Palletteers meet at Dooogan's Reef

We will paint at Duggan’s Reef this Friday. The restaurant will not be open (it will not open for lunch at all this season) but we can paint on the beach, where there is plenty of shade, or on the deck of the restaurant. And we can use the bathrooms in the restaurant.

Merry Christmas,

Emy
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Palletteers at Pentheny

A small group of us painted in the Pentheny Courtyard this morning. We agreed that it isn't the easiest place to paint.. the sun was working against us. Some of our results are posted above, along with photos of us at work and then at play (lunch :^) at Café Fresco. We love their yummy salads!

Volunteers Wanted for Palletteers

We're looking for volunteers to be responsible for arranging our weekly expeditions for one month stints. All you need to do is come up with ideas of good painting locations and contact the appropriate person to set it up. The only two criteria we have are that there is some shade and we can have use of a bathroom. I've volunteered for the month of January... that leaves 11 more months waiting to be picked. Come on! Help us out! If you can volunteer to do this, let Emy know.
Ginger

Palletteers celebrate each other's birthdays

After meeting each week to paint together, we've inevitably grown closer to each other. So it's only natural that the Palletteers are among the friends who gather to celebrate one of our member's birthdays. In addition to the conviviality of the occasion, it's fun for all of us to read the cards that the guest of honor received. Do you recognize today's birthday girl?

Ginger

Pink Fancy by the Palletteers

We loved painting on the grounds of Christiansted landmark, the former Pink Fancy Hotel yesterday. Cooled by the Christmas winds, amidst twittering birds and crawling tortoises, Carolyn, Emmy, Sondra, Brenda, Jane C, Eleanor, and I easily found "something" (I found "many things") that caught our eye for the morning's painting. As you can see, three of us attempted to capture the same 'scene" from slightly different angles, one in oils, one in watercolors, and one in acrylics. It's always amazing to see how our individual styles emerge in our paintings! Please note that several of the paintings pictured above are still "works in progress" :^) but lunchtime called and we stopped painting to follow that call to Cafe Fresco for a delicious repast! By the way, that's where we'll be painting next Friday, so gather your painting stuff and join us at Cafe Fresco in the Penthany Courtyard at 9 on the 19th!
Ginger

Palletters' Artist Tree

Many Palletteers were among the 17 St. Croix Artists who had donated 62 pieces of art to the annual Artistree for the St. George Botanical Garden's tree auction. The tree netted $2100 for the benefit and looked gorgeous!

Palletters Paint Frederiksted

Frederiksted offers so many things to capture one's imagination that each of us ended up painting entirely different scenes. While I positioned myself in front of the lottery office and (amidst many congenial "sidewalk superintendents") focused on painting my favorite restaurant, Carolyn did a view from a rooftop and one on the beach, Emmy painted the waterfront, and I understand that a few others painted by the market area.

'Hood of the Travelling Paints..Palletteers at the Fair

What do the Palletteers do with their artwork? During the past year I've seen our members' artwork featured in gallery showings, public shows (Good Hope School, Botanical Gardens..), private shows, museum exhibits, charity functions, and at Arts & Craft Shows too. I thought it might be interesting to our readers if we showed and told about our members "doing their thing."

Kate, Brenda, Jane and I participated in last weekend's Starving Artist's Day at Whim.

I was so busy that I didn't get a chance to get a photo of everyone's "booth" but thought you might like to see some of how we exhibited our work, dressed, etc. anyway. What's it like to be in a show like this? If you think it's hard lugging your paints and stuff to go painting every Friday morning, imagine spending time pricing your artwork and getting it ready to display, lugging a tent, your paintings, and setup stuff to the site early in the day, setting it all up, and then spending the day hawking your wares! Another artist (not a Palletteer) commented to me on my courage to put myself out there and go for it! I'd never thought of it that way: hard work? Yes. courage? No. I think that one of the rewarding things about painting with the Palletteers is that we are all very supportive of each other and that instills a good amount of self-confidence in one's own abilities. As to showing your art, the affirmation one receives from the public--even those who don't buy your artwork but tell you how much they like it-- makes it all well worth the effort. I got a big grin each time someone came into my booth, examined my plein air paintings, and realized that they "knew that place!" Ok, I get weird highs! It was a great day and so neat seeing some of you there too. Seeing familiar faces is part of the fun of the day! Thanks to Carolyn and Emmy for offering to watch my booth while I ran to the restroom! Thanks to those of you who brought your friends by too!

I'll try to keep up with everyone's stuff this coming year at Art Thursdays and the various shows. Feel free to take your own digital pix and either post them here yourself or email them to me and I'll post them for you.

If you believe, however, that this blog should only be devoted to our Friday doings, let me know and I won't continue this little deviation.
Ginger

Palletters paint: 10 ladies dancing...12 drummers drumming....

What a great way to put us into the spirit of the season as we painted new clothes, gave new hairdos, and freshened up the instruments of these colorful cutouts that were originally painted by the Palletteers (no one could remember how many years ago). These holiday characters will be on display during the St. George Botanical Garden's Christmas Spoken Here event next weekend. Even though we missed lunch and painted until 2 (OK, it wasn't really so bad because we all had had enough turkey the day before so that we could easily afford to miss lunch), and our backs hurt and our necks twinged afterwards, we loved the camaraderie of working together on a project, and felt really blessed by the sweet breezes provided by the Christmas winds that had arrived last weekend, so we enjoyed being able to do our part to help make the Garden's fundraiser weekend a success. Ginger

Buccaneer by the Palletteers

It's always interesting to see what each Palletteer chooses to paint. I have long wanted to paint the lily pond on Buccaneer's golf course (holder of many errant golf balls that had stopped for a dip on their way to the second hole), so I went directly there and found a great spot to paint; the lilies cooperated fully, greeting me with open blossoms! Carolyn found a cool spot in the restaurant's entry area, but her new watercolor paper was not cooperating! Everyone else headed into the restaurant or to the beach to paint some Buccaneer vista that caught their fancy. Lunchtime will be remembered for the magic genie who came to visit and give us a good laugh!
As can be seen, we may not always finished, but we always love what we're doing!

Ginger

Starving Artists need palletteers to volunteer!

The Landmarks' Society is short of volunteers for Starving Artist's Day, as the gala is the night before. Anyone interested should contact "Sara Zuckerman" at Whim.

Palletteers: Interested in Oil Painting Workshop in March?

Bruce Williamson, an artist who gave an oil painting workshop here last winter, will return for a repeat performance March 24-28. He needs to know how many people are interested ASAP. Most of us who took it last year liked it so much we plan to take it again. His website is williamsonart.com if you’d like to see his work. If you know of anyone else who might be interested, please pass this on.

Palletterers: Is this Synchronicity?

I attended the reception for Haitian Relief last evening and was so proud to recognize the signatures of quite a few fellow Palletteers on the artwork! It was a great gathering of people in support of a worthy cause!

Afterwards we went to the Top Hat for dinner and I found out that this coming Wednesday night will be the opening for their next show, featuring Portrait artist RALPH WOLFE COWAN. Cowan is considered one of the top portrait painters in the world, famous for his portraits of Princess Grace and H.H. Diana. After the Palletteers' recent attempts at portrait painting, what synchronicity to have the opportunity to meet an artist who has mastered this art. His flower paintings will be a treat too, reminiscent to me of Georgia O'Keefe! You can see some of his work at ralphcowan.com. The artist will also be at the Top Hat Thursday evening for those who can't make it Wednesday night. Both nights, from 5PM.
Ginger

Portrait Painting Palletteers week 2

The Palletteers spent the morning portrait painting again today and we all agreed that this week's efforts were an improvement over last week's. Thanks, Jan for your hospitality and guidance.

Pretty good work by the Palletteers, eh?

Palletteers: Benefit Reminder

Don't forget to drop off your artwork donations at the Walsh Gallery on this coming Wednesday, November 12th from 2:45- 6:00 PM, or Thursday, November 13th from 9-12, for the Haitian relief benefit coming up next weekend. If you are on another island or away, call Mandy Thody at 340-773-2202 and she will arrange delivery help. See the October 2 blog entry for more details. Thanks for your help with this effort.
Ginger

Portrait Practicing Palletteers

We had an interesting time at Jan Giles' yesterday, taking a break from our normal landscape painting and working with live model, Nancy. Ever the teacher, our hostess began our session by having us do quick pencil sketches of Nancy in various poses, to relax us and her. Then we dug out our paints and spent the remaining time working on our "Nancy portraits". For some of us, this was a first time doing portraits; for others, it was a return to something they'd done many years ago; for a few, it was a continuation of doing something they've always loved to do; for all of us, it was fun! Quiet reigned; as each of us focused on our painting, you'd never know it was a studio full of women! As expected, our results varied, but if you're familiar with our members, you could probably tell who did what. Sorry I didn't get a photo of our model for you to compare to our artwork. Hmmm. Maybe that's good? :^) We liked all the paintings! Maybe we'll do it again next week.

Ginger