The Conservatoire, Blackheath, 10 December 2024

15 Dec 2024

I’ve life modelled at The Conservatoire each year since 2016, but almost exclusively for Monday evening life drawing classes. This booking – inherited from Esther – was different, being one class within a wider ‘How to Draw’ course incorporating figurative art and much more besides.

I would be posing nude, and working with tutor Victoria Rance in the main art studio, but that’s as far as similarities to Monday sessions went. Rather than warm-up poses of 1, 1, 1, 5 and 10 minutes, we started with three of 2 minutes. Apparently warm-ups here are usually only a minute each, so maybe my height warranted double-time.

The main difference was that instead of then progressing to a single long pose, there was more flexibility to set-up tableaux and adapt pose times to suit the artists’ needs. Curiously for a midwinter afternoon, Victoria had an inspiration to create scenes from Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream‘. I was to be Oberon… and Puck.

Standing on a podium adorned with flowers, leaves, pine cones and other decorative items, first I was to face to my right as Oberon with an outstretched palm, and next to my left as Puck playing a flute – which in fact was a plastic thigh bone, being the only available prop with flute-like proportions.

As Oberon, I held a small human figurine in my right palm. The idea was that instead of drawing the figurine, our artists would leave the space vacant and sketch me in my Puck pose in its place. One might think the figurine would be tricky to hold upright for half an hour, but it was a doddle. My femur-flute was another, weightier, matter.

The flute held for the required time – less than that of the Oberon pose as it was only for a mini-me sketch. We still had time at the end for a simple 15-minute sitting pose. Overall this was an enjoyable, engaging, nicely-balanced session. I even got creative myself: I’d made Oberon’s wreath from a bay tree in my garden the day before.