Mount Dora Homestead

Posted on by Thor

On Sunday, several days after my birthday, I went to see the Mount Dora Homestead. I set up my art stool across the street and started sketching while I waited for my Real Estate Broker, Cheré Carr to arrive. She arrived right on time, so I interrupted my sketch to say hello. There was some technical difficulties with the codes for the key lock box, so I dashed back and completed the line work while she worked through the technical glitch.

The place feels so much like the Umatilla Homestead that slipped through my fingers several months ago. It was built in 1890 and has so many of the original touches while having been updates with modern appliances.

The living room is spacious and I have already begun planning where my Disney Desk, flat files and large art bookcases would go. I am in the process of drawing a map that shows the placement of studio furniture I have, and the  furniture I will need to get. In the Chatsworth Studio I had a couch right beside the Disney Desk so that I could relax after a long stint of animating, teaching or sketching. I hope to set up this new studio the same way as a living and creating space. There is a retractable movie screen on one wall and a notch in the opposite wall where the projector would go.

Upstairs there are two large bedrooms. Closet space is limited but I am just a single guy with a small pile of sweat shirts. With the last move, I threw out many pairs of pants ans shirts which had shrunk in the Florida humidity. They are called sweat shirts because the shirt gets dark with sweat any time I do yard work. There is plenty of space in the back yard for dreaming of planting a food forest. All the grass in front of the house would have to be replaced with ground cover and or wildflowers. Thankfully there is no grass behind the homestead or on the side yards.

All the walls are white clapboard which makes the rooms fill with light. There are long hallway rooms on the east and west side of the house. One I am planning to use as art storage and the other might be used for oil painting. I will be visiting former Disney Feature Animation Artist Ronnie Williford this weekend at his studio where he is doing very large paintings. I am hoping that seeing the space he has created will inspire me to start working larger.

The Mount Dora Homestead has been on the market for over 40 days and my broker feels that might be because the asking price is too high. I am taking a trip to New York State next week and hope to make a final decision about making an offer right after that trip. I hope the home is still on the market when I get back. So will I be moving onto the Mount Dora Homestead? A lot of stars would have to align for that to happen. But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming big.

Crealde Thumbnails

Posted on by Thor

I am thinking that I should hold off on posting scenes from COVID Dystopia until the weeks leading up to the next film festival. That means I should share more sketches done on location.

These are thumbnail sketches I did with my Urban Sketching students at Crealde. I find that many students start out with very tiny water brushes which makes covering a 9 by 12 sheet of paper an arduous task.

With this assignment we break up  the page into nine separate panels and then explore the Crealde campus. I then do a quick demo having them watch as I complete a single thumbnail sketch. I explain composition and keeping the sketch loose and simple. I then ask then to hunt down statues as center of interest in each of their sketches.

As they are working, I then do another thumbnail and walk around to check on their progress. At first I show them each individual stage of the sketch and then I start finishing each thumbnail before I walk around. My most impotent lesson is being sure you are in the shade for the duration of each sketch. In Florida that lesson is critical. I teach then to pay attention to the movement of shadows to be sure the shade doesn’t disappear as the sun moves. I have has students ignore that lesson and get caught in the blazing sun. I then swoop in to encourage them to take cover as they apply color.

There was a gorgeous wedge of ferns near the bridge at Crealde. Since renovations were done that wedge has been pulled up. I have been planting ferns in the back year of the Chatsworth Studio. I wish I had such a thick lush planting. In tile they will expand and fill in.

The Chatsworth Studio

Posted on by Thor

I was unexpectedly evicted back at the end of March of this year. On April Fools Day I moved into the Chatsworth Studio. The place has 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and plenty of open floor space up front for the Disney Desk and bookshelves.

Honestly the place is bigger than I need but it is a fine place to sit back and reconsider steps moving forward.  I like the Chatsworth Studio, but the sound of airplanes with their air brakes engaged and wind hissing around their landing gear roar overhead all day long.

Neighbors who spoke to me as I was moving in all said the same thing, “This is such a quiet neighborhood.” They must be deaf. I am awakened every morning about 6am by the first airplanes landing into the Orlando Airport. I kind of preferred the sound of ambulances screaming past my apartment in NYC. That sound I eventually learned to tune out.

Each day I scroll through Zillow and consider the possibility of finding a home to buy. One option was a nice log cabin up on the blue Ridge Parkway with an amazing view of the mountains from the back porch. It sold as I was daydreaming. Other times I look at amazing abandoned Victorian houses with turrets and opulent front porches, that would need tons of work. One had garbage stacked everywhere inside and a a drug addict was collapsed in the bed in the promo photos. The building was gorgeous, but would need about $500,000 worth of restoration work. I don’t think I am that ambitious.

Places that are appealing to me the most are small cabins and bungalows. Since I am a tumbleweed now, I look everywhere. I found a sweet little place in Grand Island Nebraska where my first Thorspecken relative settled back in the 1860s. I warned against Grand Island however since they might not have much art and culture. Then I found places in Appalachia and I am even considering places in the colder north. I figure global warming might make those places ideal in a few years. I look around Brooklyn where much of my family lived back in the 1800s but the prices are insane. Who knows where I will end up. For now, Chatworth is where I dream and scheme.