Brooklyn’s Pizza Dining room

Posted on by Thor

After the Disney Feature Animation Reunion and the chaos of a film shoot at the Stella Arbelaéz studio, I settled back into a sketching routine in Lake County Florida.

My refrigerator was largely empty, so I treated myself to a night out at Brooklyn’s Pizza (27405 Us-27 Lake Harris Square, Leesburg, FL). I ordered a plate of Fettuccini Alfredo which is my favorite creamy pasta dish. The waitresses her were familiar with having an artist who would sit, eat and sketch for several hours.

I had gone out to eat early so the dining room only had a few people. A man and woman sat at the corner booth so at least there was some humans to be seen. The corner of the dining room is also where the waitress station was. The barricade made it so I wouldn’t see the waitress until she came to my table.

Meals and memories can be found at Brooklyn’s Pizza . I have strong memories of sketching with a friend in this dining room, and it makes me want to return often. My strongest memories are on paper put down with pencil, ink and watercolor. I have been unpacking my drawings from over the years, and I was truly on fire artistically right before I moved to Orlando. Drawings done with oil paint, and colored pencil were so expressive. I remember loving how luscious the pencil line felt as it melted into the oil paint.

Seeing that work makes me want to regain some of that angst filled energy. I suspect my work will begin to once again evolve after having looked back at my past.  Right now, I am doing a series of drawings of the best Vegetarian Restaurants in Orlando. Drawings of restaurants tend to be more about depicting the perspective of a room and less about the figure. I am feeling the urge to do more figurative work and may begin to hire models to pose in my Eola Heights Studio.

I am also doing a series of 49 paintings of Lake Eola. This series gets me up early at sunrise each day to get some painting under my belt at the start of each day. In the evening I then go out to sketch at some Orlando Event. It is by doing a whole lot of work that I hope to get to the point where the paintings and drawings get more expressive.

I ate maybe half of the Fettuccini Alfredo and took the rest back to the Lake County Studio. Today I would not longer consider ordering such a rich and creamy dish. My new plant-based diet doesn’t allow for dairy product. Eating out has become more of a challenge with the plant-based restrictions but I keep finding some dishes which foot the bill.

Yesterday I ordered a Subway sandwich with a friend and we both wanted only vegetables. Every sandwich description started out with a list of processed meats. The only vegetarian option was to order a sandwich and get the meat on the side. Filling up the sandwich with extra vegetables was then a fun process. I ordered a lemonade instead of a soda and I was instructed that I should water the lemonade down since it had too much sugar. I tasted the lemonade and it tasted delicious in a saccharine sweet way. I did water the drink down but not in a 50 to 50 proportion. I wanted and needed the sugar flavor blast.

I am learning what is good to put in my body a bit at a time. When I slip off the wagon my goal is to get right back on and train myself to eat a more healthy diet.

Lake Eola Farmers Market

Posted on by Thor

Every Sunday from 10AM to 3PM there is a Farmers’ Market at the South East corner of Lake Eola. I am doing oil paintings each morning of Lake Eola with the plan to do 49 paintings all around the circumference of the lake. I assume the fountain will be in each painting. I am not sure if the fountain is a requirement yet for the series. I took a break from the early morning painting session on Sunday and decided to get a sketch done at the Farmer’s Market.

While doing this sketch, the bells of the Greek Orthodox Church chimed for well over an hour. Something about that sound and the bustle of the crowds in the market made me feel very relaxed. For once, I felt at home. I feel very blessed to have this time in my life to focus on the activity and view the lake offers downtown Orlando residents. I have sketched the lake before but now it has become an obsession. The people I meet each morning are helping me feel more connected to the Orlando community.

Four of the tents on the left in my sketch are occupied by artists. One artist, Angelo Vasquez, I had just recently sketched as he gave an interview at the Science Center for the Elegy for the Unseen: The Art of Extinct Species exhibit now on display at the Orlando Science Center through November 15, 2026. Admission is free but museum admission is $29 for adults. Angelo had some large black and white prints on display. He works in graphite doing large renderings. At the Science Center he had an immense rendering of a dinosaur in the group exhibit.

Several artists have a cardboard box with a hole cut in it called a Doodle Box. It was meant to look like a vending machine. I am not sure what a doodle box is or what it does, but I think I need to find out and do a sketch. One artist had a sign saying that if you beat him at the board game he was playing you could win a free print. That is pure marketing genius. I am not great at playing any board game so if I were to use the marketing game technique, I would be giving away far too much art for free.

I was set up on pine needles under large palm trees. White Ibis were curious about what I was doing, and they marched up to me to look at my sketch. Since the colorful surface of my sketch wasn’t food, they soon lost interest and strutted away. They are more predominant in my watercolor than the crowds crushed together on the sidewalks.

After my sketch was complete, I walked around to look in all the tent booths. My hope was to pick up some farmers produce for my fridge. There were trinkets galore and food tents around the large live oak tree, but I didn’t find any farmers produce. I was disappointed that I didn’t find any fruits or vegetables, but I could hike up the block to Publix if I wanted to.

I didn’t buy anything since I had my hopes set on some blueberries and strawberries. I recently had a conversation with Jennifer Gwynne Oliver who said that cash is king. All digital exchanges are being tracked by AI. In this digital age we are constantly being surveilled. I only had two one-dollar bills in my pocket. I need to start carrying more cash for just these occasions. I need to just accept the market for the eclectic mix that it is. Next time I go to sketch, I am getting a coconut milk in the coconut shell and sip it while I work.

Lake Eola Sunset

Posted on by Thor

I just moved to the North shore of Lake Eola in Eola Heights, Orlando Florida. Each day I take a walk to the lake and often do a sketch. I started with watercolor sketches but now I am doing oil paintings which take about 3 sessions to complete.

This watercolor sketch was done before all the swans were removed from Lake Eola. I managed to sketch one swan swimming across my field of view. The sun  was setting quickly so I tried to capture the light before everything went dark. The fountain lights turned on and the streams billowed up a blood red. It is an effect I am sure I will capture better using oil paint.

There was a crowd of people gathered on the deck that juts out over the water. They were taking pictures and talking. I wonder if they are there every night or if this was a tourist group. Being able to walk to the north shore of Lake Eola any day, morning or night is a thrill and my plan right now is to do 49 paintings all around the circumference of the lake. I have done 5 of those oil paintings so far.

There will also be plenty of small sketches like there. I want to break away from watercolor and start using gouache which can be applied opaque with layers of color overlapping. With the lake as a backdrop subject every day I hope to start experimenting more and taking chances.

Making mistakes and making some honestly ugly paintings is all part of the process.

Fringe: Greek Food

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No, Greek Food is not the name of a show at the Orlando International Fringe Festival. Besides running from show to show, there are moments when it is good to stop out on the Green Lawn of Fabulousness for a drink and food with friends. I could do a whole series of sketches of all the food trucks on the lawn and the endless dramas that play out as people wait in line.

For instance, I wanted to get an ice cream and to do so you are given a beeper after you pay. As I was waiting, Zelda Grey who is the powerhouse singer from Liquid Sunshine 2, stopped to say hello. I am a huge fan of her singing prowess and I was shocked and pleased that she knew about my theater sketch habit. Just as we started talking, the buzzer started going off in my pocket. Should I ignore it? I really wanted to find out what was happening in Zelda’s life. Her show is part concert and part a joyful exploration of what it takes to find meaning and balance in life. There is no better subject for conversation.  The buzzing continued. She must have heard the tell-tale buzzing from my pocket. Is that a buzzer in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? I finally excused myself and rushed to the counter to get my 2 scoops of ice cream. When I rushed back Zelda was gone. I must have seemed so rude, a fan who chose ice cream over conversation.

I settled in under a tree to enjoy my treat and then set up do this sketch of the Greek Food booth. I did order Greek food on another day at the Fringe. I had a lamb Gyro and wrestled with the large pita sandwich with Tzatziki flowing down my finger into my palms as my friend confided that there were huge changes occurring in life. I licked my fingers and slurped the sauce out of my palm as I listened. One napkin wasn’t enough for the mess I was making. I have been through similar seismic shifts, so there was plenty to talk about.

I have settled into my art studio rental, just north of Lake Eola and go through each day in complete silence. I don’t have a radio or TV set up. I do have a TV room which only has a TV which has never been plugged in or used. I was given the TV by a past roommate who was given a huge wide screen by a sibling. I will have to get a couch if I ever want to use that space as a normal Living room.

The point is, that I have grown accustomed to the quiet. I am learning how to switch over to a plant-based diet which should improve my health. I am also scrambling around each day shopping to find things that will get my studio space up and running. It is strange to be nesting after traveling and living out of a back pack for so long. I don’t even have an easel or lights for the painter’s studio room. I ordered three sets of curtains for three windows. I picked up the curtain order from Home Depot and found I only got 3 curtains which is only good for one and a half windows. I was very clear that I had 3 windows that needed 3 SETS of curtains. No one seems to listen when I communicate.  Better to just keep painting and writing, casting thoughts into the void with the hope that someone will eventually hear.

Eola Heights Open House

Posted on by Thor

I have moved into a new studio space two blocks north of Lake Eola. The last cardboard boxes have been unpacked and it is time to start setting up the studio. Before I start getting furniture for the studio space, I decided to have an open house on July 4. My thought is that people will be making their way to Lake Eola all day for the fireworks which start around 9PM.

Many of the rooms in the Eola Heights apartment are virtually empty right now except the office which is where I sit each day to write articles and post on social media. The art studio itself is empty except for some flat files. I have plenty of framed art stored in the archives so I will cover all the empty wall space with art this week. With six empty rooms, I decided to think of the entire studio as prime gallery space.

My studio and office windows face south, and I put art in the windows each day, so people have something to see when they walk by. On July 4th there will be so many more people walking by to migrate down the two blocks to Lake Eola.

The open house is a celebration of my move to downtown. I walk or bike to many of the events I sketch now which is delightful. I used to have to drive an hour and a half to get to events.

I have started a series of plein-air oil paintings of Lake Eola. I get up at 6AM each morning and walk to the lake to paint. This morning I was painting and a huge splash of water hit me while I was painting. WTF, my shirt was soaked. I looked up at the tree branches above me. Was I just hit with a splash of pelican pee? I sniffed my wet hand, it didn’t have any scent.  Then I looked behind me. The sprinklers had turned on to water the prodigious amount of grass behind me. My spot in the pine needles was just at the outer edge of the reach of the spray of water. I would get hit every time the stream arched my way. I had to quickly pack up.

My oil painting panel was soaked. I had sketched on the panel with an ink brush and that ink started bleeding down the now wet surface. Bloody hell, I need to get waterproof ink. I had built a flat storage container to get the 13 by 21-inch panels to and from the studio. I felt the design was ingenious with a sliding panel which could slide open like a drawer creating a desk for the palate to go on. Unfortunately, the design was too slim which meant the painting would get scraped when I slid it back in the container to transport. I need to double the depth to avoid scraping off paint. That is my task for today.

If you plan to see the fireworks at Lake Eola, you should stop by the Eola Heights studio and say hello. You can see my failed plein-air attempt firsthand, but hopefully I will have the problems worked out by July 4th and have several complete Lake Eola paintings. I have a bunch of Winter Park small plein-air lakeside paintings in the kitchen which are just $50 each.

The Analog Artist Digital World address is 513 East Livingston Street, Unit B, Orlando Florida 32803. The entrance is under the car port where my silver Prius will be parked. I can’t offer parking on the property but there should be parking spots all around the neighborhood. Parking is available in downtown surface lots and garages. So, search out a super-supremo parking spot and then stop by the studio to say hello, see some art, and soak in the air conditioning before going down the two blocks to Lake Eola to scout out a fireworks viewing location. I will be walking down to Lake Eola to do a digital sketch or watercolor as the sun sets.

Apartment Hunt: Lake Formosa

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I have been moving from AirBnB to AirBnB in downtown Orlando to get a feel for where I might set up my art studio again. I have been living out of my backpack ever since returning from Europe. I loved Thornton Park. I stayed in two places in Thornton Park, and my favorite was above a barber shop a few blocks from Lake Eola and right across the street from the Falcon Bar.  From the studio window I could look over Lake Eola toward the skyline in the west to see gorgeous sunsets.

Last week I stayed in Azalea Park. I thought Azalea Park was the neighborhood around Dickson Azalea Park which is lovely. I was wrong, Azalea Park is directly under flight path of planes landing at the Orlando Executive airport and the noise is overwhelming. Since that nightmare, I made a map that includes the noise levels from planes.

Today I moved to Livingston Street for several weeks. The place has a back yard with a fire pit and is just a several block walk to Lake Eola. It is so peaceful and quiet here. I am waiting for the shoe to drop, something unsettling is about to transpire. There are some flights that can be hears but they seem to be little prop planes. Honestly if this place had a long-term rental option or was for sale I would consider this a perfect studio location. Unfortunately, it is just an expensive AirBnB and I will need to move out at the end of May.

While sketching today, a woman mentioned that she had a place available in the house right next to the Maitland Art Center. She explained that the place was very small. She didn’t mention square footage. I wonder how small it is? I declined, but now I am thinking I should have at least looked at the place. The location would have been amazing.

Every day I wake up and wonder where I should call home. Should I stay in Orlando where I am familiar with the arts scene, or should I explore some new place? With no roots, I could go anywhere.

The sketch is from a duplex on Lake Formosa that I visited yesterday. It is just 700 square feet with a bedroom and living room which would be my studio. The view out of the sliding glass doors looks out over Lake Formosa. The car port is a plus. I drew a floor plan to see if my studio flat files and Disney desk could fit. It is tight but I can fit in the space. The duplex neighbor has a fiberglass Lizard in the front lawn which I rather like.

Whenever I am serious about a property I tend to sketch after viewing the interior. I find sketching helps me think and consider what it might be like to live in the place. People walked by with their dogs and quite a few bicyclists buzzed past. Several medical helicopters flew over the lake and the train tracks that run along the west bank of the lake are loud. I am trying to decide if the train horn blasts are endearing or annoying.

The location is amazing. A bike path begins right at the end of the street and I could walk to the Fringe, Shakes, OMA and the Mennello. I have been walking up and down Mills Avenue this week and all those restaurant choices and music venues would be walking distance from this spot.

Part of me wants to find a place right in downtown Orlando, but I don’t think those cramped high-rise apartments are for me. I was also walking through Eola Heights each evening and found quite a few homes for sale. I looked online and discovered that every one of them was well over a million dollars (WTF?!)  So, I shifted my gaze to rentals further north. That brought me to Lake Formosa.

I agonized for several days about this property and finally filled out an application form.  My application was denied because someone else snatched up the rental while I was debating. Back to square one.

Lake Eola Nutcrackers

Posted on by Thor

After the start of the new year I drove down to Lake Eola to see what remained of the Christmas decorations. Orlando goes hog wild with Christmas light displays around the lake. The lights offer plenty of selfie photo opportunities. It seem that the lighting displays get more complex each year. Sketching Christmas lights is a challenge so I decided to see what was in the park in the daylight.

I made my way to Lake Eola from the Orange County Regional History Center. When I got to the lake, the Nutcrackers were the very first thing I saw, and I simply got my art stool out, sat down and got to work. The large artificial Christmas tree was also still up.

Several people met in the courtyard area amidst the nutcrackers. I soon found out that they were a religious group. A woman started shouting out that we were all destined for hell unless we embraced Jesus. An AI meme was posted by the President of the United States where he depicted himself as Jesus healing a sick man that looked like Jeffery Epstein. I wonder if the woman shouting in the streets wanted me to embrace that vision of Jesus? Was she promoting a MAGA fever dream?

I had enough things to think about while I was sketching, so what she was shouting got filtered out as I relaxed into the sketch process. I had to find vanishing points, I had to consider size relationships, and I needed to figure out how much of the scene I could squeeze on the page.

The Nutcrackers must be 12 feet high. It would be quite fun if they were articulated being able to move their arms and open their wide crushing mouths. It would be nice if every Nutcracker in the nation were to animate and march down the streets to find despots, fascists and and drive them from the nation. Unfortunately, they can only stand at attention.

After Pulse: Joe Saunders

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Joe Saunders is a former State Representative and a senior political director at Equality Florida and formerly staff at the Human Rights Campaign. He is an Orlando LGBT activist. Pulse opened while Joe was a student at UCF. The club anchored it’s outreach around college students. His roommate became a bartender at Pulse. His first apartment was just a few blocks from Pulse.

Joe was in North Carolina doing political response work. He had worked crazy hours like 15 hours a day. At 2AM his phone lit up with a text chat thread from a group of friends in Orlando. He was till working at 2AM. People were saying something is happening at Pulse. One friend was in an apartment within view of the club.  He kept hearing bangs which could be multiple gun shots.

The text thread search began, who was out and where they safe. After waking the next morning by 10AM he had to return home to Orlando. After a quick plane flight be got to the gay and lesbian center for a press conference held there. The Center is not a huge space. A huge bouncer was a the door directing people. The windows had fogged up. You had to carve your way through all the reporters and cameras that were packed into the room. The space was full to capacity. Equality Florida announced at the press conference that they wanted to do a vigil at Lake Eola.

Plans began for the vigil began right away. The city of Orlando was concerned about security. Could a copycat shooter show up at the vigil? The city ultimately decided the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts would be a safer option and easier for police to defend. Police snipers were on the roof of the Methodist Church and City hall just in case anything went down. Joe was the MC for the vigil. The vigil became one of the most important visual moments of the Orlando community response to Pulse and it came together in 6 hours.

Smokey Jay’s BBQ

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I have an advanced Urban Sketching student I am working with and we meet each week at Lake Eola. Last week we sketched the farmers market where everyone sits under the huge live oak tree.

We discovered that the Lake Eola Farmer’s Market closes down about 2:30pm and we were still in the midst of the sketch as tents were taken down and vendors packed up.

Despite this, we decided to once again sketch the street vendors dishing out plenty of BBQ to the mask less crowds.

While we were sketching this week it started to rain just as I was starting to put watercolor washes over the sketch. Last week it also threatened to sketch and we bolted with the crowds as soon as the winds picked up.

This week, we held our ground. I packed away my sketch in my art bag and decided to wait until the rain stopped. The weather radar on my phone made it seem like the storm would be very short lived. As the rain became torrential, people crowded under window and porch awnings. The pine trees we were under were actually pretty good cover so we moved closer to the trunk and waited. The rain eventually did let up a bit and I painted a huge puddle of blue in the foreground before the rain became worse and forced me to once again close the sketch book.

Since we were already soaked through to the bone, it made no sense to seek cover. It was actually quite refreshing getting soaked. As we continued to debate if it might be possible to complete the sketch, the vendors started packing up. Where we were seated was where the vendors would stack up their dismantled tents so that settled it, we would have to move on. The assignment then became to complete the sketch and make it seem like a torrential summer shower had not thrown a wrench into the creative process. If this sketch looks like a royal mess, that is because it is a royal mess.

Swan Boats

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On Sunday I met an advanced Urban Sketching student at Lake Eola. Out mission was to sketch the swan boats.

Fencing has been added to this area making it impossible to sketch from nearby benches. Grass areas around the swan boats were also blocked of with yellow tape probably because new seed was added.

We settled on this view down a ramp to the water. I did this sketch as a demo to explain what I include in a sketch and why.

The first five minutes of a sketch are often the most important because the entire scene will be blocked in on the page and the rest is all about detail. I did the preliminary work in pencil and then let my student get to work as well.

The excitement of working on location is that different actors keep entering the scene while the sketch is in progress. At first a guy stood with his cell phone. Then a couple came by with a bag of seed and they fed the swans. Three Italian men held up a cell phone and spoke to relatives back home. I finally settled on this mother swan and her offspring. Dog owners kept walking by and the mother swan would lunge forward and hiss at the dogs. People are clueless. These swans have to be on the defensive every minute of their lives. Swan boats were loaded and returned in quick order as we sketched. Only one swan boat had a canopy, so I bet it got hot out there on the water.

A pug owner was walking his dog and the pup lay down next to my student and refused to move. She is a pug owner and he must have sniffed out his new friend. The pug leaned into all the pets and pretty much had to be dragged off to continue huffing along on his walk. We got to learn all about the owners history with pets. Sadly his last dog did not live long since it got cancer. These sorts of exchanges are what makes sketching on location such a pleasure.