Plein Air at the Arboretum

What: Plein Air paint-out
When: Saturday, October 4, 9 AM to 1 PM
Where:  The Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens

The fall is off to a great start. We've already had an amazing kick-off meeting with Karl Kelly of Mount Vision, who came offering wonderful colors of pastels that caused many members to open their wallets. In addition we just finished up a wonderful member exhibit at the Orange Park Public Library.

Now is a great time to try out all those wonderful new pastels you bought from Karl, and to work on something for the next member exhibit, or our next juried show in the spring. We'll be getting together this coming Saturday at the Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens once again.

 This will be our second visit to the Arboretum. We first painted there in February of 2013, and the morning temperatures were down in the 30s and we had members wearing their coats and gloves and long johns!

But it warmed up to the low 60s as the morning wore on, and became a glorious day for painting. I don't think we need to worry about long johns this weekend. The fall should be a lovely time at the Arboretum.

Painting trees is a great pastime at the arboretum. They sure have a variety of them there. And October is a wonderful time to paint trees. Even here in Florida we get lovely though sometimes subtle fall changes.

So you are likely to see trees with some color, like the photos above, not the bare trees we painted in February. So please come on out! It would be wonderful to have a great turn-out for our first plein air of the the new season.

Orange Park closing

Saturday the 27th was our closing reception for our exhibit at the Orange Park Public Library. We had a great turn-out from participating artists, family members and friends, as well as the general public visiting the library.

It was wonderful to have such a nice turnout of participants, as well as other AGOP members who didn't enter the exhibit, but came out to support their fellow artists.

It really was a great show, and gave everyone a last opportunity to see the caliber of the work we had. We had a People's Choice award contest during the reception, which let people take one last close look at the artwork, and even some library patrons participated in the voting!

photo courtesy of Lyn Asselta 

Of course we set up and offered refreshments, which was also a draw to the general public. We lured them in with food and then got them to look at our artwork and vote for a favorite choice.

 Many thanks to all the members who stepped up to bring refreshments to the reception.

As well as a great assortment of drinks, ice and water. There was no reason for anyone to be hungry or thirsty!

It was a nice early fall day, and we were pretty lucky with the weather, a bit rainy in the morning but clear by the time of the reception - and some folks traveled quite long distances to be with us.

At 4:15 we stopped the People's Choice voting to count the ballots to see who captured the eye of the public.

photo courtesy of Lyn Asselta

And our winner was Carron Wedlund for "Daybreak in Vermont". Congratulations Carron!

Note that now that our show is down Carron Wedlund is having a one-woman show at the Orange Park Public Library. The show just went up this morning and it's fabulous - lots of wonderful paintings I had never seen before.Her work will be up there until Oct. 27 so if you get a chance to be in the Orange Park area you really should stop in to see Carron's show.

Orange Park Library member exhibit

Wow, our Orange Park Library show is really fantastic! The space is one that get a lot of visibility, and we had plenty of paintings to fill up the walls in the library.

 We ended up with 37 pieces in the show, quite a respectable number. Some friends from other art organizations have seen the show and commented on how excellent it was, and what a great caliber of work.

If you haven't been to see the show yet you really ought to make a trip to go see it before the end of the month when the show comes down.

The exhibit is available for viewing in the library meeting wing during all of the library's regular hours, which can be found here. 

These photos of course, don't do the show justice. Pastels under glass don't photograph well.

But they should still give you and idea of the variety and caliber of the show.

And hopefully whet your appetite to go see the show in person sometime in the next couple weeks.

We plan to hold a closing reception on Saturday, September 27, 3- PM.

At the end of the reception members who have participated in the show will be free to remove their paintings at that time to take them home.

Huge thanks to Lyn Asselta, Cindy Pierson, Steve Johnson and Carron Wedlund for stepping up to the challenge of getting the show hung, and beautifully done also.

A great September Meeting

 It was so much fun to see folks again after our summer hiatus. We met again in our new "home" in Ponte Vedra Beach, and were greeted by a vast array of pastels from Mount Vision.

 Karl Kelly, founder, owner and pastel-maker for Mount Vision was on hand with an assortment of some 400 different colors to talk about his company and his products. Before the meeting even started folks had plenty of time to browse, and to drool over the wonderful array of colors.

 Before Karl got to speak though our President, Lyn, had various things to tell us. She talked about the IAPS convention coming up next June, and the chance to submit entries for the IAPS online art show (deadline coming up in October). Most importantly she talked about our upcoming elections for new officers for 2015, and expanding of the board to include several new positions. Everyone keep an eye on your email inboxes as Lyn plans to send out details to everyone shortly.

Remember, this is *our* society, and without help from many of us we won't be able to function. When you see Lyn's email think about volunteering for one of the positions. We'll post more details about all of them here later.

 Finally after the business meeting Karl had his chance to talk to the group, and a great group it was. We are now up to 52 members and fully half of us were there to see Karl, the best turnout we have had for a meeting yet!

After Karl spoke he allowed plenty of time for folks to make pastel purchases. The way his boxes were getting emptied he certainly must have sold enough to make his trip up from Tampa worthwhile. Few of us could resist his beautiful pastels.

After the meeting Karl went to lunch with the board at Lulu's, a restaurant right on the banks of the Intracoastal Waterway.  It's just a few miles down the road from our meeting place, so members might think about going there for lunch together after a meeting sometime.

Stay tuned here for some other events coming up - the closing reception for our Member Exhibit at the Orange Park Public Library, and our first plein air event of the fall at the Jacksonville Arboretum. 

September Meeting

, 

What: FCPS September meeting
When: Saturday, September 6, 10 AM to 12 noon
Where: The Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach, 50 Executive Way, Ponte Vedra Beach

Yes, it's September! We hope you have all had wonderful summers, and got to spend some good quality time with your pastels. Many of our members turned out yesterday for our Member Exhibit at the Orange Park Public Library (details to follow later), and we all agreed we are looking forward to our member meeting this coming Saturday.

We will be meeting once again at The Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach,

The meeting promises to be an exciting one. Our speaker will be Karl Kelly, the owner and founder of Mt. Vision Pastels.  Many of us use and love his wonderful colors, Our President, Lyn, especially loves the thunderstorm grey selection. Their company is based right here in Florida.  We hope to see you at the meeting!

Mt. Vision pastels are sold primarily online, which is why they offer this guarantee:

To help ease your mind every pastel from The Mount Vision Pastel Company comes with a guarantee that you will be completely satisfied or we will replace or refund any purchase that does not meet your highest standard.

See you all there!