The Beehive, London, 12 September 2024
WC Fields is said to have advised: “Never work with animals or children“. Happily for life models, the latter is an absolute non-starter. Occasionally, however, a four-legged figure saunters unselfconsciously into the pose space. At The Beehive it was the pub cat that couldn’t resist taking the floor with me for Tottenham Art Classes.
My first act of preparation was to delicately shoo my feline friend from its comfortable situation on a low bar stool that had been provided for me. Once all set, I started with poses of 5, 5, 10, 10, 10 and 15 minutes, up to our break. Every now and then, either peripheral vision, second sight or animal instinct told me the cat was joining in.
When we resumed after the interval, poses of 2, 2, 10, 10 and 16 minutes completed my work. At the end, a paranoid part of me expected to see drawing upon drawing of only the cat. Instead, I was delighted to find I’d been captured beautifully, without any distraction… and happy that at least one artist caught the little fur ball with me. 🙂
Artwork by Chris.
Artwork by Chris.
steve ritter 