Mount Marshall, Shenandoah Park

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Stella Arbelaéz Tascón was hiking northbound over 107 miles along the Appalachian Trail going through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. I joined her for the final 13 miles after I returned from the 75th Infantry Division Reunion in Texas. I was hiking with her when she reached the northern terminus of the park. After passing out of the Shenandoah Park she wanted to keep hiking to give me a felling for what it is like to be a through hiker on the trail. She had me bring her some hiking boots to replace the trail runners she was wearing because the tread had worn off. We trans versed some very boulder strewn areas and the extra tread would be lifesaving. The problem was that the old hiking shoes that I had brought along started to break down. The glue holding the soul of the shoe in place gave way turning the hiking boots into flip flops. I had tape wrapped around the handle of the hiking poles I was using so we were able to tape the soul in place for the day. This wasn’t a workable long term hiking solution. We decided to cut the hike short as her toes were starting to get bruised from the boots that were now too small. When you hike a lot, your feet expand. I had boots that were a size 12 but when I got a new pair to wear to the Appalachian trail I ended up getting a size 13. My feet are expanding as I slowly shrink. We started doing day hikes from the car. Mount Marshall was a day hike for us rather than part of a through hike. We made our way to the summit over several hours then took our time painting for a couple of hours and It was a pleasant way to spend the day without the stress of hiking far enough to find water and a camping spot. Stella kept apologizing but I was having a blast. It was so fun to explore the beauty of nature with a talented artist friend. I haven’t painted with gouache for years. I had a tiny travel sized palette and the main problem came from trying to mix the paint without getting it too dirty on the palette. Part of me wanted to treat the paint like watercolor while the other part of wanted to treat the paint like oils. In general, the paintings turned out darker than the usual watercolors I do. Bees kept buzzing around me to the point of distraction. I wanted to swipe at them but didn’t want to make them angry. Stella found a nice shady spot near the rocks to paint from while my spot back near the trees soon was blasted with sunlight. I got a sunburn on my left arm and on my neck. I resisted my love affair with line, but in the end I started redrawing back into the painting. Stella had a nice set up where her palette was attached to her painting. I want to replicate that some day for my set up. I made a mess and I hope I learned from my mistakes. I intent to paint more often on location using gouache.

AADW Art used to Promote Concert by Mistake

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I was surprised to find Timucua Arts Foundation of Orlando Florida used art from the Analog Artist Digital World website to promote a concert where tickets were sold for $30 each without my permission. There were about 60 people in attendance. That is $1,800 raised before expenses. Granted that isn’t like the earnings of a Taylor Swift Concert, but it was using the art for profit.

The art was cropped and then semi transparent shapes were thrown on top of the the sketch. Unfortunately that is the world we live in where everyone thinks they are a designer since they have Photoshop. and or In Design.

Leah Nash from Timucua reached out several times to apologize and Benoit Glaser the Timucua founder apologized from the stage when I attended the concert. Twice I was told that no one had any idea why the image was lifted. I reached out to Benoit via e-mail but he wasn’t sure why the art was used without my consent. Erik Branch at the venue was also unaware what happened. All I needed was some explanation, so I could avoid this happening again. My work has been lifted many times in the past by local organizations, and each time this happens the copyright symbol gets bigger and darker on what I post online. I heard that AI makes it easy to remove any watermarks so my attempts to control usage are becoming mute.

Charles Griffin the organizer of the Composer’s Forum reached out to me and he showed me digital paperwork from many years ago where permission was requested to run the image on their composer’s online Forum. I donated a one time usage and paperwork was filled out to that effect. I am guessing that organizers had forgotten that only the one time usage was granted. Charlie said that he and all the composers donate their time to make the concert happen. An olive branch was offered and accepted. I turned the flame down on the burner and the steam stopped hissing. The story had a resolution.

T

Electric Delaney

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While walking around downtown Orlando around the start of the 5pm rush hour, I passes Art2 where Electric Delaney performed on her electric guitar. She was just setting up her music stand and little speaker when I arrived.

Art2 is billed as Downtown Orlando’s New Hub for Creativity and Connection. The space features food vendors, craft beverages, murals, and digital art experiences, the park reimagines outdoor community space. What I saw were digital ads for the Enzian Film Festival and some benches and tables on concrete. I don’t see how that reimagines outdoor community space. The space was funded by the City of Orlando’s Community Redevelopment Agency,

Electric Delaney performed for well over an hour giving me plenty of time to sketch. I couldn’t fit the entire facade on my sketch page but I tried to fish eye it into place. DTO Live performances happen all over downtown Orlando around lunch time and when the work day ends. It it a good way to introduce 9 to 5ers to the diversity of arts available in the City Beautiful.

I got a tin of colored pencils out to scribble on the sketch as the sun set. The wind started picking up and a gust sent by tin of pencils flying onto the cement with a metallic crash. Delaney stopped her set and helped me pick up the pencils. I was honestly the only person specifically watching her perform. Others were inside having drinks or at tables having animated conversations. As a visual artist I don’t really see the indifference of the people who might see my work, As a performer on stage you look out and can witness the indifference first hand. It takes a special kind of bravery to create under those circumstances.

Falcon

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The first Air B&B I stayed in while I was trying to figure out where to settle in Orlando was in Thornton Park. The place I stayed in was o the third floor and looked down Washington Street towards Lake Eola. When I looked the opposite way I could see Falcon bar and Gallery a block away. While walking around the neighborhood, I decided to stop at Cavo’s Bar and Kitchen across the street so I could get a sketch of the Falcon Bar and Gallery. The mural on the side of the building had been done years a go and the paint was starting to fade. The image of a woman hugging a swan seemed iconic at the time.

Today all the swans in Lake Eola have been corralled and moved out of downtown. The swans had developed bird flu and many died. Were the swans to pass the flue to humans there would be the possibility of another pandemic. The swans had clipped wings and therefor could not fly away. It was easy therefor to corral the swans with dozens of kayaks.

There were instanced where police found that swans had been kidnapped. The captured swans were recovered for a backyard of a local home. The birds also suffered from constant harassment and attacks by dogs which ere walked around Lake Eola. The birds were taken to a facility approved by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in Central Florida. There, they were welcomed by other swans that were also removed from the park. The era of the Lake Eola swans had passed. The swan paddle boats remain as a reminder of the city’s past.

Shelter

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While hiking with Stella Arbelaéz Tascón, we stopped at the Gravel Springs Hut which is a shelter on the Appalachian Trail in Shanandoah State Park in Virginia. While Stella was hiking the trail alone a week before, events transpired here which resulted in her decision to take time off from the hike and stay in a hostel. The story is hers to tell, so I will not relate it here. She shared her story on an Appalachian Trail Community Forum and the comments from many hikers were both supportive and vicious. That one tread said so much about the human condition.

We returned to the shelter late in the day to do a painting. Stella was taking the opportunity to paint locations on the trail that she had not painted before because she was focused on making sure she met her mileage goals. With me around she could slow her role since I am an inexperienced hiker. The final days of the hike became about finding the perfect painting locations and I was very comfortable with that.

We did stay in a shelter almost identical to this one. We ate our dinner on the picnic table and set up our sleeping bags inside the shelter which had a nice wooden floor. After the sun set, the wilderness came alive with a cacophony of sounds. A young married couple was also at this site but they were camping at a site a short distance away. They had both been married previously and had children. Their Brady Bunch family had a baby sitter so that the couple could spend quality time alone.

During the night I became convinced that I heard a bear wandering behind the shelter. I wanted to wake Stella up, but thought better of it. The sound soon shuffled off into the woods. I had a bear bag to store my food and toiletries. Scent proof bags were used to store food and the bear bag was in a steal locker which no bear would be able to open. Bears have to know that only inexperienced hikers would leave food unattended. I think this was my third day of hiking, so I was now an expert thru hiker.

The Skyland Resort Stables

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A small sign on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia marked the end of Stella’s 107 mile hike northbound through the Shenandoah National Park. She wanted to continue hiking north to my Prius for my sake to give me a greater idea of what it was like to hike in the wilderness for many days. Her hiking trail runner shoes had no treads making them treacherous to wear over rocky and slippery terrain. She asked me to pick up an old pair of hiking shoes from her Florida home which I did. She switched to wearing her old hiking boots for the final 13 miles. Her feet must have grown since the last time she hiked in those old boots. Her toes kept pressing against the front of the boots making her feet ache. She actually developed a bruise on her big toenail. On top of that the souls of the shoes started flapping open like flip flops. We had to tape the heal to the boot using duct tape. The patch worked, but it would not last long. We both decided to stop the hike and explore the park by driving to locations that she had seen earlier on her hike that would make good painting subjects. I was happy that we would have more time to paint together.

Stella and I went to the stables at Skyland Resort at an elevation of 3697 feet. It started raining as we arrived. The horses were in a central corral between the stables which formed a U shape. A stable worker opened a gate and let all the horses out into a much larger open field with a feeding area filled with hay.

One horse was not allowed to go out with the others. His hoof was injured and he had to stay behind. This was lucky for us since it gave us a subject to potentially paint. The injured horse stayed at the gate wanting to join his friends. He grew more agitated. This made painting the horse a challenge. In painting his head, I had to decide which direction he would look the most. I decided he would look out at his friends the most. He never stood still. He kept hitting the gate with his front hooves. He desperately wanted to get out.

The stable hand had left which left us to paint uninterrupted. That left the injured horse unsupervised. At one point he almost had the gate kicked open to get out to the field to join his friends. Stella felt our presence might be escalating the situation. When the gate came loose, she took the initiative to make sure it stayed closed. When documenting with a sketch, I try and stay separated from the situation and just record with line and mass. Stella looked deeper into the situation and stepped in to help. I was clueless just focusing on covering the page with paint no matter what happened.

Thankfully we were under an awning which kept us from getting wet. Though I had an art stool, I could not use it since the fence would block my view. I stood and sometimes followed the injured horse to try and get the painting finished. Ultimately, Stella and I both decided the painting situation was fruitless. We both gave up without refining our initial impressions.

I have drawn horses hundreds of times with some of my online students, but in this case, I was painting rather than defining the shapes with line. Even painting, I could not resist trying to define a share with a bold line. This was a good exercise which forced me outside my comfort zone. Rain, an uncomfortable drawing angle and a very twitchy horse created the perfect storm of a difficult painting situation.

In the Clouds

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Stella Arbelaéz Tascón hiked the full length of the Appalachian Trail that runs through the Shenandoah National Park northbound. I joined her for the final 13 miles after my trip to Texas to go to the 75th Infantry Division Reunion. Stella was staying at a hostel which gave me a location to drive to. If she was on the trail and camping it would have been a challenge to find her. I would only have a mile marker an endless trail to search. We agreed that one car should be at the end of our planned hike, so that is where I ended up parking my Prius. That was our goal. The hostel was adorable, with boot drying devices on the front porch along with places to hang backpacks.  There was a large map of the entirety of the Appalachian trail in the living room. We were hiking just a section but Stella and Boo Boo her trusty hiking dog had hiked over 107 miles. Boo Boo’s trail name was One Gallon Ninja and Stella’s trail name was Acorn. This was my first time on the Appalachian Trail so I didn’t have a trail name yet. The first day hiking, we ended up starting late because I had forgotten my hiking poles in my Prius. Stella had to drive me back north to retrieve them. I had put the poles on the passenger seat so I would not forget them, and they managed to slip down between the seat and the door where they could not be seen. We got back to the trail head where Stella had last been hiking late in the day. Our hope was to find an hour or two each day to sketch at our campsite. Since we were starting late we had to push hard to make the miles to the planned camp site. A relaxing hike became a race against time Stella would take a rest every few hours and have a small bite to eat. On the last pit-stop I didn’t want to bother taking off my backpack and I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t have a bite. The Shenandoah section of the Trail climbs some steep grades all along a mountain ridge. Late in the day hiking, we were racing against the sunset to try and get to the top of a ridge to set up camp. My pace slowed and Stella with her hiking experience, pushed far ahead of me until I lost sight of her. I kept thinking I could pick up my pace and catch up but my feet felt like they were made of lead. Stella told me that if I faltered on the trail I would be on my own. She would carry Boo Boo out if he could not go on, but I would be left behind until a rescue team might later find me. The sun set and I would pause every few feet to regain some energy. From long distance biking, I know it is important not to look up at the steep grade ahead, but rather to only look at the patch of ground ahead. I had hit my wall and psychologically I had to push through. I shuffled upwards like I was climbing Mount Everest. Then I heard Stella’s chipper voice in the distance, and I knew she was setting up her tent up ahead. I was close and I was elated. When I got to the spot Stella had picked to pitch the camp, I managed to set up the one man tent I was carrying but I was spent and wanted to get some food in me. Stella saw that I was going to abandon the task and she helped me pound in the stakes for tent lines. In the dark, I got to try out the mini camping stove. I had brought a WWII style lighter to light the stove, but the flint just would not ignite the flame. I had to borrow Stella’s lighter.  Finally, I ate my planned Mountain House meal. Fireflies lit up in the woods all around us as we ate. In the morning a dear walked through our camp and was surprised to see us. This gouache painting was done at Little Stony Man at an elevation of 3697 feet. The clouds rolled in and would hide the distant trees and mountains. It was a beautiful and mysterious morning. It felt so good to share it with another artist. https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/stony-man.htm

Van Gogh Cafe

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While I was jumping between Air B&B‘s in Orlando, I decided to go to the Van Goghblin Café (805 W Central Blvd. Orlando, FL).   I ordered a Van Gogh themed coffee and settled in to sketch. This café is near the Orlando City Soccer Stadium in Orlando. Being on the west side of I-4, the neighborhood isn’t the best. I walked there from downtown, so I am not sure what the parking situation is like near the café.

Rather than being a stand-alone café, this seems like a coffee shop for the design firms that occupies the rest of the building. I got there late in the day and the staff was getting ready to leave. I had to rush the sketch since the staff wanted to leave.

In the café ordering area there was a faux window that looked out on a Van Gogh painted scene. Thee menu and Ordering counter were painted Van Gogh blue. Starry night sliced across a bright yellow walk in the communal area. Some chairs were in the style of the night café painting by Van Gogh while others were modern plush leather seats. The leather seating was more popular.

The coffee was decent, but the location makes going here less than appealing unless you are heading to an Orlando City Soccer game.

Port Charlotte Florida: Recovery

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After my hernia operation, my sister and her husband drove me back to their place in Port Charlotte Florida. I had pain meds and stool softeners although neither was really needed.

My sister and her husband each have recliners set up in front of a large screen TV and it is often on. I vegetated on the couch taking naps and watching the British antiques competition shows. I wasn’t supposed to eat any heavy food so I mostly drank liquids.

It was a relaxing several days at my sister’s. After being on the couch for so long, I needed to get out for a walk, so Pat and I walked around the block. I had packed some food in a cooler so I wasn’t infringing on Pat and Mike too much. I also treated them to diner and paid for the hotel since they were doing me a favor.

My doctor had warned that there could be complications, but My recovery went smoothly. I felt stabbing pain in my abdomen several times but over the counter aspirin kept that pain manageable. Shortly after this operation I would be moving to downtown Orlando.

All my belongings were in storage except for a backpack and my sketchbook. After the operation I went to Orlando because I was given the opportunity to sketch as many Fringe Shows as I could handle in May. I ended up sketching over 70 shows while jumping from one air B4B to the next. By moving from Air B&B each week, I figured out where I didn’t want to live in Orlando. Several of the places were on the flight paths to the airport and I refuse to listen to planes land in the morning. Each evening I would look at apartment listings in Orlando until I found what seemed like the perfect artist studio to move into.

I looked at 513 East Livingston Street with a group of college students. They were deciding who would move into which bedroom. I was figuring out what the light would be like coming in the studio windows. I opened up every window in the place to get a feel for the views. I tested light switches and the water to be sure things were working. When I got home, I immediately started mapping out where my art supplies would go. I knew I wanted to move in.

Moving would be a real test to see if the incisions would hold up. I decided to hire two movers for the job since lifting large boxes could cause the hernia to return. I loaded up my car several times. One load was all my sketchbooks. I decided that was the most important cargo. All the sketchbooks in their boxes just barely fit into my Prius.

One item disappeared during the move. That was my Hathaspace Hepa Air Filter. I am assuming the movers needed that item for their home. I purchased a new one for several hundred dollars. It was an expensive “tip”. I will of course never hire those movers again.

 

Dracula, A Comedy of Errors: Set Build

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There was just a week until Dracula, A Comedy of Errors opened at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater (812 E Rollins St Lowndes Shakespeare Center Orlando, FL) I got a call from Jim Helsinger letting me know that the stagehands were shorthanded. My virtual teaching courses at Elite Animation Academy had dried up, so I jumped at the chance to fill in as a stagehand. My roommate was also available for work, so I passed along the information. I did this sketch over multiple 15 minute breaks on the job.

The first day I met Alex K the TD for the production. He gave me a little blue spiral bound notebook, which I kept in my pocket to check off notes I had addressed. I added bendy board up above the central arched doorways to keep backstage light from seeping through. Even with the bendy board in place there were gaps which were addressed by another stage hand later on. My experience with power tools was limited in that I have done some work around the house, but I have never had to build a house from scratch.

There were two coffin shaped doors at either side of the stage. The doors lead to a wall. They could open but only partially. I was given the task of adding small door jams at the base to keep them from fully opening. Lighting strips were later added around the inner edge of the doors that allowed them to glow blood red. So far I was doing fine since I was just driving in some screws.

Alex assigned Carpenter, Miguel, and I with putting up the dimensional edging and shelves for a fake bookcase. We worked from the top arches downward to get the slats in place. We kept running into issues with the edging not lining up right. We later realized that it was better to build from the bottom upwards, which solved many of the leveling issues.

I then spent the rest of the day putting purple baseboards along the bottom of all the stage walls. This was made more complicated by the coffin doors which also had the molding at the base. It took some trail and error to get the angles on the baseboards to match the angles of the coffin. If I cut the baseboards to close to the door then opening the door could be problematic. The stage was a constant traffic jam of ladders as stagehands and the lighting crew did their work in a rush for the opening only a few days away.

Late in the day, I was told that the wood grain on the baseboards had to run horizontally. This was a note I had not been given. Most of the boards had to be removed since they had vertical grain. Luckily, I had made another mistake in using staples that were a bit too short to secure the boards to the walls. Since the staples extended into the wall only a quarter inch, the boards came off easily and I cut new boards quickly using the old boards as samples. All the new boards had horizontal wood grain. With the second install of the baseboards, I added much longer staples.

My next job was to add wood panel edging to a section of a wall. All the corners were cut at 45-degree angles to make the panel frames. This had me working the table saw and circular saws to get all the bits and pieces cut. I started gluing the corners but then learned that it would be easier to just staple the pieces to the wall. The circular saw tended to chip the wood, but the table saw gave much cleaner cuts. I didn’t use the table saw for angles cuts since I could not find a guide that allowed me to feed the boards at the needed 45 degree angle. I used a metal triangle running in the slot on top of the table saw when I needed angles cuts.  I learned that the job is made or broken from the moment the first piece of wood is stapled to the wall. I had drawn a chalk pattern using a T-square to get the horizontal and vertical lines in place. Getting at the rectangular box corners to line up needed adjustments. I found myself running back and forth to the scene shop multiple times to re-cut pieces to get them to look square. It was part measurements and part eyeballing how it looked. I was pleased when it was finally done. I felt it was my first day on the job masterpiece.

The next day there was a note that the panels I had obsessed over were not level. Another stagehand dismantled much of my work and put it back together. One thing that many people say to me when they see me sketching is, “I can’t draw a straight line.” It turns out I could not see a straight line if it kicked me in the head. The level is my new best friend. The main thing is that I am learning from every mistake, or so I hope.