Some professions seem to gravitate towards life drawing more than most. Animators, illustrators and digital designers are ubiquitous at drop-in sessions or organising their own groups. Less obvious, though often well represented, are architects.
Yet surely no profession potentially benefits more from honing hand-eye coordination through close observation of anatomy than surgeons. If they attend drop-in sessions, it’s perhaps understandably low-profile – off-Instagram – but I assume a few join-in.
It’s more usual, I suspect, for surgeons and medical institutions to organise their own dedicated life drawing classes. My first encounter with one was this informal ‘surgical life drawing’ meet-up for University College London (UCL) Surgical Society.
I believe this was their first such event. Bare Life Drawing sources models for them, and gave me the honour of getting them started. Organisers of the sessions are from the Surgical Society itself. I found them bursting with ideas and enthusiasm.
Their plan is to choose a particular skill as the theme of each event. Diving straight in at the deep end, they launched with ‘ambidextrous life drawings‘: draw conventionally with one hand while simultaneously drawing a mirror image with the other. Not easy!
What may have been a baptism of fire for life drawing newcomers actually resulted in laudable works. I kept my poses relatively uncomplicated. The challenge was already arduous without me making it even more knotty. It’s important to read the room.
Future themes are set to be ‘painting with scissors‘, ‘surgical movement and gesture‘, ‘joints and bends‘, and ‘flesh folds and skin‘. I wish them all the very best – especially when these skills translate to real life, holding a scalpel instead of a pencil.
Pose minutes, 7pm-9pm
Part 1 : 5, 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 7.
Artworks
With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.
I wasn’t quite feeling 100% as I returned to London College of Communication – a part of University of the Arts London (UAL). A curious array of mild cold symptoms had been taking turns to appear without ever manifesting sufficiently to be a big deal. Today it was the turn of slight snuffles.
I arrived to find tutor Anne Noble-Partridge of London Drawing sounding very husky courtesy of her own cold’s tail-end effects. Everybody seems to have had something. Worse than snuffles, however, I was also experiencing painful stomach bloating. The timing of this was regrettable as Anne wanted students to see me as a skeleton.
Mercifully, the whole session was to be one of imagination. Students were not tasked with drawing me as they saw me. Rather, they were to consider what lay beneath my skin and muscle (and bloat) to draw only my inner frame – pelvis solid, spine curving, ribcage twisted, shoulders tilted – either in stick-figure form or assembled bones.
After warm-ups and a demo, there was time for five poses. As I continued to manage stomach pains, I was relieved to be told two reclining poses were required at the end. I’m afraid the standing poses were not my best dynamic work, but maybe this was an accidental kindness to students struggling with the challenge. We all survived.
Pose minutes, 6pm-8pm
Part 1 : 5, 5, untimed demo, 10, 10-15, 10-15.
— break —
Part 2 : 20-25, 20-25.
Artworks
With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.
Back at The Conservatoire, after the short warm-up poses apparently it was my turn to stand (as opposed to sitting or reclining) for the evening’s long pose. The last time I’d stood for the 2-hour pose – 90 minutes plus breaks – it was in the style of ‘Balzac, étude de nu C, grand modèle‘ by Auguste Rodin.
Tutor Victoria Rance asked me to recreate the Balzac pose once more, but this time with feet squarely aligned rather than one foot a step forward. Victoria always prefers symmetrical poses. I was happy to comply although I suspected the stance made me look less like a 19th century French novelist, more like a 20th century club doorman.
The pose itself was easy to maintain and heaters kept me sufficiently warm. The only ache was a stiff neck. Psychologically however, it was interesting to notice how much more ‘naked’ I felt in this pose. Maybe because it didn’t feel like a ‘pose’; I was simply standing, the same as in everyday life… but open, exposed, unshielded, vulnerable.
Pose minutes, 7:30pm-10pm
Part 1 : 1, 1, 1, 5, 10.
— break —
Part 2 : 45, (20-minute rest), 30 continuation, (5-minute rest), 15 continuation.
Artworks
With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.
In November, my début booking for Cosy Life Drawing London at Framestore had been a duo session with Esther. Fast forward two months, this was now my first solo session. I arrived comfortably early as the venue’s pre-visit sign-in email stated 18:00 under ‘When’. It should have been 19:00 but, no problem, I like to be in good time.
The set-up was exactly the same as before: the space, availability of props, the pose lengths, the automated timing system, music, a glass of wine at the interval. All good. Small easels for the artists seemed to be new. And, of course, people change. Artists can vary from session to session; and I no longer had Esther.
I’d been a bit under the weather going into this evening, but once we were under way my energy lifted and I felt on pretty good form. Even so, there was a poignancy about being solo after modelling here beautifully as a couple just weeks ago. I wasn’t aware of projecting sadness, yet… these are skilled artists, they saw it in the longer poses.
Pose minutes, 7pm-9:30pm
Part 1 : 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 5, 5, 5, 10, 10, 2.
— break —
Part 2 : 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 15, 15, 15.
Artworks
With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.
Artwork by Vincent Aupetit.
Artwork by Germaine Colajanni.
Artwork by Vincent Aupetit.
Artwork by Germaine Colajanni.
Artwork by Vincent Aupetit.
Artwork by Vincent Aupetit.
Artwork by Germaine Colajanni.
Artwork by Vincent Aupetit.
Artwork by Vincent Aupetit.
Artwork by Germaine Colajanni.
Artwork by Vincent Aupetit.
Artwork by Vincent Aupetit.
Happy New Year! At this stage in the first fortnight of January, those words are more a wish than a position statement. Nevertheless, it’s good to be back life modelling, good to be back with Adrian Dutton’s groups, good to be back at the Garrett Centre.
No matter what else might be happening in the universe, I require nothing more than a warm place to be a life model. No props nor prompts; naked simplicity. Tell me a pose duration and allow me to make the most interesting sustainable shape with my body.
In the month leading up to this date I’ve had to face some of the most challenging and upsetting situations of my life. The only consolation of having multiple troubles is there is no time to dwell on any single one of them or succumb to insidious negativity.
But it’s not over yet. Life goes on. And so does life modelling.
Pose minutes, 7pm-9pm
Part 1 : 5, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 6, 10, 25.
— break —
Part 2 : 5, 2, 10, 20.
Artworks
With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.
Artwork by andrewzxlim.
Artwork by andrewzxlim.
This was likely to be my last booking of 2024, and there could be no finer way to end my life modelling year than the manner in which it began: a duo session with Esther. We would be posing at Hayes Free Church for West Wickham Arts Association.
While travelling to the venue we considered our poses. Esther had already been told we could decide the pose times. At our previous duo booking a series of short poses had suited the animators of Framestore. Here, however, longer seemed more apt.
So we suggested three 20-minute poses for the first half, followed by a single pose of 45 minutes after mince pies at the interval. The group agreed and so it came to pass, on a bench in the round for a full turn-out of artists, with the hall nicely heated.
Despite calling the shots for each pose, we failed to reach the end of any without one or both of us feeling some pain. Nonetheless, it was lovely working together. A strong connection strengthened in balance, understanding and intimacy as time passed.
It had been a difficult 72 hours for me ahead of this; both parents admitted to hospital after more than twelve hours on gurneys in A&E. They are both in their 80s, both with dementia, mum having collapsed at home overnight. Very tough times for them.
I’d accompanied them in the ambulance, waited with them in A&E, did the form-filling, made sure they were safe and their needs understood, while they themselves floated in and out of recognising me. I came straight to this life drawing from hospital visiting.
I’m only sharing this here because it’s what’s overwhelmingly going on with me at the moment. What else is in my head? But art has a power to take us from the traumatic, if only as a brief interlude. Time enough to slow, reconnect inside… and heal a little.
Pose minutes, 7:30pm-9:30pm
Part 1 : 20, 20, 20.
— break —
Part 2 : 45.
Artworks
With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.
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.
Pose minutes, 7:30pm-10pm
Part 1 : 2, 2, 2, 30.
— break —
Part 2 : 20, 15.
Artworks
With apologies to artists I’m unable to credit.
