The Sun, London, 16 October 2017

The function room upstairs at The Sun in Clapham is a good size for informal drop-in life drawing. Many moons ago, when only eight people turned up it seemed positively cavernous. This evening, however, with two minutes until start time it seemed we had twenty people present already and just four or five chairs left. I said to stand-in Moon and Nude facilitator, Steven “you should be all right“. Then three more artists walked in together… and then another three…

In total, it was reckoned I had 31 people drawing me. Unprecedented, I think; certainly in my time here. More familiar, however, was the sequence of pose lengths we started with: 5-minutes, 4, 3, 2, 1-minute. After all these early standing and kneeling dynamic moves, I finished the first half with less leg-straining, more arm-straining, seated work; two poses of 20-minutes each: first with one arm extended across a raised knee, then leaning forward onto my left forearm.

We closed with two 25-minute poses: first standing with right arm up and left arm out, then reclining with a twist. From outside I could hear occasional wind-lashes – subtle side-swipes from Hurricane Ophelia as it tormented the Republic of Ireland – whilst a clear sky had replaced the day’s eerie orange haze created by in-blown Saharan sand and Iberian ash. Inside, however, we were all nicely comfortable with a flickering fire in the grate and the warm ambience of a enjoyable evening. Good session.