The Beehive, London, 26 October 2017

Upon looking back through this blog I was rather shocked to find my last booking with Tottenham Art Classes was almost exactly two years ago. The London Overground line between Barking and South Tottenham had been closed during much of that time, so the venue would have been difficult for me to reach, but now I was back on track in every regard. This visit would be different to those of bygone days, however, as tonight the group had a temporary home in the games room of The Beehive…

The pub’s usual life drawing space had been borrowed for some other function, but its games room, while smaller, still comfortably accommodated more than 20 artists with seats to spare. The pool table had been shoved into one corner and I would be posing in the round. We began with two 2-minute poses, then doubled to two 4-minute poses, followed by 10-minutes kneeling and 15-minutes sitting on the floor. What remained of the first half – a fraction over snother 15-minutes – I spent perched upon a low stool.

This was the first session of autumn at which I felt heating might be essential. Happily the preparation here is spot-on with a pair of small fan heaters already whirring warmly when I arrived. After the interval, we resumed with two poses of 5-minutes, then two of 15-minutes. I was recycling poses from last week, and wondered if I ought to come up with something new, but Taz – the group’s organiser – suggested I reprise poses from great drawings I recently shared online… And, lo, great drawings resulted here too.