East Croydon United Reform Church, 13 October 2018

There are various reasons why one might be chosen to model for a particular group or session – reputation, reliability, suitability for a theme, physique, and so forth – but in what was a first for me, I got this booking because my name is ‘Steve’. Croydon Life Drawing Group organiser, Francis noticed he had a couple of Steves coming up and decided to go for broke by booking more. I was number three in a set of four so far…

With the group meeting on Saturdays and the first pose due to commence at 9:30am, this is my earliest weekend modelling start. A first hour of quick poses gets my blood circulating, however: four of 5-minutes, then 4, 3, 2, 1-minute and two of 15-minutes. I had my back to a wall, which makes life easier as it denies any temptation to contort into a posture that’s interesting when scrutinised from 360° in the round.

After tea and biscuits, I settled down into a single long pose of 1 hour and 40 minutes. A modicum of comfort was vital so I opted to sit on a chair. Apart from that, however, I still added a twist of my left leg, a crook of my right foot, a flexing of my right arm and a slight turn of my body. OK, there was an ache or two, but nothing that needed more than a single stretch halfway through. Job done – now bring on the next Steve!