Garrett Centre, London, 23 April 2025

26 Apr 2025

My second booking of 2025 with Adrian Dutton’s groups at the Garrett Centre was my thirty-second at that venue in the last twelve years. Never to be taken for granted, repeat bookings are truly a blessing worthy of full gratitude… and originality.

I use this blog to look back on poses from previous visits. The ideal is then to choose different poses from my tried-and-tested ‘stock’ and if possible supplement them with one or two original poses. After a dozen years, however, the latter is getting harder.

I’d arrived with a couple of new ideas, but immediately abandoned them upon seeing that a stick and football had been provided for me as props. My new ideas could wait for some future date. This evening’s originality would be prop-driven.

The football, plus a small ball found under a table, all came into play during the quick opening poses. The 4-foot stick was incorporated into a 10-minute first-half pose and the evening’s final pose, of 20 minutes; horizontal, then vertical.

I confess that one pose from my previous visit slipped into the repertoire when I was asked for a 5-minute warm-up to start our second half. Also, a seated pose had mere minor variations, but then there’s only so much one can vary when sat on the floor.

When I first modelled for Adrian I was told that artists who regularly go to life drawing sessions have “seen it all before“, so I should try to give my poses “something extra“. ‘Twas excellent advice all those years ago, and remains as relevant today.