Leesburg – Analog Artist Digital World

I went to Venetian Gardens in Leesburg Florida with a friend to paint. We made the mistake of getting to the gardens right before sunset. The golden hour light illuminated the far shore of the lake a golden orange. Two fishermen were out in small boats pulling in the last of their catch. It was a beautiful scene but we had to work supe fast to try and catch it.

The second it got dark, the mosquitos came out with a vengeance. We both scrambled to pack up our art supplies while getting bitten from all angles from clouds of mosquitos. I don’t even mind getting bitten, I just hate when the mosquitos buzz into my ears. I swear that every mosquito takes a kamikaze run at my ears. Hitting myself on the side of the head to try and kill the culprit is useless and deafening.

We both managed to get something 0n the page in the limited time we had. I of course would have liked more time to mix richer colors. I am considering making changes to my daily sketch kit to include gouache colors which can be applied opaque. With watercolors I can cover the page quickly with thin washes but there are times when I want to paint lights back into the sketch or mix rich pure colors. My watercolor palette is always rather dirty so finding pure color is a challenge.

In this same park there was a magnificent Christmas light display. Lights would flicker on and off in tempo with the music, and a series of reindeer would turn on in sequence making it seem like they were galloping across a bridge. I wanted to return to do a digital sketch of that display but I never got around to it. There were a few magical places to sketch in Lake County, but I have returned to downtown Orlando to search for the types of events that I have loved to sketch for years. I am on a sketching staycation in Thornton Park right now. I am staying at AirBnBs each week and walking downtown to explore and sketch. My goal is to stay in Orlando long enough to sketch the Orlando International Fringe Festival in May.

By Thomas Thorspecken

On July 4th I went to Ski Beach Park (201 E Dixie Ave, Leesburg, FL) for the Star Spangled Spectacular. I went fairly early to sketch the people who gathered for the fireworks. Parking in a field was still easy to accomplish.

The park overlooks Lake Harris and Monkey Island which has the remnants of a former boy scout camp . Across the narrow channel is the Pat Thomas Baseball Stadium that I sketched at several weeks ago.

People were already setting up tents and lawn chairs lake side. I saw that there was more activity at the tip pf the peninsula, so I walked in that direction. At the tip of the peninsula there were sand volleyball courts, food vendors, a stage and amusement rides.

I decided that the Berry Go Round was the most patriotic ride to sketch. Children would enter the dark interior of the berries and then a door would close behind them They could control how much the berry spun by using a steering wheel in the center of the berry. The Ferris Wheel was also quite popular with kids and parents alike.

As I sketched, the sky grew menacingly dark behind me. Thunder rumbled and the first rain drops hit my sketch. I cursed the fact that I had left my umbrella back in the car. I rushed back before the rain grew torrential. With the umbrella in hand I hiked back to the amusement rides, where I waited for the rain to stop. With my second pass at completing the sketch the crowds grew larger and a band started playing covers from the stage.

Behind me, Captain America was posing with kids. The sky grew even darker before I finished the sketch. I decided I would not be staying for the fire works. Having worked at Disney Feature Animation kind of turned me into a fireworks snob. At Disney I could watch fireworks every night of the week. Back at the Lake County studio I had cut a watermelon in half and served the two halves with a spoon. I still had plenty of watermelon left over and wanted to get back to scoop more out. That is my idea of a decent way to celebrate July 4th.