Terry and I went down to Lake Eola for the annual Fall Festival. It was a beautiful day, bright and crisp.The streets around the Park were blocked from traffic and crafts tents lined both sides of the street. The streets were packed with people. Of all the jewelry, lawn gnomes, wooden signs and ceramics I saw, nothing interested me. shopping with no set goal is hard for me. There is no, “thrill of the hunt” when shopping, I Just want to get what I need and leave. I do experience “the thrill of the hunt” when it comes to sketching. After patiently walking through two thirds of the festival I finally had to let Terry know that t couldn’t take it anymore, I had to sketch. I had stopped right at the North East corner of the Park where a beautiful flowerbed was in full bloom. Yellow and violet flowers were arranged to create the image of a giant star.
I set up my artist stood on the sidewalk behind a craftsman’s tent. Behind the flower bed children were running, screaming, and bouncing. Parents relaxed on the stone retaining wall that arched around the flower bed. Radio station K92 FM was set up in a mobile van pumping out music. One of those inflatable fabric tube puppets grated and gestured to the beat, flapping happily. When I finished the sketch, I called Terry and we decided to get some food. We both ordered juicy Mediterranean gyros and sat on a park bench near a Civil war memorial to people watch. Imagining peoples lives and relationships was far more interesting than any trinket found in the tents.