The Dellow Centre, London, 6 January 2019

Whilst I’d personally enjoyed a three-and-a-half week break from life modelling over Christmas and New Year, Life drawing Aldgate and Shoreditch continued without missing a weekend; one session each Saturday, two on Sundays. Its reward for such reliability is an ever burgeoning throng of artists at The Dellow Centre.

On the first weekend of January, I was booked for the Sunday morning slot. I started with a 15-minute standing pose, then progressed through quick work of 3-minutes, 2, 1-minute, 45-seconds, 30, 15 and 7-seconds, down to two poses of 15-minutes each that took us up to half-time.

It was quite crowded, but with room for one or two more people. One person who duly filled a gap during the break was Esther. She would be modelling for the session that followed mine but arrived early to sketch my second half work. The group’s organiser, Tim, handed me sticks to use as props and I resumed with two 20-minute poses.

With a little under ten minutes till the end we still had time to fit in four poses each of slightly less than 2-minutes. I evolved and revolved, 90 degrees with each change in position, from kneeling up to standing. Tim gave thanks and generous applause was forthcoming. Most artists then packed up and drifted away, but I stuck around.

I decided to return the compliment and draw Esther. We had just half an hour between sessions, but this was ample time for the room to refill beyond capacity. I’d never seen it so busy and reckoned there to be 47 artists plus Tim, me and Esther. 2019 looks set to be a bumper year for life drawing here in east London.