Painting indoors together

Our next general meeting is coming up on April 6th at 10 AM. We're doing something a little different this time, with an indoor group painting session. Members are encouraged to bring in their own still life setups to paint from, or reference photos of their choice. We'll just have fun being together, and maybe developing a little synergy from a group of artists all working together.

It's always fun to see what other folks are working on! Just taking a break to walk around and see what everyone else is up to can be very inspirational. We hope you'll enjoy this opportunity to do this.

And if the weather cooperates, as we hope it will, we plan to set up a still life outside in the courtyard that folks can work from as well. See you all there.

Juried show entries!

The Juried Show deadline is almost upon us! March 10 is the deadline, just two days away. Have you submitted your artwork yet? Have you even PAINTED your artwork yet?? If not you still have two days to go. The entry window doesn't close until midnight on the 10th so plenty of time to get painting. With my own life so discombobulated over the last months I've had almost no time to paint, and certainly no time to paint anything I was truly happy with, LOL. But I did finally enter three pieces in the show just this morning. Even if none of them make the cut I wanted to participate and support the FCPS. I hope you all will too.

This is always a beautiful show at the Cultural Center. It's definitely not one to be missed, and we are so fortunate to have Kathy Detrano as our juror and judge.

Don't forget, to enter the show you go to the Show Submit page. The trickiest part is sizing your images correctly, but all the information is there at Show Submit and once you get your images sized the rest is a snap. If anyone is having problems please feel free to reach out for help. We'd love to see a lot of our members represented in this show.

March plein air

 The temperatures were not bad last Saturday, but it was definitely rather gray and gloomy. I was certainly hoping the rain would hold off for a few hours though so some painting could take place.

But as it turned out there was a very minimal turnout. I looked all over the park and only found the intrepid Pat Mahoney painting.

I had my granddaughter with me and at least that was one more person painting, though she was using colored pencils rather than pastels. However about 10:30 AM the rain started. I didn't even get to talk to Pat except to say hello as he packed up and left. My granddaughter and I went under the covered picnic pavilion by the playground and continued to paint for a bit. But eventually we decided to head home.

But we ran into Sylvia as we were leaving. She was just arriving but I'm not sure if she painted anything. But as we got to the parking lot we had a big surprise. Steve Johnson was there with his dog Maggie. Most of us "oldtimers" remember Steve and were sad when he moved away, but he's now back in the area. He's keeping a low profile for now as he does some work on his house, but we hope he'll be back with us soon. He was painting some old buildings on the edge of the park, and his work was wonderful as always.

I didn't get to see Pat's painting but I'm sure it was wonderful too since Pat is definitely a plein air master. It's a shame more people didn't come since Spring Park is such a lovely spot. Here is a bit of this morning's works.

UPDATE: Sylvia actually did do a painting from her car despite the rain. Way to go! And Apparently Janelle and Betsey were there too until driven away by the rain. Somehow I missed them when I did my pass through the park. So not the best of plein air turnouts but we did have a few who braved the gloomy skies.

Spring Park plein air

What: plein air paintout

Where: Spring Park, Green Cove Springs

When: Saturday, March 2, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Ooops, I’m having problems with my home computer and can’t connect to the internet! (WiFi adapter seems defunct) and was hoping to get it fixed so I could post here. But no good so this is from my phone. Not so good, LOL.

But I wanted to make sure you all remember our paint out tomorrow at lovely Spring Park in Green Cove Springs. Possible rain tomorrow but they are saying afternoon so let’s hope for a great morning of painting. Details should be in the group calendar reminder email. Come and paint, and stay for a picnic lunch if the weather still holds.