Our FCPS History

Can you believe we are nearly five years old now? We've done a lot in the last few years, and most of it is documented in our blog. That is our history, but it's nice to have our history in concrete form, which is why I've taken on another project of turning our blog into a series of concrete and physical books. With books I can intersperse posts from Facebook and to our mailing list, and get an even better running history,

I'm doing a book for each year, and have managed to complete 2012 and 2013 already. Some of the folks who were at the meeting Saturday got a chance to look at them as I had them there to donate to the library. If you didn't get to see them and are curious about them I also have PDF copies of them which you can view right here and here.

The books are also available for sale from blurb.com both here and here. Blurb does a wonderful job but the books are not cheap, so if you'd like your own I would "like" Blurb on Facebook or get on their mailing list, and they sent out 35% and 40% coupons pretty often. I used coupons for both the hardcopies above! That makes the price fairly reasonable.

A fun play day

We had such fun at our pastel society meeting today. It was a relaxed and fun day for all of us, a pure "play day" and yet we all learned something very useful.

We had a nice turnout of 19 at the meeting in Ponte Vedra, a pretty good showing considering that a number of our really core stalwart members were not with us as they were participating in the Romanza festival in St. Augustine, painting plein air there instead of being with us.

 

But those of us who attended were greeted with a very interesting table set up by co-President Lyn Asselta at the front of the room.

Our topic today was how to make your own pastels from the leftover dust the little bitty odds and ends of pastels that you manage to collect over time.

Lyn showed us how easy it is to make pastels by taking the dust - as you already have it, or from grinding up odds and ends into a powder - and carefully mixing it with drops of distilled water, being careful not to get too gooey, but just enough for it to hold a shape.

After her demo everyone went back to their own tables to practice making their own homemade pastels.

Some had more chips, chunks, and dust that others and were willing to share.

Dust collected over the months and years tended to be mostly gray, but the chips and chunks could be any color of course.

Folks said that often when you buy a certain set of pastels there may be colors in that set that rarely, if ever, get used.

Lyn's lesson gave us "permission" to be fearless about grinding up those colors we find less than appealing.

By mixing in dust from other colors it's possible to create something new and unique. I was amazed at some of the gorgeous colors people were able to create.

After rolling or shaping the new pastels it's time to lay them on newsprint or paper towels to dry for a couple days, and then have fun using your new colors, and no more wastage.

We have a big month coming up in June with our next juried member show, and the mini-workshop with Karen Margulis. Keep tuned in here for more details.