The Dellow Centre, London, 23 June 2018

Life drawing sessions at The Dellow Centre continue to evolve. Formerly, a typical set of poses would range between 10 and 25 minutes; on this Saturday afternoon, our longest pose lasted 36 minutes whilst the shortest was a mere 7 seconds. Throw in a 5-minute movement pose for good measure and we now have a more dynamic group.

We started with a 15-minute standing pose, ostensibly allowing time for latecomers to settle in, although few if any arrived. Artist numbers were down a little since I was here last, but it was a gloriously sunny day. Next came the short poses: 5-minutes, 4, 3, 2, 1-minute, 45-seconds, 30, 15, 7-seconds. 17 and 16-minutes took us to a tea break.

Out of compassion I kept the very short poses quite simple. For a 5-minute movement pose, I slowly turned a full 360°, starting crouched, stretching high at 180°, and ending curled into a ball – I wish I’d been able to photograph one artist’s page full of arms and legs! To end, I just lay down for 36-minutes, having thoroughly enjoyed the new format.