Garrett Centre, London, 16 January 2019

For a time, when life drawing moved from what was once a vast church hall space on the ground floor of the Garrett Centre, down into its community workshop basement, each session was split between two rooms with two booked models…

These days there’s only one model in one room, but I thought: how that second room would have been handy tonight! Through all my five and a half years of bookings here, I’d never seen so many people turn up to create art.

Group organiser, Adrian Dutton did an extraordinary job of welcoming everyone and finding enough room for each person to observe and draw. My central space with two large gym mats seemed luxurious accommodation for one, yet utterly walled-in.

When the session started at 7pm, I opened with a 15-minute standing pose. I located the optimum off-centre spot from which to give the clearest views along the maximum number of sight-lines. Five 1-minutes poses followed, then 5, 10 and 20-minutes.

© Adrian Dutton life drawing (Instagram)

After our break for hot dhal, tea, wine, custard creams and jelly babies, we concluded the evening with poses of 20-minutes and 30-minutes. Concentration in the room was palpable. It’s an environment in which I love to work; friendly crowd, inspiring focus.