London College of Communication, London, 19 November 2024

Compared with the simplicity and serenity of my portrait session for The Croydon Art Society yesterday, this first-time booking at London College of Communication – a part of University of the Arts London (UAL) – required toil just to get on board.

Create an online profile, upload my CV, apply for the job, justify my application, prove my right to work in the UK, then get a visitor’s pass at reception, locate the lifts, go up to the 13th floor… and there find I can’t get through the door without a security card.

After hanging around outside for about quarter of an hour, I was eventually let in by a student attending the class. It vindicates my standard modus operandi: making sure I arrive with plenty of time to spare when booked for an unfamiliar venue.

Not far behind me came the course tutor, Anne Noble-Partridge of London Drawing. She immediately set her nine students to work rearranging the furniture and standing easels in an arc facing the area that would be my pose space.

In this session, Anne attempted to teach a framework of methods for observation and measurement. This included measurement simply by sight and measurement using a stick held at straight-arm’s length. Nothing too disruptive there, one might think.

To some extent, however, she was wading through treacle in trying to make the point that, whether or not students use the techniques routinely, they are universally useful skills for all artists to possess. Worth learning.

The challenge with university-level art students is that often they already have a keen sense of how they want to create. Established modes of self-expression may feel like an essential and defining part of their identity. These can be hard to unpick.

But Anne is nothing if not a force to be reckoned with. Resistance is futile, even when passive or subconscious. Apart from overcoming habit, the key is reassurance: this is not about smothering individuality, but rather broadening and underpinning capability.

For my part, I just made shapes. Lots of dynamic warm-ups, then standing for demos and students’ own practice of techniques before a seated denouement. Whatever the students’ perceptions, at least this model came away feeling better educated. 🙂

Pose minutes, 6:15pm-8:15pm

Part 1 : 5, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, untimed sight measuring demo, 5-10, untimed stick measuring demo, 5-10.
— break —
Part 2 : 25.

Artworks

With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.

Sight-measuring demo and stick-measuring demo.