Arts Theatre, London, 15 July 2022

After my Monday long-time-no-see booking with Adrian Dutton (first since February 2020), this Friday job rolled away the years even further. For the first time since June 2018, I was back with City Academy at Arts Theatre. Arriving early, I applied myself to navigating the route from the side entrance via labyrinthine staircases and multiple security doors, up to the top-floor ‘Pigeon Loft’. I swear it’s more complicated now.

The course was portrait painting, with tutor Jenny Boat. Jenny greeted me cheerfully and we chatted about art till the students joined us: three in time for our 6:45pm start, and a fourth very soon after. For warm-ups, they were asked to create three 1-minute ‘negative space’ drawings on one sheet of paper – impressive results all round – then three separate 5-minute drawings with an emphasis on observation.

After the 5-minute poses, I settled down for the main pose of this session: roughly an hour and a half sitting on a simple but comfortable-enough chair, staring at nothing in particular. It must have been comfortable-enough because I only needed one stretch. Meanwhile the students – and Jenny – toiled at capturing my likeness in oils; a tough ask. But it went well. And somehow I avoided the portrait curse of nodding off. 🙂