2015 - Third anniversary!

What:    FCPS General meeting
When:   January 3, 2015, 10 AM to 12 noon
Where:  The Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach

Wow, can you believe that we are headed into 2015 already? That means we will be celebrating the *third* anniversary of our group's official founding. Just think how far we have come in the past three years. We have hosted wonderful workshops, had great shows and wonderful plein air events. We have grown to over 50 in membership. I hope many of you will be able to be with us this coming Saturday as we ring in the new year together.

New years are always a time for new and fresh beginnings, and that includes artistically as well as personally. As we grow and change as artists we also change the ways we enjoy doing things. Somehow that item that seemed so perfect a few years ago now just seems to be gathering dust in our studios, but it may be just the item some other artist is looking for! Maybe over the years we have learned some things that help our art that we wish we had known about much earlier.

That's why our January meeting is called Tips, Tools and Trade.

Our wonderful President, Lyn Asselta, describes our meeting like this:

Each member attending the meeting is asked to bring along his/her favorite "pastel tip or pastel tool".  This can be anything from a painting tip to a particular tool that you just can't live without.  Even better if it involves something you've made or "repurposed" that you use in your studio or en plein air.  This portion of the meeting will be sort of like a show-and-tell...but you'll have between 3-5 minutes to share your tip or idea, so please keep that in mind.

You will also have an opportunity to bring along UP TO 5 ITEMS to trade, give away or sell.  If you have very large items (like easels), please leave them in your car and bring a photo of the item into the meeting.  We will be doing this toward the end of the meeting.

This is a great way to get off to a fresh start without any big financial outlay. Let's think of what we all want to share with our fellow pastelists to make 2015 our best year ever.

Happy Holidays

Can you believe this is our *third* annual holiday brunch and still-life paint out? Amazing to see how time has flown, and how far we have come. We woke to heavy fog in the morning, but despite that we had a nice turnout of 22 members who came to the brunch. Between us all we probably contributed enough food to feed 100 more people! What a variety of foods on offer.

Because the food looked so good and was ready to go we didn't waste too much time in trying to get it all set up and ready, and letting people go through the line to fill their plates.

Our President, Lyn, let us all get a fair amount of food under our belts before she called out attention to a brief business meeting about upcoming events for the 2015 year.

On either side of the room we had two still lifes set up - this one of a Scandanavian "Julbock"

and then a couple lovely vases with flowers.

Before painting began however we were all presented with goodie bags! We all got a bunch of Faber-Castell polychromo pastels, courtesy of Faber-Castell who has decided to stop producing open stock pastels and only make them for sets, so was giving away some of their remaining open stock.

We all got a nice variety of colors to play with and to add to our existing pastels. Once we finally finished eating we all had a chance to then sit down and paint from one of the still life setups available to us. Following are some of the paintings produced by the group, all in various levels of completion of course. We had about two hours to work, and of course it was all for fun to share the morning with our fellow pastelists.

That's it until out 2015 kick-off meeting on January 3rd. In the meantime I hope you all have Happy Holidays and a lovely New Year. See you soon!

Holiday Brunch

What:      Holiday Brunch and Still Life
When:     Saturday, Dec. 6, 9 AM to 1 PM
Where:   Cultural Center of Ponte Vedra Beach

Come join us for our third annual indoor paint-out and holiday brunch. Bring your painting supplies if you choose to paint a still life, or come out just to join with your fellow artists. Please bring a brunch dish to share with your fellow pastelists. Pot lucks are the best. I look forward to seeing what we all bring!

I know many of us were eager to try our hands at a still life after Donna Biggee's wonderful presentation last month, so this is a good time to try one.

Donna Biggee

We had a wonderful meeting in November with a presentation by Georgia artist Donna Biggee.

 Donna works a lot with still lifes, and had set up a still life to use as her demo painting for her presentation.

We had a great turnout for the meeting too, with over 20 members attending. It's wonderful how much we have grown in the past three years.

I think we all loved Donna's colors, and the vibrant contrasts between the blues and the oranges.

And here you can see the setup that Donna was working from.

When Donna had taken her painting as far as she could in the meeting timeframe we all had to crowd around her to get closer looks. I think there was more than one of us who was inspired to go home and try to set up a still life of our own!

November meeting

What: November general meeting
When: Saturday, Nov. 1, 10 AM to 12 noon
Where: Cultural Center of Ponte Vedra Beach

Yup, it's almost November! Here we are heading into a busy holiday season, but hope you will still all have time to join us next week for a fabulous meeting.

We will be hosting award-winning Georgia artist Donna Biggee,* who will do a still life demo for us.  Donna's work has most recently been showcased in Pastel Journal.  Don't miss the opportunity to watch her work! Donna does beautiful work in both pastels and oils.

In addition we hope to have nominations all lined up for our upcoming elections in January. If you have not already volunteered for a position or a committee please thing about doing so now. This is YOUR society so we need your help to keep us vibrant, alive and active.

I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday next week, and look forward to Donna's demo also.

*: Multi-award winning artist, Donna Biggee, has gained recognition with her ability to capture light and reflection in vivid landscapes and still lifes. A representational artist with an emphasis in oils and pastels, Donna’s works are inspired by the expressed beauty in nature. A resident of Georgia, Donna has been an artist since childhood.

Winner of many national juried exhibition awards and honors, and signature member of the Southeastern Pastel Society, Oil Painters of America, Pastel Society of America, Atlanta Artists Center and various other local and national art organizations, Donna has developed her national reputation. In 2014, Donna received the Master Circle designation with the International Association Of Pastel Societies. Her works have been published in national magazines including, The Artists Magazine, The Pastel Journal and American Art Collector. Her work has been shown throughout the United States and can be found in both private and corporate collections.

An Awesome Arboretum Day

Well once again we lucked out on our scheduled plein air day. Mother Nature has been weeping buckets the last few weeks, with hardly a day going by without rain, sometimes in monsoon-like amounts. But today, after some early morning clouds, she decided to show off her fall colors a bit and bring on the sunshine. It was a great day for painting.

About 14 FCPS members showed up for our first scheduled plein air outing of the season at the Jacksonville Arboretum, which we had last visited in February of 2013.

A lot of improvements have been made since then, including a few new cleared areas that make it easier to have a view of the lake.

The Lake Loop was the pathway most folks took as they looked for places to set up.

Some folks went down lower and closer to the water.

Others found vantage points up higher that gave great views of the lake.

The little docks along the edge of the water were fantastic places to set up, and there are far more of them than there were at our last visit.

As usual we had a picnic lunch together after the painting session.

We needed two tables, and probably even three if all of us sat down together, but some folks ate and left a bit early, or later.

After lunch we had a "show and tell" where everyone displayed their works of the morning, in various stages of completion. These photos, of course, don't begin to do the artwork justice, as they were taken at wonky angles and in bad lighting. But we hope it will give you some idea what the members of the FCPS were up to this morning.

 If you would like to go back to the Arboretum, or even make a first visit here, here is a sign about an upcoming event that sounds like a lot of fun!

Don't forget, our next meeting is Nov. 1 at the Ponte Vedra Cultural Center. We will be hosting award-winning Georgia artist Donna Biggee, who will do a still life demo for us.  Donna's work has most recently been showcased in Pastel Journal.  Don't miss the opportunity to watch her work!