Leesburg Art Festival

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While living in Lake County Florida I was searching for events to sketch and I found the Leesburg Art Festival. Art Festivals are always fun sketch opportunities with artists selling their wares in tents. Tom make a living as an artist in Florida you sometimes have to be a gypsy. I got to the festival with plenty of time to spare to get a sketch. I decided quickly to make sure to get the historic clock in the town square in my sketch.

I was surprised to find that the artists were all packing up their art to break down their tents. There were many hours to go before the art festival was over. I decided to sketch even as the artists were making their escape.

The lady on the left hand side of my sketch had already broken down her tent. She was curious about me and we started to talk. She explained that the organizers of the art festival had seen that a thunder storm was coming so all the artists were breaking down and getting out of Dodge before the heavy rain started. All her tent poles were at the curb and soon her husband drove up and she packed everything into his SUV.

Across From me the guy with the pink had and shirt was selling jewelry. He was much slower to pack up. I decided to sketch him twice. The Leesburg clock kept spinning as I raced to finish the sketch before getting soaked. It turned out that I didn’t need to rush. I finished before a single rain drop fell. I closed the sketch book and decided I wanted to get a scoop of ice cream.

Leesburg has a quaint historic feel and I went into Mystic Ice Cream shop on my walk back to my car. I ordered two scoops of vanilla in a big cone and sat in the ice cream shop front counter to look out and watch for the rain. Old album covers were on all the walls and lava lamps could be found in every corner. I liked the place. I want to return some day to sketch the ice cream shop. Mystic has another ice cream shop  in Fruitland Park that has Karaoke. I went there once with Stella Arbelaez, and we had a fun time sketching the place while listening to some very talented singers along with some questionable clunkers. I loved singing along, but I am not one to get on stage. Only those closest to me get to hear my singing voice. It is so rare to have a friend who loves to experience the world that way I do. I had so much fun that night. I asked the lady serving my ice cream, and Mystic in Leesburg does not host Karaoke nights.

It still hadn’t rained but the sky was now a dark slate grey. Once I got back to my Prius the first big drops hit the wind shield. It rained hard on the entire drive back to my art studio.

Brooklyn’s Pizza Dining room

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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.

Disney Feature Animation Reunion

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The Disney Feature Animation Alum held a reunion In Orlando Florida on March 8, 2026. I drove Stella Arbelaéz and James Paris to the hotel in my Prius. It has been 22 years since the Florida Studio closed its doors, ending a long tradition of hand drawn animation. When we entered the hotel, the open lobby area was packed full of familiar faces. Large tables were set up with bites and there was a table for drinks. We had some free drink tickets and I decided to have a Coke so that I was flitting about like a Humming Bird.

Every time I turned around, I saw someone I had not seen in decades. There was a large screen set up which showed photos of life in the animation studio from years ago. I know now that what I really wanted to see was all the art that had been created by these amazing artists since the Disney Feature Animation Studio closed. I didn’t need to look back. I wanted to look forward.

I knew what James Paris had worked on since we had talked extensively at Stella’s studio, but for most folks I met at the reunion, I could only get an abbreviated elevator pitch of what they were working on. Being a visual artist, I wanted to see it all. I had been in talks with the Museum director at the Orange County History Center about having tables set up at the museum so that former Disney artists could showcase and sell their recent art work the day before or after the reunion. That idea fell through when the director got another job in NYC. I had just returned from 3 months in Europe where I had sketched the 70 or so cities that my father’s 75th Infantry Division had helped liberate in WWII so I found myself repeating that story often.

Kevin Deters had flown in from California. He had stayed with Disney and went on to direct Prep and Landing which was an animated short about elves helping Santa land his sleigh. Aaron Blaise has gone on to produce direct and animate his own short film called Snow Bear and he founded Creature Teacher which has taken off as an online an in-person way to encourage the next generation of animation artists. Xiangyuan (Jay) Jie had helped set the style of the gorgeous painterly backgrounds for Brother Bear. I admired his work on that film so much, and I got to paint beside him in the after-hours painting sessions with models. Jie speaks best through paint since he still isn’t fluent in speaking English. He spoke with me and his wife helped translate. He had images on his iPhone he wanted to show me. He had an amazing sketch of me from one of those after-hours paint sessions. I looked so focused in his sketch. He said there were images I should see on the big screen as well but there were so many pictures that I could not wait for the reel to make its way around again. I was quickly drawn into another conversation.

Laurie Ashborne had a cameraman set up in the corner of the venue. She was asking each artist a few questions about their memories of the studio. This is what I decided to sketch quickly. While working on this sketch I was approached and I was amazed that someone was very familiar with my work. There was some honest reverence in the way my work was acknowledged. I don’t experience that very often. It was heartwarming. With the sketch finished I went and stood in line to offer Laurie my quick answers to her questions. It was a fun interview. I hope a sound bite makes it into her documentary about the Florida Feature Animation Studio.

The whole evening was such a whirlwind. It was like trying to digest hundreds of stories of artistic growth in just a few hours. Bill Silvers has made a career of doing large Disney character themed paintings that are sold at Disney Village. Ginger Wolf gave me her card. She has also become a painter. Former animator, Trey Finney lost his wife Christine Lawrence Finney who was my supervisor at Disney. They had both become painters after leaving Disney. She had a warm heart and was delightful to work for. Christine gave me the opportunity to supervise the final clean up on the director’s cut of Pocahontas. Scenes were added which had been left out of the original film. The largest scene was a love song (If I Never Knew You) sung by John Smith when he was being held captive and Pocahontas gently placed her head on his chest while he sang. The camera rotated  around the couple as he sang, making it a mechanically challenging scene to work on. I worked out long timing charts to keep the even timing of the rotation consistent. I was proud of the result. It was so rare to have complete control of both lead characters in a scene.

I was amazed by so many of the artists I got to meet again. The Disney Feature Animation Studio had truly been like catching lightning in a bottle. All that talent spread out across the country after the studio was shuddered in 2004, but I decided to stay and make my mark right here in Orlando.

Stella, James and I met near the hotel reception and made out way out to the parking lot. Good-byes lasted for at least an hour. It was a shame to leave, but we had an exciting ride back sharing stories of who we had caught up with.  The following morning, the main shooting would begin on James Paris’s short film. We all needed our rest. The caffeine had worn off, and I collapsed in my Air B&B and instantly fell asleep. As always I was an outsider looking in, even in my dreams.

Procrasticare Day 1

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The Disney Feature Animation Alum held a reunion In Orlando Florida on March 8, 2026. Former Disney artists from all over the country flew into Orlando for the one-night reunion.

James Paris was working at Disney Feature Animation when I first began doing drawings for the feature film Pocahontas. Animation in those days was done with pencil and paper. I worked in what was known as the “Fishbowl” where a glass wall allowed Hollywood Studio theme park tourists the chance to see the Disney magic firsthand. Little did they know that they had to watch the new kid on the block. My first desk was right against the glass and James had a more private cubicle inside the room, maybe 20 feet from the wall of curious by passers.

My first Feature Animation Clean up drawings were for what is called slow ins. That is where the drawings get closer and closer together until the lines literally touch and overlap. It was grueling line between line work, yet I found it relaxing. The challenge was to keep these in-betweens just as aesthetically pleasing as the Key Drawings which the animator did to show the extremes of an action. James would clean up those Key drawings and then he needed to be sure my drawing matched the line quality and aesthetic of his drawings.

I was assigned to the Powhattan unit and James was put in charge of checking my drawings. Powhattan was the father of Pocahontas, and he had stoic and controlled movements. All that slow movement required 12 to 24 drawings per second which kept me quite busy. At first all the tourists watching me draw was distracting but with so many drawings to do I soon forgot they were there, looking over my shoulder through the thick glass wall.

James was meticulous in checking my drawings, at times completely redrawing an in-between. I adopted the same level of methodical control as I moved up the ladder and began checking the work of other artists. I liked this check in process since it was a chance to get away from the drawing desk and interact with another artist. I probably learned quite a bit watching James rework my drawings.

To justify the expense of flying to Orlando from Las Angeles California, James decided he would shoot a live action short at Stella Arbelaéz’s home studio. He story boarded the whole film in LA and had a shot list prepared so that he knew exactly what needed to be shot each day. Most of the shooting would be done on the day after the Feature Animation Reunion which was March 7, 2026. James arrived at Stella’s on March 7 and had all the movie lighting and equipment delivered to her place in the morning. That night before we all drove to the reunion, he had much of the equipment set up and he just wanted to capture a few shots of Stella’s hand painting on the canvas.

The story of Procristicare is straight forward. Stella is on her couch scrolling and looking at social media posts. She is not creating. Time is being lost. She sees an online add for Procrasticare and is curious. She signed up for the service. Almost immediately a young woman showed up at her front door and announced that she is with Procrasticare. Stella was holding her phone when she opened the door and when the Procrasticare worker saw the phone, she grabbed it and ran. She rode away on a bicycle. I had just tuned up that bicycle, fixing a flat and getting the brakes aligned, and I put a phone holder on the handle bars. I am glad the bike got some screen time.

I drew Stella and James twice in my sketch. James spent a long time getting familiar with the camera and the motion stabilizer set up. While he was working out that tech, Stella was reviewing her student’s classwork on her computer. When the shooting began, Stella stood at the easel and added brush strokes to the canvas. James moved the camera around the room fluidly. It was all very physical.

With that shot done we all got ready for the reunion, and I drove James and Stella in my Prius to the hotel where the reunion was being held. Some Feature Animation artists had met earlier to see a screening of Mulan at a theater down near the hotel, but we were busy shooting a movie, we didn’t have time to play the part of being an audience.

The Bug in Mount Dora Florida

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My bike needed a major tune up when I lived up in Lake County Florida. I took it to Adrenaline Bike Works (206 N Highland Street, Mount Dora, FL). They did a great job of fixing a flat and getting the brake pads balanced. It felt like a new ride when I left. A few months prior I had just purchased an inner tube and I replaced it myself. However, I had to drill the hole in the aluminum rim a bit larger to get the valve to fit. I think I must have left a few aluminum shards behind because the next time I went to use the bike the tire was flat.

The time I wanted to use the bike I was going to Stella Arbelaéz’s Graduation. It was a several mile bike ride from the artist studios to the UCF stadium where the graduation was taking place. I was more than disappointing when I got on the bike and found that the tire was flat. It was a moment to shout out and curse the gods. I decided to walk the distance to the graduation ceremony. I was a sweaty mess in my dress shirt and fashionable slacks when I arrived, but I made it in time.

Next to Adrenaline Bike Works was this shell of a VW Beatle which was turned into a menacing metal spider. The sculpture was unveiled in January of 2020. It was built by John Henns who owns the commercial property at Highland Street and 3rd Avenue. The bug is painted an ominous black. Any arachnophobics who happen to drive by might get a fright. The Volkswagen or, translated, the People’s Car was car developed from an idea of Adolf Hitler himself.  To me the VW Beatle symbolized the Nazi ideals which included concentration camps and ethnic cleansing, which makes it all the more frightening.

School must have just let out when I started the sketch, because large groups of school children kept walking past as I worked. One student shouted out, looks great! And I gave him a thumbs up.

James Chonody Street Artist Little Econ Trail

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I have been biking the Little Econ Greenway Trail each morning since I have been in an Airbnb in Azalea Park. I set up this short-term rental for two weeks. Stella Arbeláez pointed out that the place was very close to the Little Econ trail. I am glad I made it a limited stay in Azalea Park, because the house is directly under the flight path of planes landing at the Executive Airport. I thought only little Cessna’s landed at that airport, but I was wrong. The planes also fly over the Little Econ Trail but the noise isn’t as bad since the planes have more elevation when flying over the trail.

I tend to bike the trail as soon as I wake up in the morning. I know that the heat builds and I would rather not be sweating when the Florida heat reaches it’s peak in the afternoon. Riding my bike each morning gives me time to think, and it allows my body to heal faster after my hernia repair operation. The time spent biking also allows me to reflect on what I want to accomplish for the day.

One morning I noticed an artist set up in one of the picnic canopies working on a painting. I had wanted to bring along my art bag so I could do a sketch on the trail, but I managed to forget it back at the Airbnb. I cursed my thoughtlessness and rode by, hoping I might catch him the next day. Thankfully he was indeed there the next day. I rode past again because I wanted to be sure to do a full circuit of the trail. On the ride back, I stopped to introduce myself.

James Chonody was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt that looked like Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting. My awkward introduction was warmly received by James, and he started to tell me all about his career as a location artist. James gave up drinking about 7 years ago and at the same time he took up painting. He thought he might reward himself with a drink after finishing his first painting, but he became completely obsessed with that first painting and forgot all about drink. Painting had kept him sober for 7 years. I feel the need to get lost in the creative process once every day to keep my life on point, and I suspect James feels that same need. He said that children who like to spin obsessively are prone to want to drink later in life. They like the feeling of being a bit off balance. Art does the opposite.  It offers a chance to be completely balanced and very much aware of the surroundings.

As James related his life story I felt like our paths were very much alike. He worked for Disney helping engineer the parade floats, and I put in 10 years at Disney Feature Animation. He feels more satisfaction now that he is producing art that satisfies his tastes. We had some fun bashing Disney executives.

James blocks in his paintings quickly and can do several paintings a day. He doesn’t like to over polish a painting, he likes the look of definite bold brushwork. I was a little worried because he felt the mason jar painting he was working on looked complete. I just hoped he would work on it long enough for me to finish my sketch from across the bike path. He did continue painting by adding lights to the background of the piece. He started packing up at about noon. I think like me he likes to get back to the studio before the worst of the Florida heat hits.

His painting often starts with a black ground. He explained that this allowed the darkest darks to already be in place, he just needed to add lights. We joked about watercolor artists who refuse to use black. They spend so much time mixing black with burnt Umber and ultramarine, blue. Like James I am happy to just use black if it suits the needs of the sketch.

He is a member of the Sanford Seminole Art Association and he encourages artists to paint on location. I hope to stop out and join them at some point. I am always excited to learn about a new arts organization.

The story James related of resilience and using art to rebuild oneself really resonated with me. James is 74 years old and he has his art for sale as he works on a painting. As we were speaking someone walked up to his artist’s area and they were in the market to buy the painting James had of a golden retriever dog swimming. The person didn’t have enough cash, and he offered James a down payment. James suggested he look for an ATM cash machine nearby. He joked with me that the park should really set up an ATM near the picnic canopy where he sells his art since the art sells so well. As I was finishing my sketch, the guy returned with the rest of the cash to buy the painting.

James explained that it was a good day since he had sold several paintings and he had replenished his artistic stock by completing a painting of the mason jar full of lemonade. He also had a painting of a mason jar full of fruit loops cereal. He said people love nostalgia and nostalgia sells. That Fruit Loops painting would end up in someone’s breakfast nook, of that he was certain.

Other paintings on display were of Italianate architecture.  James said that some people could spot his engineering background in his artwork. I sometimes get similar comments about my location sketches. James paints live at events, so we certainly have much in common. It was such a pleasure to meet a fellow artist on a beautiful Sunday morning. Showcasing his work outside allows him to meet people and sell art.  He wondered why more artists don’t do it. I want to live more like James when I grow up.

Gouache Video Workshop

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Stella Arbelàez and I painted along with a gouache and color theory workshop video. It is fun learning new painting skills with another artist. Only 3 tubes of gouache along with white were needed for the workshop. Since I was borrowing the dabs of gouache from Stella, I was very conservative about how much paint I used. On a few occasions I used some of my watercolors when the gouache ran low. The colors used were Red, Yellow and Blue which are the primary colors. Any other color can be mixed from those three colors. There was no use of black on the palette. Instead, the instructor focused on how to best mix warm blacks and cool blacks. All the variations were so subtle.

The gouache colors used are very pure and thus very dark and full of pigment. Very often white would need to be mixed into the color to differentiate one color from another. Being able to paint a light color on top of a dark color was a thrilling change for me, since I have only worked with thin washes of watercolor for years.

The instructor had us mix a gradation between two complimentary colors. He picked yellow and purple. In the middle of the mixture the colors neutralize or become muddy. This is important since most colors seen in nature are not pure and vibrant, they have to be muddied up a bit. My everyday palette is organized so that complimentary colors are opposite one another. I often will find myself mixing complimentary colors to make them less vibrant.

We all worked from the same reference which was a scene of a market in Flushing or Queens New York under the elevated subway tracks. Having lived in NYC for 10 years I was very familiar with the scene. It reminded me of the early morning fish market I used to sketch at the southern tip of New York City. It would be great to return to the fish market again since I know I could capture the scene so much better than I did way back in the late 1980s.

I love finding colors while mixing. That is why I used to love to paint in oils. I stopped using oils simply because I never want to leave any trace of paint behind when working on location. I work fast and sloppy so the change of oils getting on my hands and then on a carpet of cushion are pretty high. Working gouache into my everyday kit seems like a good compromise. I can keep part of the sketch fluid with thin washes and them add opaque paint in areas where it is most needed.

If I were to use thick paint as I did in this workshop then it would become necessary to start working smaller. For me the biggest challenge is to always try to keep the brush clean. I might be painting in the darks and then decide to try and paint a bright and light color. The darker color always seems to find a way to hide deep inside the bristles and then muddy up the light color I was hoping to paint. Plenty of experimentation is going to be needed.

I purchased a small landscape hardbound sketchbook that I will try and use at the Orlando International Fringe Festival in May. That is where I will experiment with using gouache for the first time extensively. There are so many other supplies I would like to get, but I am living out of a backpack right now and don’t want to carry too much weight.

Langford Park Orlando

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After the experience with Jeff Wirth as part of  the Play Coach Story Swap, Stella Arbeláez and I decided it would be nice to do a painting in Langford Park. Stella had her full painting set up in her car and I had my usual sketching supplies. Langford Park and Dickson Azalea Park are right next to one another. The little stream that runs through Azalea Park also runs through Langford Park. Langford park is more open and expansive with some of the oldest trees in Orlando.

Stella and I set up on a sort of peninsula that is between several paved hiking trails. The advantage of this spot was that few people would walk buy as we were working. It offered privacy in the otherwise very public park. While we were painting and sketching, a large group of after school children were being guided on a forced march around Langford. The adult in charge would shout at the top of her lungs, “ Sarah, stop right there! Let everyone catch up!”  The fits and starts of the forced march were punctuated with constant commands from the supervising adult. Was my childhood that structured and highly supervised? Dear god I hope not. Rather than enjoying the sights and sounds of nature these kids were being hearded to the point of squeezing away any joy.

Stella set up her easel and was doing a full on painting while I sat in my tiny artist stool and sketched the tree and stream. Stella got to play with magnificent warms and cools in her study , while I cranked out my dark sketch of a beautiful live oak with it’s twisted limbs. The focus of my composition was the horizontal light gap below the gnarly branches. The grass was sun lit on the distance while the live oak was a dark mass casting much of the scene into the shadows.

I got up a few times to see what Stella was up to. I liked the vibrant colors she was playing with. I have been getting frustrated lately at how dirty the colors are that I end up using thanks to of my filthy everyday watercolor palette. It is almost impossible for me to get a clean blue sky without some green getting thrown into the mix.  I just purchased 3 tubes of primary colors of gouache yesterday and want to start using them to mix more opaque passages in my sketches.

In this sketch, I wanted to make the hanging Spanish moss more obvious but the areas had already been painted with dark greens. I lightened up the moss with some white colored pencil but gouache would have worked much better. It would also be nice to paint in some light gaps between the bulk of the leaves. I have some of the parts to assemble a compact easel. I just need to settle down long enough to actually screw the parts together.

There is something very reassuring about working beside and artist whose work I respect, knowing that they are experiencing the same doubts, and frustrations while creating. There is a dopamine rush that comes as the many mistakes and corrections start bringing the sketch or painting to life. I get lost in the process and despite the many questions and doubts, I feel good about having gone through the process each time. I need to feel that rush every day. It is an addiction.

Play Coach Story Swap

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Jeff Wirth is a dynamic theatrical powerhouse in the interactive Orlando Theater Community. I sketched some of his unique workshops and productions early in my Orlando sketch a day journey. In one workshop he demonstrated the proper way to roll up electrical chords. You wind the chord between your wrist and elbow and every other turn the chord needs to be flipped to take away some of the rotational tension. Anyway, I think of Jeff every time I roll up a chord after working in the shop.

Jeff is the director at the Interactive Play lab. The Play Lab fosters Interactive performance  where audience members become co-creators of performed fiction. The Interactive PlayLab provides resources and training for creators of interactive performance. Jeff offers books, e-books, apps and templates to help performers meet their full potential,

Jeff moved to New York for a number of years and he dropped off my radar. When he returned to Orlando he immediately promoted his Interactive Play experiences on Facebook. I signed up but wanted to find a way to also sketch the experience. Sketching is how I play. I recruited a dear friend, Stella Arbeláez to also participate. The experience involved sharing stories and I know she is exceptional at sharing her story.

We met Jeff at the entrance to Dickson Azalea Park. I was looking at the possibility of buying a home in the Azalea Park area, so I considered it a sign that the universe was speaking to me. The home it turns out had termites that had infested all the roof rafters. Since I wasn’t up to rebuilding the home from the inside out, I abandoned the sale. All the reconstruction costs would have added over $100,000 to the price.

We walked with Jeff through the park until we came to a bench that overlooked a babbling stream. Jeff and Stella sat on the bench and I set up my little artist stool to sketch. Boo Boo jumped up on Stella’s lap and settled in. He was having a grand time with all the new smells to be found in Azalea park.

The structure of the Story Swap was pretty straight forward, Jeff asked a few questions and let Stella relate her stories of  shock and recovery. I will not recount what she discussed, they are her stories to tell, but they left me feeling inspired that the creative human spirit is incredibly resilient.  She took a sip from her aluminum water canister between tales.

Jeff then relayed his own story of a young relationship which had to end, yet there was no animosity in the separation. They both loved one another but work pulled the couple in different directions. They walked into divorce court holding hands. Having lived through a bitter divorce that probably still clouds my dark view of what a relationship can become, and having a marriage proposal refused, I found his story of loving separation surprising and ideal. Like an army retreating, my bridges are demolished with explosives.

I was so elated to have two of my dear friends relating such intimate and heart warming stories the very first time they met. When I look at social media or follow politics I see nothing but stories of violence and deception. I make it a policy that once I see a punch thrown on social media I turn it off and instead go about doing a sketch. Sitting with Jeff and Stella made me feel that there is still hope for friends to share meaningful stories that show how the human spirit can grow despite life’s challenges. Life can be a playful challenging adventure that is meant to be shared.

After the story swap, Jeff walked off, and Stella and I decided to do a painting in the park. We walked off to the car to get art supplies and when we got there, Stella realized she didn’t have her aluminum water canister. She riffled through the car but it wan’t there. She must have left it on the bench by the stream. We hiked back into Azalea Park toward the bench. As we got close, I noticed a man walking towards the bench. He was with his ten year old son. The dad picked up the water canister and started to walk off. We ran after him shouting out that the canister was Stella’s. He was happy to surrender it. Another of life’s tragedies had been narrowly averted.

Olive Garden

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I have been helping Stella Arbelaez with several large art projects. After a day of working in the studio, we went for dinner and a sketch at Olive Garden (10027 US Highway 441 Leesburg Fl). She had a coupon for a free dinner from years ago. She wasn’t sure it would work, but it was still valid. We ordered a big salad and pasta and then we both started to sketch while we waited for the food to come out. The menus on the tables were electronic. The displays flickered with adds constantly. I am amazed at how digital displays are invading even the simple act of going out to eat.

I focused on the group of diners seated next to us, while Stella did a sketch of me. Her sketch turned out rather good. It is one of the better sketches of me with my 75th Infantry cap and my beard.  There must have been about 5 different servers who stopped by the table. One was an artist himself who was attending college. The fellow who brought out the food would respond with “I got you” for any request. He said it to everyone in our section of the restaurant. I find myself saying it now in a joking way anytime someone makes a request.

There is something truly rewarding and relaxing about sketching with another artist. being around another artist you know they understand the struggle to create. A sketch isn’t easy, It is often a compilation of mistakes which hopefully is believable in the end. There might be two steps forward and then a step back. It is simply reassuring that sketching around another artist there is no expectation of perfection. As she put it, there is no need to act like a “normie’. We could just relax and be ourselves as we created.  For me there is always a feeling that I need to capture the moment with a sketch. In a restaurant there is a certain rush to try and block in the sketch before the food comes out. In Europe, especially Paris, many people will linger over a meal and watch the world go by, but in America there is a rush to get people served and out the door as quickly as possible.

I have gotten used to eating out alone, because that way I can always get a sketch done. It is a rare pleasure to share the experience with someone else.