Workers’ playtime, London, 29 July 2014

Out of the blue on Monday I received an email from the London design company I had modelled for back in April. Would I be free to model for them the following evening? I would indeed, so on Tuesday I was back at their offices, stark naked.

On this occasion just three colleagues were drawing me, but their rapport meant they were able to agree among themselves exactly the range of challenges they wanted to practice. This session was particularly dynamic with perhaps 20 poses crammed into one hour.

I started with four 30-second poses; then followed with another four 30-second poses, but this time as a flowing set like the frames of an animation. That was eight poses in total even before the first five minutes were up.

Poses continued to last either one minute, three minutes or five minutes. Challenges included drawing without looking at the paper, using the weaker hand, erasing from a shaded background, and the artists rotating positions a minute at a time over three or six minutes so each contributed to three drawings.

The nine-minute reclining pose to close with was effectively that evening’s ‘long pose’; contrast this with other groups where I sometimes begin with a ten-minute pose while we wait for latecomers to arrive.

Yet again, I truly did enjoy this evening – the quick changes, not necessarily knowing exactly what my pose would be until my body found it, the variety and dynamism that this approach permitted. Great fun.

Art by erasing rather than drawing

More art by erasing

Drawing created by using only the side of a pastel stick

Drawing contributed to by all three artists

9 minutes reclining

The same 9 minutes reclining

And once more, 9 minutes reclining