The Dellow Centre, London, 21 April 2018

There are life drawing sessions at The Dellow Centre, Whitechapel on Saturdays from 11:30am to 1:50pm, and Sundays from 2:30pm to 4:50pm. I’ve modelled several times for the Sunday group, but this was my first booking of a Saturday morning. The layout was exactly the same, however; I started by standing for quarter of an hour.

This 15-minute opener was intended to afford more settling-in time for latecomers, yet they were still arriving well into pose three. By then they’d missed me standing with a wooden pole across my shoulders for 10-minutes, and most of the 20-minute pose on a stool that followed. To end the first half, I sat on the floor for 22-minutes.

After tea and biscuits a vote was held on whether the second half would comprise two poses or a single long one. Two 20-minute poses carried the day by three to one, with about seven abstentions. I was minded to stand for the first of these but was asked to lay down instead. Fine by me. I threw in a twist and some angles for good measure.

For the final pose, I was given a wooden chair and a cushion to sit upon. I hooked one arm over its back, set the other across my belly, zigzagged my legs and thus saw out what was left of a pleasant afternoon’s work. In particular, it was good to share with so many familiar faces from other London art groups. Nice times.