Howie in the Hills Mission Style Studio

Posted on by Thor

I am searching for my next studio and or forever home. On Zillow, I saw this home in Howie in the Hills and decided for the first time that I had to go and take a tour in person.

The place was built in 1925. Caved up above the entry is “Anno Domini 1926” which means, “In the year of our lord 1926.” The original home owners had their busts carved in triangular motives around the entry. What appealed to me the most was a sun room off to the right which is where I would put my Disney Desk. Each ground floor room has built in bookcases which is awesome. The living room with a working fireplace could also act as the studio space. The dining room had a doorway to a back yard lanai. The back yard was small but had the original iron work fence. Unfortunately the iron is starting to rust out and would need work. There was also a quirky fountain in the yard. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a tiny bathroom with a tiny tub that had doors to both bedrooms. In the back was a shed with a window AC that could be plumbed with a toilet if I wanted. The home was formerly owned by a police officer and the front door had more dead bolts in it than a bank safe.

I fell in love with the place immediately. The kitchen was gorgeous having been converted into a gourmet chef’s dream. Since I am not a gourmet chef it might be wasted on me. There had been termites in the kitchen but I was assured that they had been taken care of. The septic was out to the west of the shed.The place could be made into a perfect working studio. Since I now work digitally I wouldn’t need tons of space. The home is on a corner lot at the intersection of West Myrtle and highway 19.

After the tour, I sat across the street to sketch. Over the course of two hours, I noticed the road noise from 19 more and more. 18 wheelers roared down the road constantly and every car seemed to be in a mad rush. There was one mass of bamboo planted between the road noise and the home. I started to reason that expanding the bamboo patch might cut the noise down. With cars and trucks rushing by at night, I would probably loose sleep.

The home is 1 block from Little Lake Harris which is a part of a chain of lakes. I had to run across 19 to avoid getting run over. The lake is gorgeous and there is a dock at the end of the block. I could easily set out on a kayak any time I wanted. If I could just move the home away from the highway noise and closer to the lake it wold be perfect. Having lived for the past 6 months on the flight path for planes landing at Orlando International Airport, I know how grating such constant noise can be.

As much as I am madly in love with the place, I will probably have to pass, though I change my mind every few hours.

My Baby Does the Hanky Panky

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This sketch dates back to 2008, one year before I started doing one sketch a day and posting those sketches online.  With this sketch I was just getting used to sketching live performances. The band was singing, “My Baby does the Hanky Panky.” I like how loose my line work was. Structure gave way to wild flowing lines. Clearly the music influenced how the lines went down on the page. I am certain I felt some annoyance that I wasn’t closer to the performers. Over time however I learned to accept and embrace being part of the distant audience.

This sketch was done at the Fiddler’s Green (544 Fairbanks Avenue, Winter Park Florida). It was here that I discovered that Guinness Ail goes absolutely perfectly with a slice of chocolate cake. Just thinking about it makes me want to experience that flavor sensation again.

I kind of miss these impromptu sketch sessions. I used to go out any night of the week and discover some new musical talent. Now I work until 8pm 6 nights a week and tend to miss such performances. I need to focus my attention on finding really late night music jam sessions. They must exist and I need to dial myself into that scene. For now I am focusing on discovering Old Yalaha Florida architecture. It has been bloody cold out, but it si worth it when I get a good sketch of old forgotten Florida.

I just realized that this will publish on the first full day of the Trump return to office. Things about to go south very fast and I suppose an artist should be in the wings to document the downfall.

The Mount Dora Corn Festival

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The Zellwood Sweetcorn Festival has gone the way of the dodo. However Mount Dora held its inaugural sweet corn festival starting in 2024, featuring Zellwood Sweet Corn.

The Mount Dora Corn Festival happens in Elizabeth Evans Park, 100 North Donnelly Street, Mount Dora Florida. The dates will be sometime in May 2025. Blankets and chairs are encouraged and service dogs are welcome. Children 3 and under are free. The festival books country singers to perform on the outdoor stage.

Festival activities include…

  • Admission to BOTH days of the festival 
  • Corn shucking contest 
  • Corn on the cob eating contest (All  you can eat and hot corn.
  • Battle of the businesses corn bread cook-off
  • Corn hole 
  • Signature corn food vendors
  • Kids area
  • Crowning of the corn King and Queen
  • Hay ride
  • Petting zoo (Saturday 3-6pm)
  • Fireworks (Saturday at 9pm)
  • Free shuttle parking (Saturday Only)

Florida General Store

Posted on by Thor

I have started exploring Lake County Florida. I had to mail some art to a client, so I made a trip to the Post Office. The flag was at half mast for former president Jimmy Carter.

I had the art packed in a Priority mail tube and the woman behind the desk told me it would cost $36 to ship. She advised I use another form of shipping that cost $9. I was thankful for the advice. I need to keep researching what shipping method is most affordable while keeping the art safe.

Right next to the post office is the abandoned Florida General Store. Now this place had character. If it was for sale I would want to convert this into a working art studio. I am sure it would involve so much renovation work that I would never have time to paint. The other disadvantage is that it is right on 48 which is a highly traveled and very loud roadway. Leaning against a stop sign, I had to deal with the constant roar of traffic as I sketched. One obnoxious UPS truck let off a huge plume of exhaust right in front of me. An X Infinity truck parked in front of the General Store for the longest time. I think they are setting up internet connectivity in the neighborhood behind the store. I debated about including the truck in the sketch but realized they guy was probably just taking an unauthorized break. He left as I was applying watercolor washes to the sketch.

The Florida General Store was B.C. Genaral Store and BBQ up until about 2018. It closed after 32 years in business. It was a quirky place that boasted the “best darn BBQ in Lake County. It used to have a screened in front porch with a cut out pic and chicken dancing on the facade. I thought the yellow cement blocks up front must have been for gas pumps but it seems they were at the corners of the screened in porch area. I tried looking up the place on Zillow, but it has no history, it is as if it never existed. An old Florida gem quietly faded into the past, while corporate sprawl expands.

That neighborhood has true old cracker style homes. My plan is to hike back once a day and get a sketch. I may need to bring a hiking stick, just in case people let their dogs run loose. I hike each morning around the block in my neighborhood to the mail box. 3 huge white Great Pyrenees dogs bark at me each morning from behind their fenced in yard. I simply say good morning to them and they seem to be getting used to seeing me each morning. They bark less vociferously.

Crealde Large Scale Sketching

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As the pandemic progressed, class sizes dwindled at Crealde School of Art. I worked hard to maintain social distancing in the classroom and masks were required. I haven’t seen pre-pandemic class sizes yet, though my online classes have me booked solid 6 days a week.

These two students were friends and both were talented artists. I gave them the challenge of drawing the classroom on very large sheets of paper that completely covered their tables. The sketch above was also done on that massive scale. When starting a sketch the artist is often confronted with a feeling that they could not possibly fit all that they see on the sketch page. This assignment flips that feeling on it’s head. Students can no longer sketch dainty small objects but instead they must draw on a massive scale, to fill the sheet.

The fun thing about working this large is that you can dig in and sketch the smallest details. The sketch still needed to be done in about 3 hours so lines needed to be put down quickly and the entire body is used to put lines down rather than twitching fingertips and wrists the movement of the pencils were influenced by how the student stood and leaned into the sketch. The entire arm, and shoulder and hips would pivot making sketching a much more active sport.

Crealde Table Cloth Sketching

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6 months into the pandemic I was teaching an Urban Sketching course at Crealde School of Art on Sundays. Tables in the room were arranged in tight rows, but I would spread then out into an open circular layout just before class to allow for some social distancing. Masks were required at this point.

My mantra from the very first class is to “fill the page.”  I also want to encourage the students to draw from the hips, trough the shoulders and then to the hand rather than dainty lines put down with wrist or finger movement. To encourage this, I covered each table with white paper tablecloths which become the sketch that needed to be completed. The sketch above was also done on one of these large sheets of paper. You can see the ripped edges on the left and right. I painted the scene much later digitally.

The Crealde Urban Sketching course will start up again in the Spring. I am teaching 6 days a week for Elite Animation Academy and they have a course called “Sketching People Places and Things” which very much like the Urban Sketching course. There are virtual classes for adults now and I have students from as far away ad Borneo!

Compass Fusion at Timucua

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Terry Olson offered some free tickets to the Timucua Arts Foundation, Compass Fusion Concert. He said the first people to e-mail him could have the tickets. I emailed, but wasn’t fast enough. Knowing I wanted to sketch, Terry pulled some strings anyway. Leah Love, the Executive Director at Timicua, let me know she would love too have me sketch. She and Michael Rizzo had been married since the last time I saw them. At the entrance Leah actually didn’t recognize me since I now have a grizzly mountain man beard.

Thick red velvet curtains separated the entry, social area from the performance space. On stage, visual artists Edson Campos and Kathleen Brodeaur were working on a large portrait of a young girl. Edson and Kathleen worked on the portrait together. It was fascinating to watch them work before the start of the show. By the time Benoit Glazer made his announcements and introduced the performers the face of the portrait was complete.

The Compass Trio are from Brooklyn New York. They performed Indian Flamenco-Groove Fusion with guitar, Tabla (drums), and sitar. The music was absolutely mesmerizing and fantastic to sketch to. One piece called Murmerations which was inspired by large flocks of birds flying in absolute unison. The music wove its way into the soul. I swayed as I sketched feeling every undulating improvisation that inspired the lines to dance on the page with little second guessing.

A string broke on the sitar, so there was a brief question and answer session as the repair was made. I took the time to keep sketching feverishly. That break was a good time to break out the watercolors. The final piece they performed kept building in layers to a magnificent crescendo that they maintained indefinitely. When it ended the audience burst into a standing ovation. I had to put my art supplies away before I could stand.

I had driven 32 miles from the back woods of Yalaha, Florida to witness this performance, and it was well worth it. The room vibrated with creative inspiration. Benoit got on the stage and mentioned that the painting that Edson and Kathleen had done live on stage was available for $700. Someone in the back of the audience purchased the painting. I do believe that they were painting a woman’s portrait on the very first evening I sketched at the Timucua White House. That painting has hung in the room ever since it’s creation.

Urban Sketchers Orlando at The Salty Donut

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On October 17, the Orlando Urban Sketchers held a Coffee and Draw event at the The Salty Donut (3025 Corrine Dr, Orlando, FL).

I ordered an iced coffee and a donut with a sweet caramel glaze. All the urban sketchers were seated outside and every seat was full, so I sat inside looking out through the plate glass windows. Being inside I kept my kn-95 mask and that meant my donut and coffee would not be eaten until the sketch was done and I went outside.

Staff were decorating the venue for Halloween and a skull was plopped down in front of me, while strands of witches were hung from bookshelves. This sketch was done in a very old sketchbook started back in college days and I am working to fill it up, despite the thin paper quality.

One of the sketchers was a former student of mine and it was rewarding to see him and his wife still sketching. Most all of my evenings are booked solid with virtual classes so I always make sure to get out to any morning sketch opportunities I can find. With all the sketches complete, we had a “Throwdown” to see all the sketches together. Then we posed as a group in front of the Salty Donut.

Art in the Alley, Mount Dora

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Art in the Alley on the historic Roylleau Street in Mount Dora, Florida, is held every 2nd Friday. The alley runs for two blocks between 3rd Street and 5th Street. The alley is one block west of Baker Street and ends at the Donnelly Park, right at the Mount Dora Center for the Arts.

I had forgotten my artist stool, so I sat in a tangle of live Oak roots to sketch the entrance to the alley. All the trees were still lit up with Christmas lights. I took my rag and folded it up to add some cushioning against the hard knobby roots.

Several weeks prior, an artist friend of mine had a portrait on exhibit near here which we visited, and then we went into this Van Gogh themed bus to look at the art of Richard Barrenechea.The entire city was ablaze with Christmas lights and after the bus Stella and I went to the tai restaurant right next to the bus. To me that outdoor seating area reminds me of Van Gogh‘s painting of a provincial outdoor cafe. The Miso Soup warmed my soul and the Pad Thai noodles were sweet and delicious. Overall it was a great night on the town.

Richard had painted an entire house to look like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. On this night, driving into Mount Dora from Lake County, I saw the house for the first time right before entering the historic downtown. Sketching the house would be tricky since a large road runs right in front of it.

As I finished up my sketch, a mom was waiting to get her children across the very busy street. She wasn’t crossing the street to see art, rather she was crossing the street to get ice cream cones for her kids. A beautiful hostess encouraged people to enter the bus. Richard has converted this bus into a mobile art gallery of his work. The pop culture paintings are shiny with thick layers of varnish. I stumbled up the steps of the bus and lost my balance. I used my left hand to catch myself from falling. I asked Richard if I could just get a card and he said, “You are leaning on them.” Sure enough my left hand was right on a pile of cards. I laughed. I wonder how many others had lost their balance getting up those bus steps and stumbled upon the cards. That is some golden marketing right there.

Other than Richard’s bus, I only noticed one other artist with a table set up half way down the first block of the Alley. The central building in Donnlley Park had signs for a Highwayman exhibit. I peaked my head in but there was only a retirement party going on. Weather you are looking for ice cream or Art, downtown Mount Dora is buzzing on a Friday night,

Crealde Urban Sketchers in Panera’s

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One of the last classes of my Crealde Urban Sketching Class is held inside a Panera Bread on Aloma Avenue in Winter Park just a block from the school campus. The goal is to get the students familiar with sketching in a restaurant.

On a Sunday, Panera Bread has few customers in the early morning but as noon approach people start to arrive many from church. Some retirees are here every weekend it seems. Most people were on their digital devices. Only my students held paper pencils and pens. Since tables are set square to the room, this is often a lesson in one point perspective for my students. My sketch is sett up as a one point perspective with a hint of a second point off to the left off the page.

I move from student to student and kneel down to do thumbnail sketches helping them at any point that has them stumped at the time. My time working on this sketch is therefor limited. An older couple sat right in front of me. After they had eaten, I liked that they were both on their cell phones at the same time facing one another but speaking to others. It is a sign of our times. A digital divide.

When all our sketches were complete, we went outside and lined up all the sketches on a table. It is so rewarding to see the amazing variety of approaches each artist takes. Even though they were all given the same information to start, they each interpreted what I told them in their own way. This is what makes sketching from live so exciting. I am often asked, “do you take a photo and work from that?” NO! There is an energy that you get when working directly from life. It is that energy and excitement that I hope to share with the students. Granted sketching on location isn’t as popular at Crealde as ceramics, but the students how embrace sketching, will have a new way of interacting with the world.

Sign up for the next Crealde Urban Sketching classes which will start up in the spring. The winter class was canceled since no one signed up. Perhaps Florida students fear the cold. It is 56 degrees out there right now. Brrrr!