Member Show opening

The Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach was a wonderful venue for our second juried member show. It was a sultry evening, yet we had a great turn-out to see our show.

Our membership is really spread out, yet we had members from far-and-wide who made it to the opening reception for the show - from far corners such as Palatka, Gainesville, Amelia Island ... They all turned up to lend their support to this great second juried show of ours.

As usual the refreshment committee also outdid itself, so big thanks to Carron Wedlund and all the members who stepped up to the challenge to provide refreshments for all our members and guests.

President Lyn Asselta and Show Chair Richard Lundgren finally broke into the festivities to make the announcements we were all eager to hear - the winners of the prizes we had to offer.

We were fortunate to have our excellent judge, Carrie Raeburn, who came all the way from Alabama, to also be on-hand to help with giving out the prizes. Here are the prize winners for this year's show:

Merit Award - Debra Fox

"Autumn Study"

Merit Award - Theri Dufour

"Bliss"

Merit Award - Karen Rose

"Pianissimo"

Merit Award - Donna Grasso

"Wendy's Sheep"

Third Place - Richard Lundgren

"Spring's Messenger"

Second Place - Rick Petersen

"Ascending"

First Place - Wendy Devarieux (who could not be with us for the evening)

"Behind Bouesse"

Best in Show - Lyn Asselta

"Old Hastings Barn"

This show will remain up until June 26, and can be seen anytime during the hours that the Cultural Center is open, and at that time it will move to the Larimer Building in Palatka, where it may be joined by other paintings as well. If you can't get over to the show at Ponte Vedra think about coming down to Palatka over the summer. It's well worth a visit! 

Casey Klahn Conclusion

The First Coast Pastel Society's weekend with Casey Klahn ended with an optional plein air day open to all, not only the workshop participants, and several who could not attend the workshop were there.

The location chosen was Guana River, a lovely area of amazing natural beauty, the "real" Florida as it was originally seen by the first inhabitants and explorers, along the salt marshes and estuaries at the conflluence of the Guana, Tolomato, and Matanzas Rivers.

Also home or pass-through "hotel" to hundreds of bird species, and other wildlife as well. Watch out for the snakes and alligators!

I found the participants on break for an early lunch. They had started down the trails earlier in the day to find a place to set up, but didn't get too far as so much of the trails were underwater. Yes, we have have lots of rain lately. Though luckily Monday was sunny.

However they did reach a good spot, and it was not too far a walk to get back under a bit of shade for some food and fellowship with other artists.

My grandson John was with me, and there was such enthusiasm in the air that he told me he wanted for us to paint pictures too! I had come prepared with some pastels (and oil pastels for John) but our timing was tight and we couldn't stay long enough for that.

John had to content himself with a whole bunch of crazy camera snaps!

After lunch Casey had a critique session for the artists' works of the mornings. But looking at some of their work it sure seemed they had taken his ideas to heart. It was quite a weekend for those involved. It will be interesting to see how this influences their future work.

Casey Klahn Workshop

We had a large turnout for our workshop this weekend with Casey Klahn.  The weather was chilly, raw and rainy on Saturday, but inside spirits were bright, and Casey certainly helped to make them so.

He certainly has participants' attentions, and what he had so say was often so different from things folks had heard before that they really needed to pay attention to make sure they'd heard it right!

Everyone was busy indeed trying to put into practice the things they were learning.

And Casey constantly circulated around the room with comments and advice, that often caused works to become radically different!

As usual the First Coast Pastel Society lunch was a highlight of the day, providing great food to give participants energy for the afternoon. Lyn's cookies were a special hit!

 Everyone wanted to pay attention to any demos Casey might be offering

And what fun it was to see the work everyone else was doing.

Pieces were often far removed from people's usual comfort zones.

And the amazing colors folks chose reflected Casey's teachings.

Luckily the sun came out on Sunday, and that bodes well for Monday and the optional plein air day with Casey at Guana River.

Casey Klahn Kickoff

The Casey Klahn weekend kicked off last night at the Hilton Garden Inn in Ponte Vedra Beach. In conjunction with the workshop we had Casey do a demo for us on Friday night, in lieu of a monthly meeting of the group. We had a nice turnout of folks who came to see Casey in person.

Casey had flown out from Washington State earlier in the day but still seemed pretty bright and cheerful, and with a mischievous glint in his eye as he talked about breaking the "rules" of painting.

He talked a bit about his color theory, including the idea that he feels paintings should have an odd number of colors used (3 or 5, not counting black, white or neutrals) and that using an even number of colors (4 or 6) leads to a "square" painting.

The painting he did was strictly from memory, no reference material, based on some views earlier in the day at the beach at Guana, where the Monday plein air day will be held.  He says he does occasionally work from photos, but prefers not to, and that that photo itself needs to be recent so the location is still fresh in his mind.

After he finished he invited everyone up to take a closer look. He also threw out some "teasers" about things he expected to talk about or cover in the workshop. The folks signed up for the workshop should be in for an interesting time!