While attending the Marion County Historical Commission meetings, I made use of pen and paper….

Was doin’ the caricature thing tonight in Orlando at the Orange County Regional History Center.

Saturday was ‘Take a Hike, Florida’ day! I joined in at the Grand Opening of the Charles Bronson State Forest in east Orange County near Christmas, Florida. There was a great turnout for the hike and the trail is EXCELLENT! It was great to run into a number of Florida Trail Association friends. As I hiked, I sketched. Above is one where I kept walking and sketching.

Here are some photos!:

While on UStream today had a number of visitors and we got talking about music. I made some mention of attendee Terisa Glover’s dog, Sparky, providing banjo music at her store and the sketch above came to mind.

This came to mind also after learning that Cedric Hohnstadt is showing various drawings from his ‘Dueling Pigs’ site. I contributed one back in October.

Here’s my Sketch-A-Day: March for today. Elements supplied by Andrea Schell! Thanks, Andrea!

Here’s the recording of this sketch:

I started talking about MArty Allen’s 89th birthday today when I realized folks wouldn’t know what I was talking about, so I did a quick sketch of him off the top of my head.
Here it is:

Last Thursday I wrapped up my guest appearance at George Pieper’s cartooning class with an exercise I love: Take a few words and make a cartoon out of it quickly. The three words: boy, frightened, hot dog. Below are some of the results, including mine.

By Me, picking up from the cat drawing I had drawn there earlier and shown here on the blog.

By George Pieper

By Dick Daniels

By a Student, whose name I missed.

By a Student, whose name I missed.

The Marion County Republican Executive Committee had our Lincoln/Reagan Day Dinner Saturday night and I contributed by serving on the planning committee and drawing caricatures at the event. Political talk show host and potential presidential candidate, Herman Cain, was our guest speaker. Before going out to speak to the assembled crowd Mr. Cain was out where I was in the corridor. He came up and asked if I drew black people. After a hearty laugh he sat down and asked if I’d draw him. So I did. Above is Mr. Cain, myself and the drawing I did.

What a very open, extremely friendly and funny person! And I don’t mean in a ‘Like Me- I Wanna Get Elected’ way. I’ve met and worked with a ton of politicians in 25+ years of working campaigns and I know the difference between going through the motions and being genuinely friendly. Of course, most all politicians become like that over time to some extent. You have to when you meet so many people, realize you serve the people you meet and have a career to look after. It’s not really a bad thing politicians shake hands and do their best to make you feel comfortable with them. Otherwise, they would be like me and admit they can’t remember everyone and apologize all the time, which doesn’t win me any votes. If Mr. Cain gets into the presidential race, eventually he’ll have to modify his meet and greet also. Right now he exudes an openness that is very refreshing.

Equally impressive is his staff, particularly Mark Block who was a key to setting up huge wins for Tea Party/conservative candidates in November’s Wisconsin races and  the challenges we see in the state house in Wisconsin today.

Below are two more photos. I’ve been off the past few days in my drawings. I felt it Thursday while guest speaking at a cartooning class. My friend, who visited the same class, noticed it also. I see it very much in these drawings. I gotta shake whatever fog is in my head and sharpen my pen and draw better.

The one above was one of the better drawings I did.

I have no idea why I put so much hair on top of Jan’s head. Again, my head is not translating well right now. By the way, Jan, above, and her partner Kay did a terrific job running an auction we had at our event. Turns out both also went to Rollins College.

I was a guest speaker at fellow cartoonist George Pieper’s cartooning class. The day earlier I learned about Cedric Hohnstadt’s March Sketch A Day and decided to stress the class to sketch by everyone participating in creating the sketch I was going to do for the day. So above is the marriage of suggestions cats, Australia and gold.

I introduced friend & fellow cartoonist, George Pieper to Florida great outdoors at the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway Landbridge trail section of the Florida Trail. Above and below are sketches down there.

A few caricatures drawn Saturday night.

Here’s Marnie and Pedro! I usually draw folks while they’re talking and I miss a big smile like his shown above. But then I would’ve missed his love of superheroes (Especially Green Lantern and NOT Rob Liefeld!).