Ilford Art Society, Goodmayes, 4 February 2026
Portrait bookings for Ilford Art Society have come in threes. That is, three at the end October / early November last year, and now three in February this year. Thus far I’ve not been able to oblige with three consecutive Wednesdays (the diary gets busy), but three-out-of-four consecutive weeks has been acceptable.
So, this session was the first of my February triptych. I’m given no steer nor particular requests for the set-up of the evening’s single pose, which gives me latitude for some improvisation. Last year I wore bright colours and first held a neutral expression, then held a smile, and lastly held an upward off-centre gaze for my three poses.
I decided to open this set of three sessions by wearing a heavily-textured furry fleece and posing with my chin resting on my right-hand’s closed fist. As far as I was aware, each session is a start-and-finish exercise but, unexpectedly, one late-arrival brought out his in-progress painting of last year’s final pose and continued working on it.
By close of play, the continuation painting had gained the ghost outline of a fist below my chin. This puts me in a quandary. What to do when I return on 18 February? I had considered the ‘fist pose’ to be a one-off, but will there now be pressure to resume it? And if so, how will the other artist’s feel about that? To be continued…
Pose minutes, 7:30pm-9:30pm
Part 1 : 55.
— break —
Part 2 : 45 continuation.
Artworks
With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.
Artwork by David Fallows.
steve ritter 