Scott Fuller, A Full Sail student, and myself were the last artists still at Eola Wine Room at about 7 PM. We finished the sketches and decided to get to the last stop on the Crawl which was directly across the street. A huge thunderstorm had rolled in and it had just started to pour. We figured, we wouldn’t get to wet if we made a mad dash across so we sprinted across. I was soaked within the first two strides. I started to curse and shout. Time slowed down and I could feel every rain drop as it pounded down on my head. When we were across, winded and soaked to the bone, two women who were waiting at the top of the stairway down to the Lounge were having a good laugh at our expense. They asked us to do it again and with that, I had to laugh as well.
When I entered the Lounge I couldn’t see a thing. As I gained my sight again in the dark interior I saw several people sketching so I introduced myself. Jean Michelson and her husband had traveled from Jacksonville to escort their daughter to a Rock and Roll Summer camp. Jean had read about the crawl and this was the only stop on the crawl they could attend. They picked a good stop since the Lounge has lots of retro color.
The Stardust Lounge is straight out of the fifties. Rat Pack movies are playing non stop on the wide screen flat panel screens and all the furniture feels like it was salvaged from a Vegas 1950’s club. I sketched the crawlers at work. The manager kept dimming the lights so it became harder and harder to see the lines and colors as they hit the page. Half way into this sketch Kattie Windish and her husband arrived. They sat in the red leather booth in the background of the sketch and I decided to sketch them in as well. The place became more and more crowded as the night wore on. I think I called it a night around 10pm after 15 hours of non-stop sketch crawling. It had been a very productive day. I can’t wait till the next Crawl.
