PAC Symposium - Day 3 & Final

I spent the entire final day of the PAC Symposium in a figure workshop. The instructor, Megan Williams, teaches the figure at the Toronto School of Art. She's a fine instructor, and I learned her approach to drawing the figure rapidly. Rapid drawing is necessary for the animation students she teaches. "It's such a competitive field," she said, "that if you don't practice every day, you don't get in."

Well, my goal isn't to do animation, but just to paint the figure to my satisfaction and to further my explorations of color and form. Although we have a figure group across the border from Campobello Island in Lubec, Maine, it's rare when I'm able to join them. I enjoy the figure, and it's something I wish I could get more of.

Figure Studio (sans model and students)

Rather than reproduce a manual for painting the figure, I'll just include the following two pieces I did. The first is a 5-minute foot study done with dark pastel on white Canson paper.

The second is a 90-minute figure done in full color on Belgian Mist Wallis sanded paper. I was pretty happy with both pieces.

So, the Symposium has come to an end. I met a lot of good artists and made some new friends, always my goals on such a trip. Now I get to fly home, rest a wee bit, and then head off a week from Tuesday to teach a combined oil and pastel workshop for New Hampshire Plein Air. I taught a workshop for them last year, and it was a blast. I'm looking forward to visiting with them again. Stay tuned!