Eola Slumber

Posted on by Thor

I went to Lake Eola in Orlando Florida to conduct an advanced Urban Sketching workshop with a student. As I was walking around the lake to meet her near the swam boats, would be the only one in the park wearing a face mask. I was wrong. I saw someone on a park bench fast asleep using a face mask to cover their eyes, to keep out the bright Florida sun. I didn’t have time to sketch this person, so I committed it to memory.

It seemed to me a perfect analogy to where we are as a country right now. Most Americans are “done” with the pandemic and have decided to put on blinders to go about life as normal in the midst of the pandemic. We are in a momentary lull. But lulls don’t last in a pandemic. It ain’t over until the fat lady sings.

The White House may decide to back off on the COVID National Emergency status. The public health emergency (PHE) was initially declared by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in late January 2020, pursuant to Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act. A PHE lasts for 90 days and must be renewed to continue; the PHE for COVID-19 has been renewed several times, most recently in April 2022, and is currently scheduled to expire in mid-July 2022. Possibly allowing the PHE to expire isn’t being based on experts or any science but rather on the fact that there are mid term elections coming up and it would be impossible to get re-elected while the country was in the midst of a national emergency. The only solution is to put on the blinders.

Crealde Class

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On Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 12:30 I am teaching an Urban Sketching class at Crealde School of Art. Last week we focused on drawing people by sketching each other.

This demo sketch was done to show how to block in figures and make them feel well grounded to the chair they are sitting in. The basic premise is to draw the chair and then draw the person seated in the chair.

The sketches were just 5 minutes in duration and I was showing how watercolor can be used to also block in masses quickly,

I modeled to start taking several longer 10 minute poses to get the students started. Then each student posed for 5 minutes while we all sketched. It was raining, so we worked indoors.

I was quite proud that all my students kept their focus and got n impressive amount of work done in the time we had.

At this point I was suggesting that the students get one or two figures on the page but by the end of class we were again sketching the entire scene.

Urban Sketching at Elite Animation.

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For the Urban Sketching Course I teach at Elite Animation Academy, I take the kids down to a local pond. We sketch the ducks who have just had chicks. If you stay very still, the mom a duck brings her chicks right up to you, assuming I suppose that we will feed them. It is a great opportunity to get quick sketches of them.  They never stay still of course, so getting a sketch is a challenge.

the students are also instructed to sketch the architecture of the shopping mall that i n eat to the lake. Finding the vanishing point is a challenge to many beginning Sketchers, but I point out the visual cues to each student one on one. Some kids just put the sketchbook aside and enjoy the sun. [ can lead them to water but I can’t make teem drink. A little day dreaming is also part of the artistic process. When we get back to the classroom, we tape our favorite sketch on the board and have a mini art show.

Urban Sketching workshops at Elite Animation,

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I am now teaching Urban Sketching Course at Elite Animation Academy  (8933 Conroy Windermere Rd, Orlando, FL) to middle school and high school students.This is a wonderful opportunity for me to share my love of simple direct observation and the pleasure that can be found from always carrying a sketch pad. The small class size, allows me to always offer notes for every student’s sketch. The first hour of each class, we work in the classroom on warm up exercises and the day’s lesson. Then we break out of the classroom and sketch on location somewhere in the neighborhood. On this occasion, we sketched in a Subway’s Sandwich shop. The lesson on this sketch outing was one point perspective and the students looked down the length of the shop.  It is always rewarding to watch students get lost in the process. The re is always some socializing as well, and I has he to find the right balance between work and play. If only a few students develop the habit of documenting their lives in sketches, then I have certain done my job.

My Urban Sketching students tackle new architecture.

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With my Urban Sketching class at Elite Animation Academy, (8933 Conroy Windermere Rd, Orlando, FL) I seek out unique sketching opportunities in the Conroy Windermere neighborhood. The Tavistock Financial Center (4705 S Apopka Vineland Rd, Orlando, FL) on the corner of Apopka Vineland and Conroy road was erected a few years ago. It houses a brokerage firm and several other businesses I’m sure. It was built in an Italian, Mediterranean style with the two functionless bell towers. On the weekend, which is when we had the class, there is no traffic at this front door round about. One of my students peeked in the front doors, but the building was locked.

My two students sat on the sidewalk and curb and they worked hard to get the immense building on the page. It was a good exercise in two point perspective. These students had already proven themselves as competent sketchers, so I let them block in their sketches uninterrupted.  I sketched along with them and I showed them my process each time I completed a phase. They saw the rough pencil pass, the pen and ink work and then the watercolor. As we worked, dark thunder clouds rolled in from the North West. The sky darkened to a threatening steel grey. Thankfully we all finished our sketches and got back to the classroom before the deluge.

The Travistock Financial Center combines the best of classic columns
and arches of the Mediterranean architectural style with modern
international design detail. Hand selected slate floors, exotic
hardwood panels and marble are used throughout the atrium lobby and
common areas. Dramatic artwork and plasma monitors adorn the wood
veneer paneled walls. Glass and metal will are combined
to create inviting and productive well lit interior spaces. Built over
secured parking and surrounded by lush, beautifully landscaped grounds,
the office building is both dramatic and functional. A full time
concierge provides an unparalleled level of service for tenants. The
concierge will be focused on making your life easier so that you can
focus on your business.The Financial Center also has
state-of-the-art security features that provide true peace of mind
for all tenant and guests.Ample on site parking is available. It looks like there are still office spaces for lease.

My Urban Sketching class gets students sketching everyday events.

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I have been teaching an Urban Sketching course at Elite Animation Academy, 8933 Conroy Windermere Rd, Orlando, FL.  My goal is to get kids out of the classroom and sketching in the community. I start by teaching a few drawing fundamentals to see where my students stand. When l feel they are ready, we head out to find subjects in the neighborhood. In this case, we went to Jeremiah’s Ice, 4750 The Grove Drive Windermere FL. The challenge with this scene was that the line is constantly moving. The advantage was that there was always a line. In class we had worked on a series of quick five minute poses which hopefully helped get them ready for sketching from life on location.

The student I put in the foreground of my sketch seemed very tentative in class, but once he started sketching on location he worked with a bold confident line. I missed the mark a bit in my sketch because the person at the front of the line looks like he is facing the wall rather than facing the woman taking his order. I am happy to have caught the mom’s gesture as she guided her son up to the window.

Yesterday, Terry and I went to see Inside Out at the West Orange Theater, 1575 Maguire Rd #109, Ocoee, FL. There are always campy local ads running right until show time. An ad for Elite Animation appeared on the big screen. I was pleasantly surprised to see myself in a quick 2 second shot within the promo. I’ve seen my drawings appear many times on the big screen but this was the only time I had ever appeared on a big screen. Terry was getting popcorn so she didn’t see my on screen debut. I can’t let it go to my head. Just in case, I’ll start writing an Oscar acceptance speech. Oh, and be sure to see Inside Out in theaters now. Pixar has hit another home run. I gave it 10 out of 10 Joys.

Teaching Urban Sketching at China Garden.

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At Elite Animation Academy (8933 Conroy Windermere Rd, Orlando, FL), I have been teaching Urban Sketching to three very talented students. Megan has her own car, so she is in a perfect position to find places and events to fill her sketchbooks. Mathew absolutely loves the idea of going out into the community and sketching. He said, that he had waited his whole life for this chance. Samuel, who was usually accompanied by his father, tended to be uncertain when I suggested warm up sketch exercises in the class room. When we went out on location however, he was a natural. He would boldly sketch in a scene directly in ink, and I admired his approach.

On this day, we went to China Garden (8833 Conroy Windermere Rd, Orlando, FL) to practice cafe sketching. Megen and Samuel sat in a booth and Mathew joined me at a center table. In this class I had introduced everyone to watercolors and I let them go for a solid hour and a half as they focused on completing a sketch. At Elite we use office paper that has been three hole punched to fit on animation peg bars. This keeps the sheets of paper flush to each other so the animation stays in place. Unfortunately, office paper is very thin which makes it less than ideal for watercolor washes. I kept advising students to invest in nice sketchbooks with at least 100 pound paper. Samuel was the first to get his own set of Urban Sketching supplies while Mathew and Megan limped by on the office paper. I decided to do a sketch on the animation paper to see how it wrinkled.

I ordered a General Tao’s chicken as a late lunch to eat as I sketched. The order took forever to arrive. People sitting at a table next to us had been sitting there since our class arrived and they were grumbling about how long they had been waiting. The woman noticed Mathew sketching and she said, “Be sure to catch my good side.” Students had to borrow my water brushes which are a bit dried out it  hard to squeeze the water out of them.   I saw Megan squeezing her brush like she was trying to strangle it death. I gave her more water, which helped. She joked with me that she expected to see herself strangling the brush in my sketch. She is right, I missed a golden sketch opportunity there. I offered Mathew my fortune cookie, and he popped it into his mouth without cracking it open to check his fortune. He ate his fortune! I don’t know if he will ever know what it was.

I’m proud of each of these new Urban Sketchers. Megan came up with a strong composition in which the details in the figures she drew were offset by large open spaces of the booth backs. Samuel is like a focused machine when he works on location and Mathew has a strong eye for gesture and composition. If they each develop the habit of sketching daily, they will be grow in leaps and bounds outside the confines of a studio or classroom. Unfortunately there were no enrollments for the next 10 Urban Sketching classes, but that is just as well since I will be sketching in Turkey for three weeks as Terry and I explore this ancient country.

White Wolf Cafe

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Paul Horgan posed for the mural I did for the Menello Museum. I had to reconstruct the mural for a book I’m writing on Urban Sketching since the original file was on a now dead hard drive. Paul purchased the sketch I did of him on the evening of the mural’s unveiling. Since he is prominent at the front of the line I felt I deeded to get the sketch back to re-scan. He agreed to meet me at White Wolf Pizza.

White Wolf Cafe, (1829 N Orange Ave, Orlando, FL) was once an antique shop but is now a cafe and bar. I sat at the bar and sketched the line of nude ballet sculptures. The bar was empty until Larry finally sat down and started checking his phone for football scores. I ordered a German beer with an orange slice. It as quite good. A saxophone player, Gregory, who is Larry’s son, began to play. He plays at White Wolf just about every Saturday.

All that remains of the antiques are a series of Tiffany styled lamps scattered throughout the establishment. The bar tender was quite intrigued by my progress and wanted to shoot a photo but no one’s smart phone was working. When the sketch was done, I realized that Paul still hadn’t shown up. I got a text from him explaining that the pizza place was down the block. I met Paul and Ed Anthony, half way between the establishments. I believe they were going to check out a show at the Venue. I rescanned his sketch that night and got it into the book. A few days later, I returned the sketch to him by leaving at the Shakespeare theater box office. He is so well known in the theater community that he said I could leave it with anyone and they would know how to get it back to him.