The Dellow Centre, London, 18 June 2017

Arriving at The Dellow Centre, life drawing group organiser, Tim was only half-joking when he said it could be just the two of us. With temperatures above 30°C, he’d seen artist numbers had melted away at other groups. Indeed, when I commenced my first 10-minute standing pose, there were two artists drawing me – Tim plus one other. By the time my next 10-minute pose began, the tally was up to four, and when I followed it seated on a chair with arms crooked for 20-minutes, there were six.

At the end of that third pose, the sweat was pouring off me. I closed the first half with another 10-minutes on the chair – now for seven artists – but this time I loosened my body to keep it cooler. A small heater in the room had been reset to blow out cold air, and I’d tilted it slightly in my favour. The price exacted for slouching and leaning back was an unpleasantly stiff neck, but some nice portrait work was the result. My nudity for most artists seemed immaterial at this point.

After tea and Jaffa Cakes, we resumed with a 15-minute standing pose. To conclude the session, I reclined for 35-minutes with one knee raised and both hands upon my torso. All seven artists had started drawing me but, from around the midway point, a succession of mercurial and occasional clattering disappearances meant that by the end there were just three. My limbs had all died on me and it took me a few minutes to stand again. Nonetheless… a pleasant Sunday afternoon.