap up these four books.

All will be available by Fall.

I hope you will help me in getting these books out and to beter help educate our young people of Florida’s incredible history, heritage and culture.

Thank you to The Knowledge Exchange, for so much help, and Dave Stewart, who produced the video on the site and gave sage advice, for all their help putting this together. I’ll have to share the video here as the next month goes along.

Thank you to all that donate to this project!
I’ll be posting updates here as this Kickstarter program continues!

It was day 2 of my drawing in a booth of HMS during the Blue Cross and Blue Shield conference at the Marriott World Center in south Orange County. Besides caricatures, I drew this Batman for the husband of the person who organized the HMS booth. He’s a huge Batman fan and collector. I rarely get a chance to drawing superheroes these days and this Batman sure shows it. Proportion off as are the legs.

Below are a couple of the caricatures I drew with a suprehero theme.