November meeting

What: November general meeting
When: Saturday, Nov. 1, 10 AM to 12 noon
Where: Cultural Center of Ponte Vedra Beach

Yup, it's almost November! Here we are heading into a busy holiday season, but hope you will still all have time to join us next week for a fabulous meeting.

We will be hosting award-winning Georgia artist Donna Biggee,* who will do a still life demo for us.  Donna's work has most recently been showcased in Pastel Journal.  Don't miss the opportunity to watch her work! Donna does beautiful work in both pastels and oils.

In addition we hope to have nominations all lined up for our upcoming elections in January. If you have not already volunteered for a position or a committee please thing about doing so now. This is YOUR society so we need your help to keep us vibrant, alive and active.

I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday next week, and look forward to Donna's demo also.

*: Multi-award winning artist, Donna Biggee, has gained recognition with her ability to capture light and reflection in vivid landscapes and still lifes. A representational artist with an emphasis in oils and pastels, Donna’s works are inspired by the expressed beauty in nature. A resident of Georgia, Donna has been an artist since childhood.

Winner of many national juried exhibition awards and honors, and signature member of the Southeastern Pastel Society, Oil Painters of America, Pastel Society of America, Atlanta Artists Center and various other local and national art organizations, Donna has developed her national reputation. In 2014, Donna received the Master Circle designation with the International Association Of Pastel Societies. Her works have been published in national magazines including, The Artists Magazine, The Pastel Journal and American Art Collector. Her work has been shown throughout the United States and can be found in both private and corporate collections.

An Awesome Arboretum Day

Well once again we lucked out on our scheduled plein air day. Mother Nature has been weeping buckets the last few weeks, with hardly a day going by without rain, sometimes in monsoon-like amounts. But today, after some early morning clouds, she decided to show off her fall colors a bit and bring on the sunshine. It was a great day for painting.

About 14 FCPS members showed up for our first scheduled plein air outing of the season at the Jacksonville Arboretum, which we had last visited in February of 2013.

A lot of improvements have been made since then, including a few new cleared areas that make it easier to have a view of the lake.

The Lake Loop was the pathway most folks took as they looked for places to set up.

Some folks went down lower and closer to the water.

Others found vantage points up higher that gave great views of the lake.

The little docks along the edge of the water were fantastic places to set up, and there are far more of them than there were at our last visit.

As usual we had a picnic lunch together after the painting session.

We needed two tables, and probably even three if all of us sat down together, but some folks ate and left a bit early, or later.

After lunch we had a "show and tell" where everyone displayed their works of the morning, in various stages of completion. These photos, of course, don't begin to do the artwork justice, as they were taken at wonky angles and in bad lighting. But we hope it will give you some idea what the members of the FCPS were up to this morning.

 If you would like to go back to the Arboretum, or even make a first visit here, here is a sign about an upcoming event that sounds like a lot of fun!

Don't forget, our next meeting is Nov. 1 at the Ponte Vedra Cultural Center. We will be hosting award-winning Georgia artist Donna Biggee, who will do a still life demo for us.  Donna's work has most recently been showcased in Pastel Journal.  Don't miss the opportunity to watch her work!

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.