Third Pass with Snowbell

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For this pass at the poster I wanted to play up how big Snowbell was in relation to Stuart Little. Stuart is a true gentleman with his ivy league causal jacket and vest. I wanted jealousy to radiate from Snowbell’s eyes.

I felt a bit uncomfortable that the title might not read well enough against Snowbell’s brilliant white fur. The chalky typeface I liked from the second pass at the poster I kept for the credits.

The note from the approvals meeting was that Stuart Little needed to dominate the poster instead of Snowbell’s huge face and jealous gaze.

I needed to make Stuart big and the cat in the distance smaller. This would reinforce the basic rule of perspective in that what is close to the viewer is usually bigger that what is in the distance.

I decided to keep Stuart the size he was and Snowbell underwent a major size reduction. I am thankful I was working digital because I only had to make adjustments to the one layer while leaving everything else alone. If this was an oil painting, or watercolor, then every aspect of the painting would have to be changes or redone.

I am slowly learning to appreciate the advantages of living in a digital world. Stella has been showing me how to share images using Google photos. Images shared are a full resolution. Whereas if I were to share the same images in a text, message of email, the resolution would drop to 72 DPI.

I shared folder full of images from Stella Arbeláez Tascón‘s Fresh Squeezed opening at the Morean Arts Center (719 Central Ave, St. Petersburg, FL ) and I was so impressed with how she used them when promoting the show on social media. Panoramic shots I took, showed up as interactive pans on my iPhone. The show is up through June 26, 2025. If you find yourself in Saint Petersburg you should check it out, it is an impressive show. It was a simple drive to the opening reception. I am super happy I went. I sketched at the Morean one time before when performance artist Brian Feldman squeezed orange juice for visitor to the gallery.

Second Pass at Stuart Little Poster

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This was the second pass at the Stuart Little poster for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater. The show is being performed through April 27, 2025. Tickets are $20.

For this poster I focused on the scene where Stuart captains a tiny radio controlled sail boat in Central Park in NYC. I used to live in NYC and this lake was a welcome get away from the hustle and bustle of surviving in the city.

The scene takes place in early morning as the sun rises in the east. I know that because I am familiar with the warm light.

It should be noted that this is a quick color sketch which I assumed might get rejected. Because of that I don’t refine the brush work very much. Working fast like this, I often prefer to leave some of those panicked brush stokes rather than refining and polishing every aspect of the piece.

I am thinking this because I am working on the final stages of the posters for next season. Part of me wants to refine everything, but I resist and only work on areas that have changes or adjustments. I always want to have the poster look like it was made by hand. The best way to do that is to leave hints of the human touch.

I like the look of Stuart in this sketch but once again he is the sole focus of the poster. I wanted to include at lead one other character as well.

My research turned to Snowbell who is jealous  of how well Stuart fit into the family where he was once the sole prince.

Stuart Little First Concept Thumbnail

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This is the first Stuart Little Concept I did for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater poster. I did similar thumbnails for all the posters for the season. The idea was to see if it made sense to have all the posters use the same limited palette.

This concept was built around a scene in which Stuart gets caught in a washing machine. To save time I used a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. If I wanted to finalize the idea of course I would sketch and paint everything.

The idea didn’t fly. I needed to incorporate more characters for the final poster. the idea of having all the posters with the same color palette also didn’t fly. There was no enthusiasm for the limited palette when I showed the concepts at the first approval meeting.

I kind of liked the chalkboard title but I later abandoned that for a much bigger and bolder look to the lettering. The one good thing about this fast approach is that I could get ideas out fast and with more ideas on the table I could pick and choose what was working best.

Doing these children’s show posters are always a fun departure from all the other shows of the season which are usually more serious. With the kids shows I could fall back on a more cartoony look. This sketch is a rare case where I didn’t even bother to add shadows to the character. Of course if the idea had legs I would have refined it much further.

I am right now in the throws of doing posters for the next season at the Shakes and it is amazing how many changes and adjustments each poster goes through. At the last approvals meeting three of the poser ideas were approved and I have about 4 posters to change and adjust. A sloppy sketch like this is like me throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Flower Animation

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Video Player

Every afternoon except Sundays I am online teaching students for Elite Animation Academy. Today was the last class for a student and this is the character she wanted to animate. I thought I should share an example of the types of scenes we work on. this must be a character from a video game my student plays. The assignment integrates squash and stretch, fast and slow movements incorporating slow in and slow out, arcs, a change of expression and a blink and creating a cycle. The flower pedals incorporate drag and some follow through. As simple as the assignment looks it incorporated quite a few of the 12 major animation principles.  I like to follow the student’s interests which means I get introduced to a whole lot of characters and culture I wouldn’t otherwise get exposed too.

Since this was a final project, I wanted the student to push the scene to a more final look by using color and a background. The reference the student showed me had the simple grey background so I went with that. I enjoy teaching animation online. I go over the same 12 principles each time but each student inspires me to push each assignment in a new direction to match their interests.

This is a bit of a departure from my sharing my illustrative journalism work, but every afternoon when most events are beginning, I am in my studio online teaching a student. This student wanted to include an audio clip with her animation in Procreate, but the program doesn’t have an audio feature. I use a program called Callipeg and it does allow for audio clips, so with more ambitious students I sometimes have a short dialogue clip to work on. By short, I mean one word, like “no!” which could be finished in one two hour class.

First Ad seen of Stuart Little Poster Art

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This is the first ad I found featuring the art I created for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater production of Stuart Little. The show runs through April 27, 2025. I need to arrange to get to the theater and sketch the actual show.

I watched the Stuart Little movie on YouTube for inspiration and found so many illustrated renditions of Stuart. Designs started with thumbnail sketched and then I did multiple versions of the poster before this one was ultimately picked.

I remember that Snowball the white cat at first was immense, with his cat face filling up most of the poster while Stuart was small and diminutive. When I reversed that size dynamic the poster started to fall into place.

I find it fascinating how many steps it takes to reach a final look for the poster art. On rare occasions I hit it out of the park on the first try but that is rare. Being flexible and rolling with the punches is what makes illustration challenging, and so much fun.

By working digitally, changes could involve just turning off a layer to eliminate a character and then start over while the rest of the poster remains intact.

I am in the heat of the moment making changes to the posters to next season. Three posters were approved in the last meeting but four have more adjustments that need to be made. The goal is to know that every change can and will make the poster even better.

One play was dropped to be replaced by another and I had one day to come up with a new concept. That is when things get really fun and exciting!

Ravine Gardens Entry

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Ravine Gardens State Park was a Works Projects Administration (WPA) project completed in 1933. Located at 1600 Twigg St, Palatka, FL, this 152 acre park is a real gem. The park contains steep head ravines surrounding Whitewater Branch, a spring-fed stream that flows east into the Saint Johns River.

I did this sketch of the entry walkway after a long day of hiking on the Azalea trail. I was sweaty and exhausted and needed a rest so I sat down and sketched. I figured out the movement of the sun to be sure I would remain in the shade for the duration of the sketch.

The stone work on all these trellis columns is identical to the stone work on the front facade of the Yalaha Studio. There must be about 25 sets of columns on each side of the walkway because each section had a plaque with a state name and a place to hang the state flag. It must be an impressive sight when all the state flags are hung and they waved in the breeze.

There is a 60-foot obelisk dedicated to Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of the Court of States walkway with three stone cone shapes fountains. Ravine Gardens is one of the nine New Deal-era state parks in Florida. On holiday weekends, the park displays among the stone and wood pillars the flags of the 48 states that were in the Union when the park was established.

Ravine Gardens State Park

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I had no obligations on Sunday, so I decided to drive north to Ravine Gardens State Park in Palatka Florida. It was a straight drive up 19. I went past the Umatilla Homestead. I loved that homestead but it felt larger than I needed. I had to follow my heart and let it slip away. After Umatilla, all signs of civilization disappeared as I drove through the Ocalla National Forest.

It was a glorious sunny day with the occasional white cumulus cloud. I was driving at 55 miles per hour and the clouds seemed to move at just about that speed moving north. When I drove into the shadow of a cloud it would ride along with me offering shade for the longest time. I raced many clouds on the drive north trying to stay in their shade for as long as possible.

Ravine Gardens was a WPA Project back in the 1930s. Hiking paths are meticulously maintained. Some roadside gullies are loosely covered in bricks which have lasted for close to 100 years.  There is an amphitheater which I didn’t recognize as such since the seating was composed of rocks on a hillside arranges in rows. The brilliant wildflowers made the theater a natural wonder.  There was a stage area at the base of the hillside. It would be amazing to see a theater production staged there. A sign showed photos of the amphitheater filled for a beauty pageant in the past. I think it would be amazing to see a Shakespeare in the Park production there.

I hiked the Azalea trail which was marked with red blazed on trees. When hiking in nature I often find it hard to decide when the time is right to take the sketchbook out and start creating. Every turn of the trail would reveal a more stunning view. Finding a concrete moment to draw takes a back seat to my desire to keep exploring. After walking the entirety of the azalea trail , I was sweaty and exhausted and finally plopped down next to this pond. The suspension bride I sketched is at the heart of the trail network. I managed to get turned around multiple times as I was trying to navigate out of the park. I crossed the suspension bridge like 5 times hoping to find the trail that lead back to the visitors center and parking. The heat must have gone to my head. I asked a woman for directions and she told me there was a second suspension bridge I had to look for. I didn’t believe her at the time, I had a pot of the trail maps on my phone and I only noticed one suspension bridge. Looking at the map again now, I can see she was right. The reason I was getting turned around is that I was at the wrong suspension bridge. I ultimately ended up hiking on a road to make my way back to the trailhead. I certainly got my exercise for the day.

One man had brought his German Shepherd to the park and the dog jumped into the pond and splashed around for a bit. Families and couples walked across he suspension bridge. The best view in the park, I decided, is on that bride looking down at the pond. The blue sky reflects off the water offering a fantastic play of light and color. Sketching offered me an excuse to slow down and catch my breath.

Creative Clash

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As part of UCF Celebrates the Arts, UCF students and alumni raced against the clock to create  large-format artworks. The twist was that the theme was revealed just seconds before the competition began. Contestants worked in black marker and half way through the one hour competition they were each assigned one color that could be used in their compositions.

The competitors closest to where I was seated were the first to have bold black lines on their panel. Large umbrellas held back the darkness above while the two figures had blue flames rising from their heads. Since I am a fan of flaming figures, I was rooting for them the whole time.

It was blazing hot in Seneff Square in front of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (419 South Orange Avenue Orlando Florida). When I arrived the announcer had someone from the audience singing karaoke. She had a gorgeous voice and knew every lyric, so I was impressed. No one else from the audience was as daring as her. The announcer had a challenging time since watching artists sketch for an hour is about as interesting as watching grass grow unless of course you are an artist sketching yourself. I had one eye clamped closed the entire time I sketched to shut out the brilliance of direct sunlight in that eye. On occasion I had to wipe a tear away from my closed eye because of the bright light. The contestants must have experienced the same blinding light which would inspire them to darken the large panel as fast as they could before they went blind. Then for a glorious moment the sun disappeared behind a cloud. I worked quickly with both eyes wide open.

One aspect of the theme had to do with Exquisite Corpse which is a collaborative game where players take turns contributing to a drawing without seeing what the others have contributed. The game originated with the Surrealist movement and is meant to encourage creativity and surprise. After the one hour competition was over, the contestants had to drop their markers and step aside to allow the audience gathered to step forward and view their work. The judges voted for panel 2 which had two dark red figures facing one another. This panel was created by Luis Paruchio and Nathalia Trepanier. The winner of the audience choice award which was decided by the loudest clapping was panel 1 with the blue flaming heads created by Hal Smith and Katherine Pericas G.

History Center 150th Anniversary Exhibit

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The Orange County Regional History Center is in the process of mounting an exhibition to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding or Orlando. The exhibition will have 150 items from the museum’s collections on display.

Katie Kelly the curator of exhibitions gave the power point presentation. She emphasized often that the collection is built from many donations from people who realized that their collections have historical significance.

Katie explained that museum exhibits are usually designed to tell a story, and items are collected to help tell that story. This exhibit was turned on it’s head since the 150 items that will go on display were chosen before a story was established. The exhibition will not be a chronological history of Orlando. It is instead a collection of 150 objects that were curated by high ranking members of the community. Mayor Buddy Dyer and Mayor Jerry Demings both selected items for exhibit. Over all about 150 members of the community got invitations to curate items for the exhibit. The logistics of that process alone must have been daunting.

The exhibition will open on April 12, 2025 and run through  January 11, 2026. Orlando Collected will  offer a glimpse into some of the most fascinating and rarely seen items from the city’s history. Since its incorporation in 1875 with just 85 residents, Orlando grew into a vibrant and diverse community of over 300,000. Through the contributions of local historians, community organizations, and individuals, the complex stories of the community have been thoughtfully collected and preserved by the History Center. These curated memories, photographs, documents, and artifacts weave the intricate tapestry of Orlando’s past.

Experimental Painting

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After attending Ilenia Colón Mendoza‘s Talk titles, From Paret y Alcázar to Bad Bunny: The Puerto Rican Jíbaro, I went to the Visual Arts building to see a wall of student work assembled by Stella Arbelaez. She has been teaching an experimental painting class as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and the student work from her students was on display. Stella’s story is told in a heartfelt way in a documentary film titles, A Path to Healing which is now showing at the Latino Film Festival online.

What set this display of work off were articles written by the student that described their experiences in doing the assignments.  These descriptions set this display apart from the rest which were strictly paintings and drawings. Since I write articles each day about my experiences sketching I was intrigued.

For one class, tne assignment was Sumi painting using Chinese inks on rice paper. One student expressed how excited they were to try the technique. It was their first time using rice paper which is delicate requiring a gentle touch with the brush. Different values of ink application produced atmospheric perspective. The student found the use of the Chinese brushed to be calming. Another student found Sumi difficult however she loved the result and plans o use what was learned in future projects. Projects pushed students beyond their comfort zones and that is where progress is made.

In another class, students worked in watercolor out in the UCF meditation garden. For most students this was there first time working in water color plein-aire. In the visual arts building undergrads are set up in tiny cubicles where they are tasked to create their body of work. I always find getting out of the studio refreshing. Sometimes the big concept can take the back seat to simple direct observation. One student noted that working with watercolor was challenging to start. With practice she began to understand how the medium worked. She began to use delicate layering of washes. Allowing the white of the paper to shine through was the biggest challenge.  Though challenging, the time flew by and she found painting in watercolor to be therapeutic.

I loved reading all the students thoughts. It grounded me to the simple joy of what if feels like to create something, every single day.

In the sketch above, Stella was working on labels for the wall display. She gave me a quick tour of the undergrad painting studio area. There were some very talented painters working in that area. A critique was about to start so we had to get in and out fairly quickly. Then Stella got to work adding labels to her student wall just as I had to hit the road, so I would be available for my online students back at the Yalaha studio,