The Victoria Stakes, London, 18 October 2017

Late afternoon turned to the darker end of twilight as I arrived at The Victoria Stakes pub in Muswell Hill. Standing outside, I looked up to a wide, well-lit sweep of windows on the first-floor, guessing that it would be my pose space. The venue was new to me, and relatively new to The Moon and Nude too; it was only their second ever session at this fine establishment. Hopefully it will become a regular weekly fixture – the room turned out to be absolutely perfect for life drawing.

It may be a new gathering but already it is a popular one. They’d been joined by thirty artists for their opening night the week before, and at least twenty were in attendance this evening. As they settled in a large oval of chairs, I changed unobtrusively into my robe at the room’s far corner. Come 7pm we began: 1-minute kneeling, then standing for 2-minutes, 3, 4, and 5-minutes in a variety of extremes. Another 10-minute upright pose followed, before the first half ended with 15-minutes sitting on the floor.

After a break – in which I enjoyed a pleasant chat with Jaideep Chakrabarti (several of his colourful paintings are on this blog post) – I continued with a 40-minute reclining pose. Somehow I made this gratuitously uncomfortable, and consequently had to pick a fairly robust stance for my last 10-minute pose to avoid wobbliness. Warm applause at the end was greatly appreciated – but that wide sweep of windows… apparently the pub received calls saying a naked man was visible! Good publicity for them, I hope.