Finally, the time seems right to have a small celebration for the release of my latest picture book. I don’t expect it to be as huge as past events, but hopefully a few good fans will show up to meet. As always there will be some really nice raffle prizes, which I love giving away, and a brief “behind-the-scenes” presentation of how I turned my research about a sea slug into a critically acclaimed picture book.
Ocala Comic Con 2021
What an amazing experience I had at the Ocala Comic Con this last weekend! It was truly great to meet so many passionate fans, but honestly, the highlight was something I didn’t expect to happen at all. Of course I mean meeting Jack Guzman (the real Black Ranger from Wild Force) and Hector David Jr. (the Green Ranger from Samurai)!
Now, I can’t stress this enough, these two guys were some of the nicest, most down-to-earth individuals I have ever met. Their appreciation for the roles they were able to play in fans’ lives is evident in everything they said. And it turns out Hector and his family are HUGE Lilo and Stitch fans so we really hit it off.
Sometimes meeting people who just scream of positive energy can be the boost you need, and that’s exactly what I got from meeting Jack, Hector, and everyone at the Ocala Comic Con over the weekend. I truly can’t wait to return next year!
Hectore David Jr., Peter Raymundo, Jack Guzman
Kindergarten Mural 2021-2022
For most of the 7 years my wife has been a full-time teacher, I have helped decorate her rooms with some kind of mural. She’s teaching kindergarten again, but when I heard she was switching rooms, I knew it was time to bust out the brushes and paint again. There wasn’t a lot of time, so the best I could do was paint an underwater “back splash” for under the cupboards, and a giant poster to help bring some color and life to the room. I’m happy with how it turned out though, and with what it does for the room. There are all of these mismatched colors of bins on the kids’ tables that looks totally…mismatched. But once I added those colors into the coral in the mural, it makes it look like the many colored bins are like that on purpose.
PROOFS AT LAST!
The Mysterious Sea Bunny PROOFS. For me it’s a slightly scary moment to open the printed proofs when I get them, mainly because I think blues tend to print darker than they look onscreen. And all of my books have a lot of blue. But this time I was pleasantly surprised. The color is pretty much on the money. In some cases even better than I expected.
Work in Progress
My last few stories have taken place underwater, and I always like to have at least one really nice spread to give some ocean eye-candy. This image is one of the most elaborate spreads in The Mysterious Sea Bunny.
The Mysterious Sea Bunny
After several months of development, I have finally signed on to do another picture book with my favorite Editor in the world, Nancy Mercado at Penguin Random House. What’s so mysterious about this cute little underwater bunny? For one, it’s not even a bunny at all! Ha! it’s actually SLUG! Stay tuned for more on this truly remarkable creature!
WORST WEEK TO THE BEST DAY EVER!!!
A lot led up to our bird, Mr. Plume, escaping. I think the single biggest factor was our own stupidity. Or ignorance. However you want to put it, we just didn’t think that if Mr. Plume ever got out that he would fly away. BUT BOY WERE WE WRONG!
True animal and pet lovers will understand that our LOVE for that bird was on par with any person. He was as much a part of our family as anyone else. So when he got lost, the 25 years of joy we expected to spend with him was instantly ripped away and replace with a lifetime of guilt and misery. Putting up the “MISSING'!” sign below on poles and store windows only made the anguish all the worse.
But then a MIRACLE occurred. Truly a miracle. The story of Mr. Plume’s saga spread through the town I live in (called Celebration), and I was later asked to write it up for Celebration Life Magazine. My Literary Agent and Editor have even suggested turning a version of this highly unlikely, yet true story into a book.
4ocean Kolektif event in Boca Raton, Florida
At the 4ocean kolektif event yesterday with 4ocean co-founder Alex Schultze and his remarkably supportive girlfriend, Virginia. Kolektif is word that appears in several languages that generally means "to work together." And that is indeed what 4ocean inspires people to do for a common good. If you've never heard of the 4ocean company, they are a rapidly growing company that uses the sales of their eco-friendly products (started with their recycled glass bead bracelets) to fund the removal of trash from the ocean and coastlines. I love what they do so much, I dedicated my last book, "I AM NOT A FISH!" to them.
4ocean Village event in Miami
Last weekend was the first ever 4ocean Village event in Miami. Even though it rained pretty heavy most of the time, I certainly count the event as a great success. As usual, one of my favorite parts was showing others how to draw, but beyond that, it was amazing to connect with other people passionate about ocean conservation, like Kelly Quinn (Kelly of the Wild) and John Garza (John Garza Photography). Thanks to everyone at 4ocean for all that you do!
My proud class showing the whale sharks they just learned to draw!
With the remarkable Kelly Quinn, aka Kelly of the Wild, and one of her breathtaking paintings!
With an incredible photographer named John Garza. If you like stunning images of the ocean, I highly recommend to checking out John Garza Photography.
I AM NOT A FISH! book release event
Although I am a writer, words cannot express how grateful I am for the hundreds of enthusiastic kids and parents who came out to celebrate the Summer Reading Kickoff, STEAM DAY, and the Book Release Event of I AM NOT A FISH! at the West Osceola Branch Library on Saturday! I am equally in debt to the incredibly gracious support of Emilie Johnsen at 4ocean who donated several dozen of their world changing bracelets for the event, and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, whose remarkably knowledgeable and friendly representative, Rob Bean, entertained and educated the nearly 400 people in attendance about the world famous aquarium. Thanks to Books-a-Million for so efficiently selling nearly a book a minute during the entire event. And of course, I owe a whale-sized thanks to Lisa Jones, the entire Osceola Library System staff, and the close friends of mine who tirelessly put the whole event together and volunteered to make it happen.
Whether you are one of the first 30 people who was able to snag an actual 4ocean bracelet or not, I encourage you to check out this truly remarkable company. I believe in the work that these fine people do so much that this most recent book of mine was dedicated specifically to them. In short, 4ocean is a company based entirely upon the cleaning (and preventing) of pollution from the world's oceans and coastlines. Every bracelet sold promises to "pull a pound" of trash from the ocean. And I can attest to the fact these people do what they say, and have literally "pulled" over 4 million pounds of trash--mostly plastic--from the ocean in just over two years.
4ocean always has a standard "blue" bracelet for sale, but every month they offer a Limited Edition color that supports different causes. The yellow bracelets given away at the event was the Sea Bird bracelet.
I encourage you to check out the @4ocean Facebook page at by clicking the link, or visiting their website at: https://4ocean.com/ to find out more about this world changing company.
Loggerhead Marinelife Center
There is a fascinating place in Juno Beach (about 2 hours south of Disney) called the Loggerhead Marinelife Center. Like the name says, they specialize in the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of sea turtles, but have an especially big interest in loggerheads.
The facility is located on a 9 mile stretch of beach that gets a particularly high number of sea turtle nests each year, mainly loggerheads, greens, and leatherbacks. It's kind of a day-trip type of destination, but totally worth visiting. It's easy to find, admission is free, and it's a completely enjoyable way to learn something new.
Sea Turtle Awareness Day
Sponsored by the world famous Clearwater Marine Aquarium, this was the 6th annual Sea Turtle Awareness Day held right next to the beach in Clearwater, Florida. The event brings together some of the state’s top environmental organizations and vendors to help teach about the wonders of sea turtles, and educate the public on the ways we can help save these remarkable creatures from the scourge of mankind.
My involvement with the even actually goes back to a a workshop I did at The Crayola Experience in Orlando. Crayola was having an “ocean” month, and invited me to demonstrate how to draw various sea creatures each weekend while representatives from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium gave a more educational aspect to it. On one of those weekends I met a turtle biologist named Yvette (pictured below). She saw the value of drawing as part of the learning experience, and invited me to last year’s Sea Turtle event. Obviously that worked out well, and I was back again for this year.
With CMA marine biologist Yvette Fernandez-Khalil
This also also brought together a massive beach cleanup effort that had over 1,300 people register. And let me tell you, I’ve quite a few beach cleanups, and that is a huge number. (Getting 100 people is usually considered big). But because of this incredible turnout, we were able to collect over 1000 pounds of trash from the beach and surrounding area.
If you are not familiar with beach clean ups (or cleanups in general) you are like me for most of my life. When I first heard of such a thing, sad to say, I thought it was a little odd. I think that’s because it’s all too easy to think problems like litter are someone else’s responsibility. But once you flip that on its head, and actually make it your mission to find and collect litter, it’s surprisingly fun…like you’re searching for treasure. And, oddly enough, it'‘s like the crazier the find, the more valuable it is.
Line of a thousand plus people volunteering to pick up trash from the beach.
Getting Ready for a Giveaway
My wife took this picture as we were walking out of TJ Max (where we found the tail). I didn’t realize the lighting was so nice when she took it. On Facebook I noted that it was surprising how many people just started talking to me because I was carrying around a big, sequined mermaid tail, and almost all of them had daughters that were totally interested in the Third Grade Mermaid series once we got to talking. I’m not sure what the exact lesson here is, but never, ever be afraid to walk around TJ Max with a mermaid tail over your shoulder. You never know who’ll meet.
SKIP THE STRAW or BRING YOUR OWN
Most people are sadly unaware of how devastating the accumulation of plastic is becoming in our world, especially in the oceans. Some of the worst culprits are plastic straws. Not only can they never be recycled (which is something I didn’t even know until recently), when they are washed into the ocean, they have many horrific effects. For one, they can get stuck in turtles’ noses, like that one moving video that went viral last year, but even after they breakdown, they actually get ingested by even more marine creatures. And if this doesn’t kill them directly, those plastic-filled creatures gets eaten by larger ones, who often end up getting eaten by us.
I won’t pretend that breaking the habit of just using a plastic straw is easy though. This here is a picture of me with a metal straw at a restaurant in Daytona Beach. I’ve been bringing this type of straw around for a little bit now, and honestly find it more than a little cumbersome. So I’m looking into some alternatives. The thing about plastic straws is they are convenient, and think if we have any hope of replacing them, the replacement must be just as easy to use.
Skype in the Classroom AROUND THE WORLD
I regularly do Skye in the Classroom visits with classes all over the world. Recently I met a particularly enthusiastic class in Poland, and just had to make a note of it. The main thing that stands out to me when I visit classes in different countries is just how similar people are all over the world. Thanks to technology like Skype, one day communication with others around the world will be as common as seeing your neighbor down the street.
New Year Card 2019
For me, this is the year of the Jellyfish! With my 5th book coming out, I am really being pulled in more directions than ever before. On one hand this is great, of course, but on the other hand, I am realizing it is so important to stay focused on the bigger goals and most important things in life: family, relationships, and helping others. Yes, I am all about working until I fall asleep in my chair (and I’ve done PLENTY of that), but this year, I’m really going to be sure that work doesn’t outweigh life. Here’s to great 2019!!!!
2019 Holiday Card
For the last few years I’ve been doing a custom Holiday Card to end the year. The first year I printed about 25 of them and gave them out to just my closest friends. But over time, people have actually ASKED for the card. So my list has grown to well over 300 of my “closest” friends who get an actual printed copy.
This year’s card is the first in awhile that doesn’t have a mermaid on it. It features some of the characters from my upcoming book, I AM NOT A FISH! I’m really satisfied with how this one turned out. I think it’s just how darn friendly the starfish looks! Anyway, Happy Holidays, everyone! This year has definitely been one for the books!!!
Girl Scouts Painting Badge Workshop
Over the last few years I have met thousands of individuals all over the world, but I can honestly say that few groups—of any age—display the level of manners, confidence, and camaraderie that The Girl Scouts have.
Last year I became a partner with The Girl Scouts of Citrus, which covers 6 counties in Central Florida. This means that I am able to offer Drawing and Painting Workshops as well as other classes of interest to Girl Scouts from Daisies (Kindergarten to first grade) up to Ambassadors (grade 11-12).
These photos are from a Painting Badge Workshop I did with an amazing group of Brownies at their headquarters in downtown Orlando. The class was 2 hours long, with the class size limited to 15 so everyone gets quality instruction. Afterwards there was a book signing, and once I was thoroughly impressed. The care for reading and respect for writing was obvious with these girls, and I can hardly wait for my upcoming workshops in the spring.
Marine Life Drawing Class
I wish I had the chance for someone to show me how to draw when I was younger. I did have art class in school, but there were no high-end professional artists in my area to learn from. That’s one of the main reasons I like to offer drawing classes to kids when I can. It’s often very informal, and I’m talking about very basic stuff, like starting with simple shapes, and the thickness of lines, but it’s amazing how far just a little bit of good instruction can go.
This pictures are from one such class at the local library. It was a free, 2-hour class on drawing marine life. I showed the kids how to draw sea turtles, coral reefs, sharks, and mermaids.
Celebration K-8 Pumpkin Contest at Chick fil-A
For several years in a row, the local Chick fil-A has teamed up with the local K-8 school in Celebration, Florida for a Storybook Pumpkin Decorating Contest. This year I was blown away to find out that 2 classes had used Third Grade Mermaid books as their inspiration!
