Royal Inn on the Park, London, 1 August 2019

On my last visit to the Royal Inn on the Park I had the dubious honour of modelling for the venue’s lowest ever life drawing attendance. It was a relief, therefore, to find a larger gathering – albeit only slightly – was already in situ when I arrived this evening. Mentally, I came up with a pose plan to suit these artists arranged in a horseshoe arc around me. I started with a 10-minute pose… but then more people started to arrive.

The broad rectangular room was full by the time my first pose came to its end. Artists lined the long edges in front of me and behind me, and each end. Clearly I needed to reconsider my pose plan. I pushed my stage – a sheet on a yoga mat – into a central position and resumed with a rotation of poses in the round: three of 2-minutes, two of 5-minutes and two of 15-minutes, taking us up to half-time.

During our half-hour break, while most of the artists disappeared downstairs to top-up their drinks, I circumnavigated the room, chatting with those who stayed and admiring many fine drawings. Peter Dobbin was clearly on form again – his are the works with the all-white background on this page; I particularly love the very first one from one of my 2-minute poses.

Two 30-minute poses completed the second hour of our session. For the last, I lay on my back with my feet up on the table that originally I planned to sit upon with my back to the wall. Such was the evolution of my revolution; also it offered an equitable range of interesting sight lines to everyone present. It was great to be life modelling for a full house – always special in one of Adrian and Mark’s London Life Drawing groups.