I sat in the shade and tried to do a sketch with the tablet but it was to cold with the wind chill. So I decided I would have to sit in the full sun with a traditional sketchbook in order to stay warm while sketching. This location on the lawn of a Methodist Church fit the bill. Across the street is a municipal parking lot and the Modern City Hall building. It is an absolutely crisp cloudless day.
It felt good to be back at Full Sail after spending a few days wasting away on my living room couch. Kathy, the Course Director, showed the documentary called Frank and Ollie about two of the nine old men of Disney lore. It is inspiring to see how these two artists inspired and provoked each other to produce work that might not have been as good if they had not supported each other. This sketch is a reminder that the animation disks have to compete with students laptops for attention. I am experimenting to see if I can come up with a way to get my digital sketches to read with a few sepia tones.
My wife advised me to do in to the Doctors office after several days with a flu. The doctor squeezed me in to the schedule so I had to wait till the two other patients in the waiting room were taken care of. I had a fever of 104 the first night but what remains is just a nasty cold. The doctor just wanted to check my lungs to be sure there was no Pneumonia. I am fine.
Last night I went to a meeting of the Orlando Reef Caretakers Association (ORCA). The meeting was held at a friends home and the place was packed. ORCA is a club for people who raise corals in reef tanks. I have had a reef tank for the past 5 or so years. I bought 6 coral frags to the meeting to be auctioned off. Last night they had over 270 frags to auction off. I got to the meeting at 6:30 pm and the auction was still going strong when I left at 12:30 am. John is in the middle of the sketch holding up a plastic bag containing a frag. He is holding a microphone so everyone inside and outside the house can hear. Most folks are sitting outside in a screened in pool area and the rest are jammed into the living room and kitchen. A fake palm tree is in the corner of the room. Each purchase is logged into a laptop.
Terry has been taking horse riding lessons. I go with her each weekend so I can sketch the horses. The Letisma Stables are on a large plot of land with many fenced off pastures. It is a nice break to get out and sit in the shade of a tree and observe the horses at work and play.
I work part time at Full Sail as a Studio Artiste’. This means I help out in the lab as students are working on animation assignments. I like that this gets me out of my studio to meet young enthusiastic students just discovering this amazing medium. Here is a typical view of the Full Sail students at work doing traditional animation. On the left are the work tables with disks where the animation drawings are produced. On the right students are sitting at stations where they shoot the drawings which are then digitized and played back in sequence on computers. This allows the students to quickly see the animation play at 24 frames per second.
This is the only sketch I did of Bluegrass Performers. By this time I was tired, cold, and the tablet had died. The lead singer of this group had on a loud jacket with roses sewn on so he looked like he belonged in a mariachi band rather than a bluegrass band. Terry and I had moved forward and sat in the lawn chairs left in place by people who had gone home. I imagine the people were planning to come back the next day to reclaim there prime seating.
The tablet didn’t come out until after the sunset. Terry and I had been sitting on the outskirts of the packed tent for most of the day. When the wind picked up and temperatures dropped, we were forced inside by workers who put up the side flaps to the tent. The couple in front of us fascinated me. The biker had a long grey beard that went down to his belly. The emblem on the jacket read: Christian Motorcyclists Association, with a bible in the middle of the logo. This groups vision , according to there website is: Changing the world, one heart at a time. Later when I got a Polish Sausage, I saw the couple in the picnic area and she was lovingly brushing his long beard.
Working with the tablet in the cold temperature had its advantages, like keeping my hand and lap warm as the computer chip heated up.
As the sun set people began to bundle up. In the background you can see the septic truck which cleaned out the portopotties. Outside the staging area there were hundreds of RV’s. Besides the acts on stage, people were jamming all day and night in tents and RV’s.
This morning I woke up with a nasty cold and I have no doubt that it is from sitting outside at this Bluegrass festival till 9:30 at night while I could see my own breath. I am not sure what the temperature was but it was cold!