March Meeting

What: March Member Meeting 
When: Saturday, March 4, 10 AM to 12 noon 
Where: Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach, 50 Executive Way, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 

Just a reminder that Saturday March 5 is our next meeting at the Ponte Vedra Cultural Center.  We are asking everyone to bring/recommend an art book that they have found helpful in some way.  The book could be by or about an artist that influenced your work or one that you found useful in helpful in developing your skills.

These meetings where we share with each other are always informative, and we all come away with new ideas and motivation.

Keep in mind that if you have any books or DVD’s that you are not using, they can be donated to the Society’s lending library.


We will be looking forward to seeing you on March 6 at 10:00 with a book you are excited about sharing with the group. To get you thinking already here is one recommendation emailed to me by a member who won't make the meeting on Saturday:

" Creative Authenticity" - 16 Principles to Clarify and Deepen Your Artistic Vision 

by Ian Roberts .

Hardy Souls at Walter Jones Historical Park

One thing about this time of year is that you can never be sure what to expect from the weather. Earlier this week we had a couple warm sunny days, and the temperature hit 80. Yet only a little over a week before that we had a hard frost and snow flurries! It was hard to know what to expect for our plein air day at Walter Jones. Mid-50's were the temperatures forecast but when we arrived at the park there were hints of blue sky, and the sun was trying to break out. It felt very comfortable standing in the sunlight.

Those of who made it there had to dress warmly when we first showed up, but we still had hopes at that point of the sun making it a more pleasant day to be outdoors.

We had a mighty small turn-out though, I think it's about the smallest we have ever had for a plein air day, though it was nice to see our numbers augmented by a guest. She is a neighbor of Rick's and has just recently begun taking pastel lessons with our own Cindy Pierson. Rick invited her to come and she did, though she chose not to paint this morning, but just to meet people and look on. We hope to see her at upcoming meetings.

Other than our guest there were just five hardy members of the FCPS who actually showed up today, It was a shame as, while the weather was not perfect, it was certainly a lovely little park to be at.

Of the five members who attended only four of us had enough time there to try a painting on site.

But the promised sun never materialized, and in fact the cloud cover grew heavier as the morning went on, and the updated forecast promised rain later on. It's raining quite hard now as I type this at home, but at least there was no rain while we were at the park, though the raw air did start to seep into our bones after a while. At late morning we broke for a show and tell, and a quick bite for some. But then Richard, Carron and I took off to Panera for some nice warming soup.

At our show and tell it developed that trees were the primary focus of the morning, though very different representations of them!

  

Walter Jones plein air

What: FCPS plein air event

When: Saturday, Feb. 6, 9 AM to 1 PM

Where: Walter Jones Historical Park, 11964 Mandarin Rd., Jacksonville, FL 32223

Please come join us for our first plein air event of 2016. Let's hope for somewhat warmer weather than we had this past weekend! We will be meeting at Walter Jones Historical Park, a 10-acre park located on the east bank of the beautiful St. Johns River in Mandarin. The park includes the farmhouse, barn, outbuildings, sawmill, nature trail along a riverfront boardwalk, picnic area and restrooms. The park and farmhouse are handicapped accessible.

The park is varied enough to offer different sorts of plein air opportunities, and yet small enough to feel "cozy" so we can all be fairly close together as we paint.

For the water lovers we have that available, as well as woods, paths, and buildings. There should be something for everyone.

Even possible wildlife! I'm looking forward to it and hope to see lots of you there. As usual, please feel free to bring a picnic lunch. We enjoy eating together after we paint, and having a show and tell for those who would like to share their work from the morning. 

Happy Anniversary to us

Wow, can you believe it was 4 years ago this month that we held our first meeting as a Society? Look how far we have come in four years - amazing workshops, great juried shows with fantastic judges, member shows open to all at various venues, and of course a growing membership.

We had 21 people gather for food and fellowship and a great presentation this morning, which included two guests, both of whom joined the FCPS by the end of the meeting!

This morning we were pleased to welcome Tom Carney from Multimedia Art Board, a family-owned company based out of Buford, GA, founded by Tom's mother back in the 80's.

Their product line has grown over the years and now includes surfaces especially for pastels.

Tom brought various items for sale, and a whole bunch of small pieces of his pastel surfaces that we were free to play with and experiment on.

Among their new products are their pastel surfaces on bright background colors, and Tom says these have been popular sellers since introduced earlier in 2015. The surfaces come as 320 or 500 grit, though Tom had only the 320 for us to sample, but a nice fine surface which held pastels well and took layers

Most of us tried a sample or two out. Here is a little 5-minute quickie done on one of the bright yellow surfaces for example. So FCPS members, check your email for a special offer available to us for this coming week only. The site is: http://www.multimediaartboard.com/

Stay tuned for our first plein air of 2016 in February. More details to follow, Keep your fingers crossed for nice weather.

New Year is coming

What:    First FCPS group meeting of 2016
When:   Saturday, January 9th, 2016, 10:00 to 12:00 noon
Where: Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach

Yup, almost time for a new year to roll around as the First Coast Pastel Society gets ready to celebrate our fourth anniversary. I hope we get a good turnout as we have a very exciting demo scheduled for the meeting. As Karen Rose told those of us on Facebook:

Kick start 2016 with the next meeting of the First Coast Pastel society Saturday Jan 9th at the Cultural Center at Ponte Vedra Beach. A representative from Multimedia Art Board will be giving a presentation. Know someone who'd love to join the group bring them along.
http://www.multimediaartboard.com

And Lyn reminded us:

Also, bring some pastels with you so you can try the boards

It should be a good meeting and I hope to see you all there. Note the date, January 9th. I had January 2nd on my calendar right up to the moment I went to write this blog post. I would have been in Ponte Vedra all alone! Don't be the one there all alone. Mark your calendars!

Our exciting project

Remember Lyn's words from before our December meeting:

Girault Pastel painting:  Michele Aplin, the rep from Girault pastels, sent us a good-sized box of random pastel pieces.  We'll start a painting, from a photo reference, that we can finish up during the next few meetings and then auction off to help fund some new items for our growing library.

Well we started the painting at our December meeting. In between socializing, and painting the Christmas Cake, members were encouraged to come add some marks to the painting, based on the reference. Lyn got the painting off to a great start!

A few members here had begun to add some of their own interpretations to the scene.

By the end of the meeting the painting looked like this. I guess it has a ways to go before we can auction it off! But what a cool project. I think everyone there added at least a mark or two, It will be coming to future meetings so we can continue with it. I hope everyone gets to participate in the work, and what fun it will be for whoever gets to take it home for keeps.

Not to mention, our next meeting is coming up pretty soon - stay tuned for a few more details. It's hard to believe the new year is almost here, and we will be celebrating our 4th anniversary. What a lot we have done in a mere four years, and 2016 will be amazing for us also.

Enjoy the holidays everyone and stay safe. We look forward to getting together again in the new year.

Happy Holidays!

There were seventeen of us who got together yesterday to enjoy some seasonal cheer and togetherness, with our annual pot luck holiday brunch.

As usual everyone contributed lots of amazing food, and there was no reason for anyone to walk away from the table hungry, and lots of leftovers too. I took mine home and stuck it in the freezer to bring to another holiday pot luck this coming week. 'Tis the season. :-)

We also had a holiday gift exchange this year which we conducted roughly following these rules:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange

Although the gifts we brought were not "white elephants", but very nice art and pastel related gifts, and you could not really go wrong with any of them, though we had a few laughs as gifts got swapped around as people made their choices.

After the meal and gift exchange we had two projects we could work on. One was this lovely, festive, and delicious-looking still life that Lyn set up for us (and nobody ate while the painters were working). The second project deserves a post of its own, so stay tuned for more details about that in the next day or two.