Common House, London, 10 December 2018

After somehow muddling-up my London suburbs and arriving with just five minutes to spare for my debut booking here in March, this time I was more attentive. Too much, in fact, as I was fully a half-hour early. The Common House, Woodside Square was still in darkness as I joined one equally keen artist in waiting patiently at the door. But not for long, as group organiser Tanja Hassel was soon with us on the scene.

More artists turned up and together we set-out chairs and trestle tables in a long line, turning 90 degrees at one corner of the room. When the poses began it was with two of 2-minutes, three of 5-minutes, one of 10-minutes and two of 15-minutes to take us up to an interval. I was still feeling inspired by the weekend’s Egon Schiele event so several of the poses assumed a Schiele-esque stamp.

After tea and Tanja’s spiced German biscuits, we finished the evening with a dynamic standing pose of 20-minutes, followed by a forward semi-reclining pose of 25-minutes. There was nothing of Schiele in these two, just my own angled torso. Our artists gave it their full serene attention, producing some excellent work. This was my penultimate session of the year and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing it at a Jolly Sketcher group.