Green Rooms, London, 7 June 2017

Green Rooms describes itself online as “the UK’s first arts hotel, a social enterprise that offers affordable accommodation in a beautiful setting that inspires creativity.” It is also the latest venue to host The Moon and Nude for monthly life drawing groups. Esther and I travelled up to Wood Green, north London for our first experience of the place, and to début life modelling there as a duo.

We would be working in the third floor Gallery – a cavernous space with a high ceiling and large skylight, ornamented with Art Deco styled glass. Its openness could easily provide for a circle of thirty or forty artists but on this occasion we would be posing for seventeen – a healthy congregation, with room to move around. We began: 5-minutes standing, 10 standing, 15 with Esther standing and me embracing one of her legs.

The first half ended with Esther reclining for 20-minutes while I sat tenderly at her side. Recent warm spring temperatures had dropped this evening and we felt a slight chill in the last few minutes before the interval. Heaters were duly brought forth for our closing 50-minute pose, in which we sat side by side on a large bag of hotel laundry. Only the duration made this one less comfortable. The session itself had been a pleasure.

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