Here are caricatures drawn today during an event in Moss Park in south Orange County, Florida.

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.

Last caricature gig of the year and drew a terrific assortment of attendees. Most in the event business themselves.

Here is a step by step of a watercolor caricature I painted on Halloween.Above is the pencil and preparation for watercolor.

Here I’ve added the watercolor.

Finally, I brush in the line work.

‘Funny Folks Behind the Serious Business of Cartoons’ is the name of a fun panel of Florida cartoonists and author Tim Hollis this Saturday at the Orange County Regional History Center.

Tim Hollis starts off the event at 12:30 with a talk about the history of cartooning and tourism. He will also be introducing his new book, ‘Part of a Good Breakfast’ about cereal premiums for the Baby Boomer set. Tim will be available to sign books after his talk.

The cartoonist panel starts at 1pm with cartoonists Bruce Beattie, Allen Bellman, Mike Osbun, Jeff Parker, Mark Simon, and me. Each will talk about the cartoon work they do.  Then the floor will open to questions from the audience.

Afterward be sure to take a stroll trough the Peanuts exhibit of comic strips reflecting outdoor issues.

I organized the cartoonist panel and dove tailed it with our annual Florida Chapter meeting of the National Cartoonists Society, which I am also Florida Chapter Chairman of. I’m also involved with the History Center.

Here are a few caricatures I drew near Sarasota on September 6th. Started off outside.

It soon got dark….

So we all came inside.

This is one of the last I drew after more than 4 hours non-stop.  I was pooped!

On the evening of September 23rd, I was scheduled to help the Herman Cain campaign in a room in the Rosen Centre hotel by donating time and drawing caricatures at that evening’s meet and greet with Cain. As I approached the room there was already a long line of people waiting nearly an hour before the event started. As the time for the event approached there were 4 of us in the room: me, a fellow with NBC chronicling Cain’s campaign, the Florida ground coordinator and the state head of his campaign and the crowd outside the room got larger and larger. When I arrived there were about 75 waiting. Soon there were 150… 300…500.. The problem was the room was only to hold 125. Apparently Cain’s handling of the Republican debate the night before and a speech to the gathered delegates earlier in the day drew in an unexpected response.

Now the really big problem. The hotel was full of meet and greets. There were no new rooms available. Others were full of other meetings or meetings that were constructed for other events. It appeared there was no where to go. This was a problem for the hotel also. They couldn’t turn the crowd away and they couldn’t have, what was by this time for the scheduled start of the event, around 1000 people coming into a room for 125. They pulled epole from everywhere to clear an assembled room for a large gathering next morning.

The new location was just across the hall. The trouble was that there were around a thousand people in between outside. So we headed for the service corridor in the back of the room and started running the length of the service hallways to the new room. I was hauling my easel with lights attached and the NBC guy had his camera over his shoulder.  We got in the room as a fit team was hauling hundreds of chairs and tables and podiums out of the very large room as fast as they could.

Quickly the room was cleared and an area was set up for Cain with a podium and a roping to keep folks a distance away. The meet and greet concept had to be set aside. There was no way to meet and greet a thousand people during a two hour period. Above is a photo of the final room with the NBC guy, coordinators, Cain’s communications director and hotel staff – The calm before the storm.

Soon the doors opened and the crowd, who at different points had been collectively singing outside the doors, streamed in and filled the room. Being in a corner on the opposite side of where Cain spoke, I really had trouble hearing him through the thick crowd. I was also busy drawing as many people as I could during a short period of time. Below are photos of a few that I drew.

Did the caricature thing Saturday. Here are some photos from the fun event!

Been attending meetings in the past couple weeks. Here are sketches form Orlando Remembered (above), an executive Republican meeting (image 2) and the Marion County Springs Festival meeting (bottom).