West Horndon Village Hall, Essex, 8 June 2019

West Horndon Art Group meets at West Horndon Village Hall in the parish village of West Horndon. Once a year they organise a life drawing morning with one female model and one male model. Natansky lives just one town over, so is very convenient as their female model. I’m three towns over, and this year got the nod as their male.

It was Natansky who got me the booking. Later that day we would both be cycling as marshals for the London Naked Bike Ride, starting from Tower Hill, so it all lined up quite nicely. At 10am, we undressed and stood whilst a tutor offered tips on anatomy, angles and observation. Then we posed: 3-minutes, 3, 6 and 15 minutes to begin.

We posed separately throughout, initially switching sides round a table that occupied the centre of the room. For our first 15-minute pose, Natansky sat on the table while I stood at one end. We then swapped situations for the 15-minute pose that completed our first half. A long pleasant social interlude followed, with tea, biscuits and chatter.

At the start of the session, upon request, we gave consent for artists to take reference photos of us in pose so they could finish their drawings later. We assumed this meant pictures from where they sat, but some seemed to be taking souvenir snaps, and one used it as a outright photoshoot! Nat had to chide him for blocking the view of others.

We ended the session with a single 45-minute pose. Nat was reclining, propped up on the table, while I perched on one end facing the opposite way. Aside from photo quirks this was a nice, serene, well-organised, well-attended session. It over-ran by a quarter of an hour, but no matter. We were soon our bikes and headed for the next adventure.