Pre-Op

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I had blood tests and that test where they attached all those diodes to areas for the chest done before going to the hospital for my hernia surgery. When in the pre-op area I sketched this nurse who was very helpful. She shaved my chest and pubic hair so that there was no hair anywhere near where the robot would be operating. Another nurse came in and started to do the same test that I had done the week before. She had not checked the chart and was happy to double bill me for the procedure. The nurse I sketched checked and saw that the tests had already been done. She managed to get the charge removed for the redundant testing that was done. When the bill is over $11,000 that savings was lost in the insane expense for the day.

There was infantile beach scene wallpaper trim at the top of the wall in the pre-op room. Somehow that beach scene was not reassuring.

I could not sketch in the operating room. I was knocked out in minutes with anesthesia. I met the anesthesiologist, and my doctor and several other people who were in the room to watch the robot dig into my innards.

When I woke up my sister Pat was in the room and she and Mike drove me back to their place south of Sarasota. I had purchased pain meds and felt some nausea, but I quickly recovered. It was kind of nice to vegetate for a few days and watch British antiques road show programing. After two days, I decided I was strong enough to drive myself back to Orlando.

Now that my chest has grown back all it’s hair, the three bullet hole scars are no longer visible from the operation. The center scar was for a miniature camera and the other two scars were for probing mechanical hands that placed a mesh inside my abdomen at my pelvis and secured it in place. There were not stitches, but rather the holes were super glues shut.

Sarasota Motel

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After traveling through Europe, following the footsteps of my father 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken, I developed a bilateral hernia at the base of my pelvis, below my bellybutton. My sister Pat Thorspecken-Napolitano told me about the two failed hernia repair operations she had and then the operation that finally succeeded. I decided to have the doctor who performed the successful operation on my sister, perform the operation on me.

The operation was on March 28, 2026 at the Sarasota Hospital. I was told that I would not be able to drive after the operation so I needed a ride. My sister Pat and her husband Mike volunteered to help get me to the hospital and get me to their home. We got a hotel room several blocks from the hospital the night before.

Some kid was bouncing a baseball off the wall that had the bed headboards for hours. It makes sense that the universe would be sure to create some havoc just before I would go under the knife. Check in went smoothly in terms of paperwork, but the nurses didn’t read the documents and they started getting me prepped for an EKG which I had done a few days before. My chest was shaved all the way down to my pubes. I was naked as a newborn for the operation.

A DaVinci Robot controlled by the doctor performed the operation. I only saw the robot for a moment before I was sedated and blanked out. The operation cost $11,000 out of pocket and my insurance company, Ambetter Health, didn’t reimburse me for any of the cost. The operation was done correctly and I healed quickly. Sometimes picking the low-budget doctor that insurance wants to use just isn’t an option. I didn’t want an inexperienced butcher cutting me open.

Three small incisions on my abdomen have since healed. Walking and biking have not caused any hint of the hernia to return. Having survived the operation, I am now focusing on improving my eating habits and getting to my ideal weight. A friend is helping me with the diet and I insist on biking or walking to many of my daily chores.

Little Big Econ

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I met my little sister Carol Thorspecken-Bishop and her daughter Anna Martindale up at the Maple Street Biscuit Company (978 City Walk Lane Oviedo Florida.) My sister lives in Upstate New York but comes down to Florida periodically since she has a time share.  Carol wanted to do a short hike at Little Big Econ. The trail was a short ride from the breakfast restaurant.

The Maple Street Biscuit Company serves biscuits with gravy and scrambled eggs and bacon. I wasn’t on my plant based diet yet but the breakfast was delicious and filling. It offered the perfect carbo loading before hitting the trail.

The trail followed this river and once we found this open vista, I decided to stop to get a sketch. Carol and Anna hiked a bit further. There was a large alligator in the water just a few yards from where I was painting. Two guys took off their shirts and were fishing from the shore up stream. They didn’t catch anything in the time I was working on the sketch and they packed up their rods and moved further upstream.

It is always good to see family, even in the wilds of Florida. Anna had some juicy gossip and I got to catch up with what my north east relatives were up to. I have been painting with gouache again and this scene is an example of how opaque paint could have helped in making the scene more painterly. In France a photographer joked with me saying you can paint any color you want as long as it is green. This scene reminds me of that joke.

Stella showed me some books of the Florida State Parks. I am now thinking it would be nice to go to each park and paint. Those paintings would be oil or gouache. Now that could be a fun series of paintings before the parks are raped and turned into golf courses. I wonder what the biking distance is between each park? I am an old man however and would likely burn gas to get between State Parks.

Jail Bird Trump Puppet Build

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I helped Stella Arbelaéz Tascón when she was working on a 14-foot-tall Jailbird in Chief puppet. She researched online videos and websites to figure out how to construct a the puppet. A walker was found and dismantled. She then added backpack straps to the walker frame which became the backpack that she would wear which supported the giant head and torso.

The head was constructed from white flexible plastic hose. She built a simple wooden base from scrap she found in her garage. A metal pipe was mounted to that base to support the head as she worked. She figured out how to take simple tubing and make it into a dimensional face. I didn’t do to many sketches of the process since my hands were busily helping. The puppet needed to be completed before a No Kings Rally just 13 days away.

Once the heads tubing structure was complete the “Skin” was added using paper mache. Stella added al the paper to the delicate features of the face, and I helped by doing the same for the rest of the head. Three layers of the paper mache were added to make the head feel solid to the touch. I was pleased and nervous when Stella asked me to paint the head. Making him look like Trump would be a challenge. I blocked in basic skin colors and added thick eyebrows using yarn. Stella stepped in to add warmth to the cheeks lips and ears. I liked her quick bold painting suggestions, and it affected how I painted moving forward.

I also was put in charge of building Trump’s hands. The hands were just as big as the face and were constructed of a cardboard form for the palms and pool noodles for fingers. Unfortunately, Stella didn’t have enough pink pool noodles for both hands, so I had to get more noodles from Family Dollar. Those noodles were blue and a bit thicker. I had to carve them down with an electric blade to try and match them with the thinner noodles. Spray foam filled al the empty spaces in the palm and helped keep the fingers in place. Like the head paper mache “Skin” was added. It was fun painting the Trumps bruised hands.

It was in the final days of the build that Stella had to figure out the puppet’s torso and jumpsuit. I helped by making a stencil and painting 666 as the prison number on the jumpsuit. She had multiple sleepless nights sewing that giant jumpsuit and assembling everything. I have no idea how she finished everything in time. Unlike her, I had to rest.

This was the second huge project to christen Stella’s new large studio space. Opening the space in the room allowed for larger than life ideas to take form.

The giant head was balanced on a pipe inside the puppet so it could nod. The puppet was so large that two people could fit inside. I needed to hold all the weight of the puppet as Stella strapped on the backpack. Once she was standing and balanced, I could duck out of the puppet. At that point, I would be in charge of holding a long stick which supported the bruised right hand.  It is so fun to be the friend of an artist who thinks so big. I am so happy for the time I had to collaborate.

Leesburg Art Festival

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While living in Lake County Florida I was searching for events to sketch and I found the Leesburg Art Festival. Art Festivals are always fun sketch opportunities with artists selling their wares in tents. Tom make a living as an artist in Florida you sometimes have to be a gypsy. I got to the festival with plenty of time to spare to get a sketch. I decided quickly to make sure to get the historic clock in the town square in my sketch.

I was surprised to find that the artists were all packing up their art to break down their tents. There were many hours to go before the art festival was over. I decided to sketch even as the artists were making their escape.

The lady on the left hand side of my sketch had already broken down her tent. She was curious about me and we started to talk. She explained that the organizers of the art festival had seen that a thunder storm was coming so all the artists were breaking down and getting out of Dodge before the heavy rain started. All her tent poles were at the curb and soon her husband drove up and she packed everything into his SUV.

Across From me the guy with the pink had and shirt was selling jewelry. He was much slower to pack up. I decided to sketch him twice. The Leesburg clock kept spinning as I raced to finish the sketch before getting soaked. It turned out that I didn’t need to rush. I finished before a single rain drop fell. I closed the sketch book and decided I wanted to get a scoop of ice cream.

Leesburg has a quaint historic feel and I went into Mystic Ice Cream shop on my walk back to my car. I ordered two scoops of vanilla in a big cone and sat in the ice cream shop front counter to look out and watch for the rain. Old album covers were on all the walls and lava lamps could be found in every corner. I liked the place. I want to return some day to sketch the ice cream shop. Mystic has another ice cream shop  in Fruitland Park that has Karaoke. I went there once with Stella Arbelaez, and we had a fun time sketching the place while listening to some very talented singers along with some questionable clunkers. I loved singing along, but I am not one to get on stage. Only those closest to me get to hear my singing voice. It is so rare to have a friend who loves to experience the world that way I do. I had so much fun that night. I asked the lady serving my ice cream, and Mystic in Leesburg does not host Karaoke nights.

It still hadn’t rained but the sky was now a dark slate grey. Once I got back to my Prius the first big drops hit the wind shield. It rained hard on the entire drive back to my art studio.

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord

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Our Dear Drug Lord was performed by the Ensemble Company at Imagine Entertainment Art Center (1220 Oviedo Mall Boulevard, Oviedo Florida) from arch 6 to March 15, 2026. The show was directed by Matthew Macdermid. The show mostly featured 4 young female students in their school uniforms. These teens seemed sweet enough as they met in an abandoned tree house, but the sweet setting was home to their dark secret society. These private school girls used this tree house to worship the ghost of the dead Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

The opening scene involved initiating Kit, (Louise Ortiz-Hernandez) to the group. She had to prove she was worthy to join the group by murdering a stray cat. Squeeze (Sarah Barthelemy) was allergic to cats, so she wanted the ceremony performed immediately, while Pipe, (Ana Gomes-Lugo) insisted the ceremony happen with all due pomp and circumstance. Zoo, (Maddy Poston) was the only girl with a conscience who felt the ceremony might be too much making them look like absolute psychopaths. I felt rather uneasy that the girls might perform the murderous deed in front of a live audience.

The play delves into the depths of teen angst. The new kid on the block, Kit was raised by her Colombian mother, and the other girls suspect that maybe she had ties to the infamous Pablo Escobar. Kits father died shortly after she was born and that further cemented the suspicions that she might have ties to the drug lord.

What tarted as an innocent Ouija board game soon spiraled into a truly haunting experience. Each of the girls has had to deal with painful deaths in their families and they have yet to fully process their grief. The ghost of Pablo Escsobar, (Luis Molina) made an appearance late in the play and he interacted with Pipe’s little sister, (Zoey Natal). That entire scene was in Spanish which I appreciate, but my comprehension is so limited. I know that Pipe was begging Pablo Escobar to bring her dead sister back. Pablo would aske her what else she wanted and each time she would ask to have her sister back. When Pablo insisted, she finally admitted that she wanted the part of her that died with her sister. Later Pipes’ little sister appeared and said that there was monster under her bed. She and Pipe soon realize that they are the monsters.  Pipes little sister made a deal with the devil to not be good. Good is to quiet and small, she wanted to be loud, loud, loud and to take what is hers.

All of the girls who were living through the pain of adolescence were going through the same process of wanting to live loudly. They created monstrous rites of passage as they grew towards a strange and violent world.

The set for this production, which was designed and constructed by Bonnie Sprung, looked amazing. Any time I get to sketch the creative process of a production before it hits the stage, I am excited.

Brooklyn’s Pizza Dining room

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After the Disney Feature Animation Reunion and the chaos of a film shoot at the Stella Arbelaéz studio, I settled back into a sketching routine in Lake County Florida.

My refrigerator was largely empty, so I treated myself to a night out at Brooklyn’s Pizza (27405 Us-27 Lake Harris Square, Leesburg, FL). I ordered a plate of Fettuccini Alfredo which is my favorite creamy pasta dish. The waitresses her were familiar with having an artist who would sit, eat and sketch for several hours.

I had gone out to eat early so the dining room only had a few people. A man and woman sat at the corner booth so at least there was some humans to be seen. The corner of the dining room is also where the waitress station was. The barricade made it so I wouldn’t see the waitress until she came to my table.

Meals and memories can be found at Brooklyn’s Pizza . I have strong memories of sketching with a friend in this dining room, and it makes me want to return often. My strongest memories are on paper put down with pencil, ink and watercolor. I have been unpacking my drawings from over the years, and I was truly on fire artistically right before I moved to Orlando. Drawings done with oil paint, and colored pencil were so expressive. I remember loving how luscious the pencil line felt as it melted into the oil paint.

Seeing that work makes me want to regain some of that angst filled energy. I suspect my work will begin to once again evolve after having looked back at my past.  Right now, I am doing a series of drawings of the best Vegetarian Restaurants in Orlando. Drawings of restaurants tend to be more about depicting the perspective of a room and less about the figure. I am feeling the urge to do more figurative work and may begin to hire models to pose in my Eola Heights Studio.

I am also doing a series of 49 paintings of Lake Eola. This series gets me up early at sunrise each day to get some painting under my belt at the start of each day. In the evening I then go out to sketch at some Orlando Event. It is by doing a whole lot of work that I hope to get to the point where the paintings and drawings get more expressive.

I ate maybe half of the Fettuccini Alfredo and took the rest back to the Lake County Studio. Today I would not longer consider ordering such a rich and creamy dish. My new plant-based diet doesn’t allow for dairy product. Eating out has become more of a challenge with the plant-based restrictions but I keep finding some dishes which foot the bill.

Yesterday I ordered a Subway sandwich with a friend and we both wanted only vegetables. Every sandwich description started out with a list of processed meats. The only vegetarian option was to order a sandwich and get the meat on the side. Filling up the sandwich with extra vegetables was then a fun process. I ordered a lemonade instead of a soda and I was instructed that I should water the lemonade down since it had too much sugar. I tasted the lemonade and it tasted delicious in a saccharine sweet way. I did water the drink down but not in a 50 to 50 proportion. I wanted and needed the sugar flavor blast.

I am learning what is good to put in my body a bit at a time. When I slip off the wagon my goal is to get right back on and train myself to eat a more healthy diet.

Procrasticare Pink Paint Scene

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I drove from my Air B&B to the Stella Arbelaéz studio where James Parris would be spending the day gathering shots for his Procrasticare short. After having her phone stolen by a Procraticare worker. Stella returned to her artist’s studio and paced the room annoyed. When her nerves were settled, she began to make marks on her canvas for the first time in a long time. Her annoyed expression turned to pleasure as the marks began to come together.

Before shooting began the set needed to be completed. Jennifer Gwynne Oliver brought along a friend who was an expert on movie history. He and James got along great. Jennifer worked for Disney Feature Animation Florida and without being asked, she realized that the set needed to look more lived in. She gathered some art books and a Tiffany lamp along with a bowl from another room, and arranged them on top of the flat files behind Stella. I was pleased that one of the books she picked out was my book, Urban Sketching the Complete Guide to Techniques. Probably no one seeing the short film will see my book, since it is likely out of focus but at least I know it was there.

Between shots, I walked behind Stella adding smoke to the set for a romantic glow of atmospheric perspective. The painting on the canvas was largely completed beforehand. I oversaw making sure the canvas had plenty of gesso, and Stella painted the abstract Pink and Blue pattern that James had made for the shot. I think the pink and blue art was an homage to another animated short film James had done called Pink and Blue .

At one point Stella threw an entire bucket of pink paint at the canvas. Though there were clear plastic drop clothes, she was so enthusiastic that paint went all over the room and beyond the drop cloth. Some paint even got on my sketch. After the paint spatter scene was over, I got on my hands and knees and wipes up stray puddles of paint off of Stella’s grey concrete floor. I do think there are hints of pink of the floor to this day.

Movie lights were scattered all around the set and James moved them as needed for each shot. James kept his hand-held and stabilized camera moving and the studio was a super active space. Stella has assembled a giant 14-foot-tall puppet in this studio space and she created Eco printed table runners for the Orlando Museum of Art in this space. She wasn’t acting when she was working in the studio as an artist.

The Procrasticare short is still in the editing bay. Special effects are still being done for the content that is seen on Stella’s phone screen. I’ll be excited to see the final edit and to see if the audience laughs where expected. Audiences are all unique. Some might laugh out loud while another audience is stone faced and neutral.

Procrasticare Master Living

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I drove from my Air B&B to the Stella Arbelaéz studio where James Parris would be spending the day gathering shots for his Procrasticare short. The first location of the day was in Stella’s Master Living room. I helped move the couch to the opposite wall in front of a window and then a set decorator came in and hung curtains and string lights. James had shipped purple and pink outfits for Stella to wear in each shot. The wardrobe was neatly arranged on a movable garment rack in the artist studio. Large lights were everywhere.

James shot the film using a stabilizer for the camera. I don’t think a singe shot required a tripod. My job, other than moving the couch, was to mist the room with smoke before each shot. This would add atmospheric perspective and soften the look. Now that I know this is done, I have started noticing it in films I watch.

This shot required Stella to relax on her couch and scroll on her phone. The couch is actually a recliner so she wouldn’t usually lay prove like an odalisque as she was being asked to do. She would  usually kick her legs up I front of her. She looked relaxed and Boo-Boo quickly got in character and lay attached to her hip. The room is blue and James picked a similar blue color as a throw over the leather recliner couch. I bet the warm glow of the Tiffany lamp looked good on screen.

Stella’s cow scull and a wooden hand holding a grass paper lantern stayed where she usually had them, but I don’t think they were in the shots. The wooden secretary in the corner of the room holds so many memories. Stella’s entire back story is housed in that gorgeous antique cabinetry.

Incense was burning on a small side table. That table was moved multiple times as a foreground element in shots. The audience might not notice that the table was moved. All that mattered was what appeared in the camera viewfinder. James was figuring out the final look as he worked. He knew exactly what each shot should look like since he had story-boarded every scene. But in camera he made sure the lighting matched his vision.

This scene only required a few shots of Stella sitting up, scrolling on her phone along with over the shoulder shots to see that she was looking at. I knew from having sketched on other film shoots that the amount of work that went into each shot meant that I would have more than an hour to sketch. Hugo Giraud who also worked at Disney Feature Animation, was also on set helping out. With so many worker bees, I could relax and sketch until the next shot needed to be set up.

Though shot over 9 moths ago,  Procrasticare is still in the editing bay. James had farmed out many effects shots that will appear on the phone Stella was holding. Once all that special effect work is complete, they will be added to the final edit of the film. All the acting in the film is silent. No one speaks. Coming from an animation background James knew that a story is best told through action rather than words. Stella would have done well as a silent era actress. Every emotion could be read on her face and gestures.

Disney Feature Animation Reunion

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The Disney Feature Animation Alum held a reunion In Orlando Florida on March 8, 2026. I drove Stella Arbelaéz and James Paris to the hotel in my Prius. It has been 22 years since the Florida Studio closed its doors, ending a long tradition of hand drawn animation. When we entered the hotel, the open lobby area was packed full of familiar faces. Large tables were set up with bites and there was a table for drinks. We had some free drink tickets and I decided to have a Coke so that I was flitting about like a Humming Bird.

Every time I turned around, I saw someone I had not seen in decades. There was a large screen set up which showed photos of life in the animation studio from years ago. I know now that what I really wanted to see was all the art that had been created by these amazing artists since the Disney Feature Animation Studio closed. I didn’t need to look back. I wanted to look forward.

I knew what James Paris had worked on since we had talked extensively at Stella’s studio, but for most folks I met at the reunion, I could only get an abbreviated elevator pitch of what they were working on. Being a visual artist, I wanted to see it all. I had been in talks with the Museum director at the Orange County History Center about having tables set up at the museum so that former Disney artists could showcase and sell their recent art work the day before or after the reunion. That idea fell through when the director got another job in NYC. I had just returned from 3 months in Europe where I had sketched the 70 or so cities that my father’s 75th Infantry Division had helped liberate in WWII so I found myself repeating that story often.

Kevin Deters had flown in from California. He had stayed with Disney and went on to direct Prep and Landing which was an animated short about elves helping Santa land his sleigh. Aaron Blaise has gone on to produce direct and animate his own short film called Snow Bear and he founded Creature Teacher which has taken off as an online an in-person way to encourage the next generation of animation artists. Xiangyuan (Jay) Jie had helped set the style of the gorgeous painterly backgrounds for Brother Bear. I admired his work on that film so much, and I got to paint beside him in the after-hours painting sessions with models. Jie speaks best through paint since he still isn’t fluent in speaking English. He spoke with me and his wife helped translate. He had images on his iPhone he wanted to show me. He had an amazing sketch of me from one of those after-hours paint sessions. I looked so focused in his sketch. He said there were images I should see on the big screen as well but there were so many pictures that I could not wait for the reel to make its way around again. I was quickly drawn into another conversation.

Laurie Ashborne had a cameraman set up in the corner of the venue. She was asking each artist a few questions about their memories of the studio. This is what I decided to sketch quickly. While working on this sketch I was approached and I was amazed that someone was very familiar with my work. There was some honest reverence in the way my work was acknowledged. I don’t experience that very often. It was heartwarming. With the sketch finished I went and stood in line to offer Laurie my quick answers to her questions. It was a fun interview. I hope a sound bite makes it into her documentary about the Florida Feature Animation Studio.

The whole evening was such a whirlwind. It was like trying to digest hundreds of stories of artistic growth in just a few hours. Bill Silvers has made a career of doing large Disney character themed paintings that are sold at Disney Village. Ginger Wolf gave me her card. She has also become a painter. Former animator, Trey Finney lost his wife Christine Lawrence Finney who was my supervisor at Disney. They had both become painters after leaving Disney. She had a warm heart and was delightful to work for. Christine gave me the opportunity to supervise the final clean up on the director’s cut of Pocahontas. Scenes were added which had been left out of the original film. The largest scene was a love song (If I Never Knew You) sung by John Smith when he was being held captive and Pocahontas gently placed her head on his chest while he sang. The camera rotated  around the couple as he sang, making it a mechanically challenging scene to work on. I worked out long timing charts to keep the even timing of the rotation consistent. I was proud of the result. It was so rare to have complete control of both lead characters in a scene.

I was amazed by so many of the artists I got to meet again. The Disney Feature Animation Studio had truly been like catching lightning in a bottle. All that talent spread out across the country after the studio was shuddered in 2004, but I decided to stay and make my mark right here in Orlando.

Stella, James and I met near the hotel reception and made out way out to the parking lot. Good-byes lasted for at least an hour. It was a shame to leave, but we had an exciting ride back sharing stories of who we had caught up with.  The following morning, the main shooting would begin on James Paris’s short film. We all needed our rest. The caffeine had worn off, and I collapsed in my Air B&B and instantly fell asleep. As always I was an outsider looking in, even in my dreams.