The Star by Hackney Downs, 16 April 2019

The invitation to pose this evening came through late in the morning of the day before. Another life model’s cancellation may have been unfortunate for organiser Catherine Hall, but it was a double stroke of luck for me: falling on the last free day I had left in April, and being another chance to work for the ever-joyous Drawing the Star group.

As the clock ticked towards our 7:30pm start time, we feared it could be a quiet night at The Star by Hackney Downs, but a steady late flurry of arrivals gave us a healthy crowd for the night. We began with the familiar first half pose lengths: 5 minutes, 4, 3, 2, then three of 1 minute, three of 30 seconds, and two of 10 minutes.

After the interval came the tension of a public vote: would the artists prefer one single pose of 30-minutes, two of 15-minutes, three of 10-minutes, or one of 10-minutes and one of 20-minutes? The show of hands presented a clear victory for 10 and 20, so we resumed with me upright in my Degas ‘Little Dancer‘ stance – a current favourite.

I decided I would end the evening seated on a low stool. In any pose – but particularly for the last and longest pose, in the round – I try to arrange myself in a way that offers interesting perspectives from any line of sight. Thus, I arched out both my elbows, set one foot on the floor and folded the other knee horizontally. Chin up, and away we go.

It was a positive session in pleasant company; important for me as I knew it had to be my last modelling job for a fortnight. Later, Catherine and I bought a bottle of wine and saw out the night chatting with a handful of our artists. It’s such a friendly group, I love coming here, but it’s probably wrong for me to hope they get more cancellations..!