Princess Place Plein Air Paint-out

Where: Princess Place Preserve

When: Saturday, June 1

Time: 8:30 AM to 12 noon (for painting, and then stay for lunch)

It's almost time to wrap up our formal activities for the spring, and we're finishing up with a plein air day at Princess Place Preserve. Princess Place is just off route 1, a few miles south of St. Augustine. If you have never been to Princess Place you are in for a treat! It consists of 1500 pristine acres along the Matanzas River and Pellicer Creek. Painting options abound along every twist of the trails.

Since it's our last meeting before the fall we're hoping you'll all love to attend, and will bring a bag lunch with you so that we can share some food and artistic fellowship at the end of the morning.

Princess Place is very easy to get too, just off route 1 exit from I-95, but it's a long trip into the property. Here are directions from Lyn:

Coming from the north:   take I95 south to the Route 1 exit (the last of the St. Augustine exits).  Make a right off the exit and go about a mile or so until you see the little brown sign for Princess Place.  Take a left when you see the sign, then follow that road a couple miles until you see the entrance to Princess Place on your left.  Once you're heading into the preserve, you'll drive quite a ways on a dirt road.  Go past the marsh and camping area and you'll end up at the park office and parking lot.  

Lyn is right, the dirt road into the park is LONG. But keep on going. It's totally worth it when you finally arrive at the river! See you there.

If you forget your lunch there is a Dairy Queen right at the exit from I-95 onto route 1, and you can get lunch there and join us anyway. :-)

Member Show - All the Entries

As promised, here are *all* the paintings entered into our Member Show. Pastels are a powerful and durable medium, but must be framed under glass to prevent smudging. Thus once they are framed it's hard to get a good photo without glare. Some of these paintings don't show here nearly as well as they do in life. But you can still get an idea of the great caliber of this show, and you'll just have to get to Reddi Arts to see them all in person. So here, in alphabetical order, is the show:

Lyn Asselta: "Straight up the Middle" 

Lyn Asselta: "Morning Walk"

Elaine Marie Austin: Untitled

Elaine Marie Austin:  "La Florida 500"

Note: what a shame you can't also read the Ode to Florida underneath the painting.

Jimmy Blackwell: "Unused, Needs a Fix-Up"

Jimmy Blackwell: "Haws Creek Preserve #1"

Janet Christenson: "Koi Pond"

Debbie Cusick: "Shall We Dance?"

Debbie Cusick: "Garden Surprise" 

Kim Daniel: "A Never-ending Muse" 

Kim Daniel: "613 Duval"

Kay Ellen Deuben:  "Sophie"

Kay Ellen Deuben: "Woody Go?" 

Jeannine Theri Dufour: "Northside View"

Jeannine Theri Dufour: "Finding a Niche"

Lisa Fiore: "Little Boy and Tall Trees"

Lisa Fiore: "Guard Tower"

Linda Green: "Mrs. Cummer's Vision"

Betsey Hogan: "Calico Queen"

Betsey Hogan: "Winter into Spring" 

Steve Johnson: "Into the Arboretum"

Steve Johnson: "Nature's Nuance" 

Richard Lundgren: "Solo Sax"

Richard Lundgren: "Lunch With a View"

Rick Petersen: "Morning Shadows" 

Rick Petersen: "Rain's Promise"

Jackie Piontek: "Marsh - Fort Mose"

Perry Russell: "Arms of a Florida Oak"

Perry Russell: "Saluda Serenity"

Christi Shatzel: "Summer Morning"

Carron Wedlund: "Morning Calm at Beaver Pond"

Carron Wedlund: "Marsh Waters"

Our first Member Show kicks off

What: First Coast Pastel Society Member Show

Where: Reddi Arts, Jacksonville, FL

When: May 4 - June 28

After three straight days of rain we finally had a good turn of weather, and it was a delightful afternoon for the opening reception of our very first Member Show. It took a lot of work to put this show together. Thanks go to Lyn Asselta, our President, for having the vision for this society, Richard Lundgren, the Show chair, who worked so hard to organize the show, Carron Wedlund, who did such a great job in acquiring wonderful donations to give as prizes, Betsey Hogan for organizing the goodies, all the people who brought goodies - and all the artists who entered the show, and all the guests who showed up yesterday to enjoy the show!

With the turn of the weather even folks who had been stuck by the rains were finally able to get out and about and enjoy the show. Guests came from far and wide. Even Elaine, our member from Miami, came up for the show!

After mixing, mingling, eating, and admiring the show we all came to the most exciting part of the afternoon, the presenting of the prizes awarded by our great judge, Andy Kenyon. We had four Merit Awards of Excellence, and First, Second and Third place awards. The Merit awards went to (in alphabetical order):

Jimmy Blackwell, for his painting "Unused, Needs Fix-Up".

Richard Lundgren, for his painting "Solo Sax".

Rick Petersen, for his painting "Morning Shadows". 

Jackie Piontek (who was unable to be with us) for her painting "Marsh - Fort Mose". 

And then, for the three top prizes we had:

Third Place to Carron Wedlund, for her painting "Morning Calm at Beaver Pond".

Second Place to Lyn Asselta for her painting "Straight up the Middle". 

And our top prize, First Place, was awarded to Janet Christenson (who also could not attend, alas) 

for her painting "Koi Pond". 

Huge congratulations to all our award winners, and we hope they can make great use of the fabulous prizes they won. Stay tuned to this space and we'll soon show you all the artwork entered into the show. When you see the whole body of work you'll see why judge Andy Kenyon had a hard time picking the winners!

Kicking off the big weekend

Well our great weekend started yesterday when we had our regular member meeting from 10-12 at Reddi-Arts, and we had a great turn-out of members to come have coffee and refreshments, and to hear our guest speaker.

The guest speaker was the judge for our show, Andy Kenyon. Though he is shown here with a couple small plein air paintings he did he is known primarily as a children's portrait artist.

He has a traveling set of pastels that he takes on-site when he delivers a completed commission, in order to make any last-minute changes requested by the clients.

He also brought along a pastel portrait of his daughter at age 5, showing a sample of the sort of work he produces for his clients. He told us he works from photos, as children won't sit still to pose, but he goes on-site to meet the child and will take 80-100 photos in order to find that perfect one for the painting.

His daughter just turned 13 on Friday, and he brought a photo of her to use as his demo for the day, though he warned he would not be able to finish by any means, it usually takes several days to complete a head and shoulders portrait.

But it was great watching him work, first laying in his darkest darks.

He gave us lots of great insights into how he works also, and what he uses for creating his art. He also had lots of great stories about how he came to be involved in art, and working with his mother - noted portrait artist Ann Manry Kenyon.

We had 21 people turn out for the meeting, which is the largest turnout we have ever had for one of our meeetings, which seem to average about 15 attendees. It was wonderful seeing so many folks there.

Our business meeting was kept as short as possible (10 minutes, I think that's a record!) so as to give Andy as much time as possible for his demo.

And while he didn't produce a finished product he certainly got enough done for up to get a great feel for where the painting was headed.

After the meeting Andy was off to judge the paintings for our first member show! We are so excited to have had our first show finally take place and come together. Stay tuned to this blog for Andy's decisions, and a report about the reception for our very first show.