After teaching virtual classes on Saturday, I packed my art bag and drove over to the Mount Dora Corn Festival. Zellwood used to host a corn festival each year but that festival went the way of the Dodo Bird.
This was the second annual corn festival in Mount Dora. It was held in Elizabeth Evans Park (100 N Donnelly St, Mt Dora, FL) which is right by the historic Lakeside Inn.
The police had the road blocked leading into the park. According to the online site, the festival cost $8.35 to get in. However it was late in the day and the admissions gate was wide open. Another factor to the free admission might have been the fact that the sky had turned a dark grey and a thunderstorm was brewing on the horizon.
The wind kicked in making my sketch pages flutter. I clamped a pen to the corner of the sketchbook to try and keep the chaotic fluttering to a minimum. Vendors were quickly taking down tents and packing up their wares. A policeman got a case of canned drinks from a vendor.
Rather than explore the whole festival, I decided to immediately sit and sketch an 8 foot high fiberglass ear of corn and a scarecrow which was on hand to allow for selfies. Every couple of minutes people would pose beside the scarecrow. On the drive over I had thought that I should take my umbrella to the festival. However when I left the car and started walking I forgot the umbrella. The sketch is rather panicked since I was in a race against the impending storm. I didn’t want the watercolor to get drenched and I didn’t want to get drenched. I could have spent more time on the sketch, but I packed up my art bag and started hiking back to my car which was about 10 blocks away. I smelled ozone in the air.
On the last block of my hike the first large rain drops stared to fall sporadically. When I got inside they splashed on the windshield. On the drive back to the studio the sky’s opened up in a deluge. I felt victorious, I had the sketch and I had beat mother nature. Than night I boiled several ears of corn from Bountiful Farms to celebrate.