Holiday Party

From our President Cindy Pierson:

What:    FCPS Holiday Get-Together

When:  Saturday, December 2nd,10:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Where: Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach

Hello fellow FCPS members!

A reminder that our December Holiday Get-Together is coming up soon!!

This year, we'll follow the same format, with a pot-luck brunch ~  please bring a brunchy snack of some sort to share.  FCPS will provide the coffee and beverages.

Our Past President, Lyn Asselta, will be giving a demo!!

Also, as we did in January to celebrate our Anniversary, we'd like to do a gift exchange.  

To participate, members should bring in One small, 5x7 , FRAMED painting, WRAPPED. 

When you get to the meeting, each painting will be assigned a number, and then we will draw numbers from a basket to see whose painting we would go home with.  Make sure not to draw the number assigned to your painting 

We have such a wonderful group of artists in the FCPS. The painting exchange was lots of fun when we did it before.

So, bring along a wrapped painting, a small snack to share, and prepare to enjoy the Demo!

 

This is always such a fun morning and it's a great way to kick off everyone's holiday season!

This is also the TIME TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP!  For $30, you get so much!  First, you get to hang out on a monthly basis with some really great people!  You also have the opportunity to participate in shows sponsored by IAPS and other IAPS-related pastel societies, you get informative meetings with demos and discussions that cover all sorts of pastel/art related topics.  Your membership allows you to be first-in-line for the top notch workshops we offer and it also gives you a chance to participate in our annual Members' Show.  Every other month, you'll get the opportunity to plein air paint at various locations around the Jacksonville/St. Augustine area.  

Wow! That's a LOT for $30!

Please visit right here to renew your membership:  http://firstcoastpastelsociety.com There is a link there to renew online.

If you'd prefer to send a check, please make the check out to First Coast Pastel Society and send it to:

Jackie Piontek

 

Once you've renewed your membership, please help Jackie update our members' directory.

 

Send her an email and include the following:

Your Name

Mailing Address

eMail address

Phone  

Website

Looking forward to seeing all of you on the first Saturday in December!  

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!  

                            Cindy

 

Finally Fort Mose

It turned out that waiting until November for Fort Mose was an excellent decision! We had glorious fall weather, crisp and clear, from low 60s in the morning to mid-70s by lunchtime. The humidity had gone. It was a great morning to be outdoors.

There were so many paintable options to choose from. There were mosquitoes around but the park ranger, who kindly lent me some mosquito spray, said the mosquitoes had been 100 times worse back in early October - another good reason to have postponed!

 I could not get over all the birds in the park as well - with well over 50 wood storks roosting in trees and flying overhead,

 There were two bald eagles out on the big hammock in the marsh that hosts a great rookery for the birds in the spring.

The maniacal call of the pileated woodpecker echoed through the park too.

 The end of the larger boardwalk was a great spot to face out over the salt marshes.

 Though spots along the boardwalk were good options as well.

 Some folks chose to head over behind the museum building towards the smaller boardwalk.

 Despite the lovely weather the sun did feel intense as it warmed up, and that area provided some more shady areas to set up easels.

Though some smart folks did bring protective umbrellas which gave them more choices of where to paint.

 As we nearly always do we joined for a picnic lunch after the painting had ended. Some folks had packed up earlier and left, and didn't join us for lunch, but we still had enough of us there for two tables.

And we had a little show-and-tell as well. Because some folks left early I didn't get photos of what everyone had done, but here are some of the works from this morning, with the usual caveat that they are all in varying stages of completion.

A New Season

After the turmoils of Hurricane Irma and the threats of thunderstorms this month we finally got together for the new season, and had our first meeting, with a very nice turnout of folks. Good to see so many after the long summer.

We had a special treat, and a chance to loosen our purses! FCPS member Kim Conley is now a local rep for Diane Tonsend pastels, and she brought a huge assortment to show us, and to offer for purchase.

Diane Townsend pastels are great, and there were certainly sets and all sorts of  color options, something for everyone. :-)

Our Hospitality chair was out of town, but as usual the FCPS members stepped up to the occasion so we had plenty to eat.

This was our still life day, with choices for everyone to choose from. Board members brought in still life set-ups and set them up around the room.

So folks were able to move around and make a choice. The threatened thunderstorms never did materialize so we could have painted outdoors. However the temps were in the low 90s, humid, and with a "real feel" of 100, so not exactly pleasant. Indoors was best, and November promises to be much nicer at Fort Mose.

Thanks to Cindy Pierson, Debbie Cusick and Carron Wedlund for providing the still lifes we had the option to choose from.