Ah, a rotating a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling at The Star by Hackney Downs! In all my years posing for Drawing the Star, I couldn’t recall noticing that before. So for my opening 5-minute pose, I stood at full stretch, reaching up towards it. And then we continued: 4-minutes, 3, 2, three of 1-minute, three of 30-seconds.
Two poses each of 10-minutes would complete the first half. First I sat on a low stool, one leg extended and body tilted back, then I rotated and stood with elbows high and hands curled down on shoulder tops. A reliable playlist and flawless timekeeping took me through comfortably to our drinks break. A large red wine awaited.
It was a busy night, with about seventeen artists seated about the walls of The Star’s upstairs function room. A show-of-hands vote for our second half pose times seemed to have resulted in a tie between three of 10-minutes and two of 15-minutes… that is, until a latecomer returned, one hand holding his pint, the other held aloft for fifteens.
I lay down crookedly, then sat in such a way as to attempt square proportions. Alas, I didn’t succeed with the square, although it was still a nice shape. After the merriment of admiring artworks, I would have loved to stay for another drink but I had a late one the night before and would be late the next night too. Never mind! I’ll be back soon!
This January portrait sitting for The Croydon Art Society started as the offer of a life model booking in September last year. Alas, I wasn’t free for that date; neither could I make their next date in November, but my diary was open for January. It being winter, they thoughtfully reserve this session for clothed posing.
Their venue is a hall attached to Christ Church Methodist Addiscombe. I’ve worked in chilly church halls on many occasions so took the precaution of wearing especially thick clothing. Sod’s Law, however, decreed this to be warmest church hall anywhere in Christendom. I duly sweltered my way through two tropical hours.
We began not long after 7:30pm. Although I was offered some early stretch breaks, I felt comfortable enough to hold my pose till tea and biscuits, at half-eight. After much socialising, we resumed for a further 35-40 minutes, to our finish. Some artists opted to start a new work for the second half, whilst others ploughed on with a single study.
Over the years I’ve been artistically recreated in many styles with diverse media, but this was the first time I’d been fashioned out of papier-mâché. Initially I wasn’t aware what happening and was thus perplexed by sounds of paper tearing and scrunching, but I love my little 3D double – photos at half-time and full-time. Uncannily me!
After two pleasant evenings life modelling for artists at Hutton Community Centre in June and July last year, I was invited by group organiser Stephanie Mills to pose for portraiture at her home studio. Having beheld the astoundingly fine quality of her art, I needed no encouragement to accept. The intended drawing would be developed over multiple sittings, each one lasting 3 hours. Work commenced on 8 August 2019.
At the end of week 1.
That first session set the pattern for all that followed. I stared at my gaze point on the far wall for seven periods of 20 minutes, with five timed breaks of 5-minutes plus one break of 15-minutes giving us the full 3 hours. Measurements and marks were made, some blocking-in began, and then… nearly five months elapsed. Even art has to wait for the right moments on a long journey. We resumed on 3 January 2020.
At the end of week 3.
I wondered whether Stephanie would prefer to start anew after so much time, but she was happy to continue from where we’d left off. We recalibrated the required direction for my gaze and stuck a lump of black putty onto the wall as a marker. That putty held my unwavering attention throughout this session and three that came after. It was just a blurry smudge without my glasses, and hazed-out even more as my mind drifted.
At the end of week 5.
The third, fourth and fifth of our five sessions followed swiftly on 6, 14 and 21 January. While I remained transfixed by putty, Stephanie’s long-nibbed pencils fizzed feverishly upon her paper. The sound seemed so rough, sketchy, haphazard – it was impossible to reconcile it with the extraordinarily fine and precise work of art emerging. Such skill is beyond my comprehension. I felt privileged to be its subject.
Time never dragged; neither did the notorious soporific effects of portrait posing ever take a hold. Weirdly the third of every seven 20-minute pose periods seemed to race by. K+E on Soundcloud played us through till, at the finish, when the last periods of the last session had at last accelerated away, I turned away from my putty, rose from my comfy chair and… gazed upon the most exquisite drawing of me ever made.
Just three weeks short of a year-long absence, I resumed Monday evening modelling at The Conservatoire in Blackheath. Class tutor, Victoria Rance jokingly called me the ‘prodigal son’ but here all accounts are settled and we could enjoy a fresh start to a new year. We warmed-up with three 1-minutes poses, then 5 and 10-minutes.
I stood for both the longer warm-ups: first holding my umbrella, then with hands furled onto the tops of my shoulders. After these I would be laying down for the remainder of the evening; hips rotated sideways, shoulders slightly further back, but really a simple and comfortable pose to sustain.
I would have been granted a break every twenty minutes but there was no need. Only on the hour mark did I ask to get up as my uppermost hip had begun to ache. After a ten minute stretch I was guided back into position to see out the remaining forty or so minutes. All done, with brolly back in hand, I took my leave into rivers of torrential rain.
My first booking with Hesketh Hubbard Art Society at Mall Galleries in 2020 was a portrait sitting. This was the society’s first session of the year and, quite appropriately, had a high turn-out of members. Not too many intent on drawing me it seemed at first, but come 6pm a sudden flurry of chairs were dragged across to my corner.
Artwork by Dmitry Shaklanoff-von Seipt.
Two hours. One complete hour without movement, then a fifteen minute break for tea and digestives before a final fully static hour. The first half was hardest as a tiredness took hold about midway through. The more my mind focused on avoiding drowsiness, the more that very thought became a catalyst for downward flickering eyelids.
Conversations during the interval reinvigorated my brain. At some point in the second half, I became mindfully conscious of every sound in what ought to have been a quiet room. Each scratch and scrape, cough and clatter held my sharp attention till 8:15pm when, bright as a button, I was free at last to appreciate this multitude of myself in art.
Having first posed for Blue Zoo Animation Studio in a clothed session two weeks before Christmas, I returned to them two weeks after Christmas to pose nude. As per my previous visit, the two hours would be devoted entirely to quick-fire dynamic work, only even quicker this time.
The shorter the poses, the more I have to conjure up, so it becomes a workout for my body and my imagination. We started with three of 1 minute, three of 2 minutes, three of 3 minutes, then one each of 4 minutes and 7 minutes. After a break we pressed on: 5-minutes, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 8 and 5 – a mighty 25 poses in total.
Occasionally I made use of a perching stool, and once I posed with my umbrella, but otherwise it was just me and my body. So many extraordinary drawings were crafted, capturing the figure and often playfully suggesting character. Every line seemed right first time. Thank you, Wei Wu, who created all the wonderful artworks in this post.
For their last gathering before Christmas, Candid Arts Friday Life Drawing Meetup invited Spirited Bodies to present a ‘Have I Got Nudes for You‘ session, in which life models interpret topical events through dynamic poses and a light-hearted news quiz. Esther would lead the session, with me supporting, and Reni – a guest model – also lending her talents. We arrived early to organise our joyously low-budget props.
We had selected a mixture of well-known and obscure news stories from the past six months, with the only essential criterion being a potential for interesting poses. At the end of year in which Brexit, the election and Donald Trump have all been relentlessly and ever-more depressingly reported, we opted to steer clear of all three (well, it was Christmas after all). We began with eight short poses, asking a question about each.
Pose I – 5 minutes
For our first pose, Reni put on an inflatable gold crown and proceeded to shred a copy of the Mail on Sunday before posing with its trashed fragments…
October 2019: Meghan sues the Mail on Sunday.
It was announced that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex would be suing the publisher of the Mail on Sunday after it printed a handwritten letter she’d sent to her estranged father. Prince Harry attacked the tabloid press on behalf of his wife, saying he could no longer be “a silent witness to her private suffering”.
Question: 1. What was Meghan’s maiden name before she married Harry?
Meghan sues Mail on Sunday, October 2019
Pose II – 5 minutes
Next, Reni and I posed as if walking with great care along a narrow strip of cling film, which served as an improvised glass bridge…
October 2019: Chinese province closes its glass bridges.
It emerged that the Chinese province of Hebei had quietly closed all 32 of its glass bridges, walkways and mountain viewing platforms for safety reasons. This followed a series of accidents across the country, including at least two deaths, that called into question the safety of glass structures.
Question: 2. Who is the current president of China?
Pose III – 5 minutes
Esther then took to the stage as a footballer unsure whether to celebrate while I stood nearby as the referee, whistle in mouth, scrutinising a TV screen…
October 2019: VAR divides opinion in English football.
Video Assistant Referees (VARs) were introduced to the English football Premier League as means of dealing with “clear and obvious errors” or “serious missed incidents”, but in practice it has caused frustration due to the delays in reaching a decision, the lack of information for fans, and even some mistakes.
Question: 3. How many clubs are in the English football Premier League?
Pose IV – 5 minutes
Before our fourth pose I dotted myself all over with the tip of a red lipstick, then fled in fear as Reni came charging at me with a vaccination syringe held aloft…
August 2019: Sharp rise in measles cases in England.
Cases of measles in England are rising sharply amid fears that growing numbers of people are not getting immunised because of “dangerous” myths about vaccines. Of 301 people diagnosed with measles between April and June, 266 were aged 15 years or over and had not been vaccinated.
Question: 4. What 3-letter acronym is a common name for the measles vaccine?
Pose V – 5 minutes
While I struggled to wash-off the lipstick in the bathroom, pigtailed Esther posed solo sitting on a blue plastic bucket with “POO’S ONLY PLEASE” written on the side…
August 2019: Greta Thunberg sails the Atlantic.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg set sail from Plymouth for New York on a zero-carbon yacht with her father and a two-man crew. The yacht was designed for speed rather than luxury, which meant no shower and famously only a blue plastic bucket labelled “POO’S ONLY PLEASE” for Greta’s toilet.
Question: 5. How old is Greta Thunberg? Bonus point for her date of birth.
Pose VI – 5 minutes
Esther and Reni held aloft a solidarity banner proclaiming ‘#EnaZeda‘ in both English and Tunisian Arabic, while I cowered shamefully with a bottle between my legs…
December 2019: Tunisian #EnaZeda protests.
Photos MP Zouheir Makhlouf allegedly masturbating in a car outside a high school in Tunisia prompted women to share their own stories of abuse and harassment using the hashtag #EnaZeda, which means “MeToo” in Tunisian Arabic. The MP said he was just trying to urinate into a bottle as he is a diabetic.
Question: 6. In which year did activist Tarana Burke first post ‘#MeToo’?
Pose VII – 10 minutes
For a surreal tableau, Esther modelled a pair of white knickers with a hole burnt in the front whilst I sat on the floor contemplating an up-ended herb bottle…
November 2019: Turnip Prize winner announced.
This year’s spoof Turner Prize – called the ‘Turnip Prize’, for “crap art” made using “the least amount of effort possible” – was awarded for a pair of knickers with a burnt hole in the front, titled ‘Bush Fire Down Under’. Other notable entries included a full bottle of the herb thyme spilled onto a sheet of paper.
Question: 7. What name was given to the installation featuring the spilt herb?
Pose VIII – 10 minutes
As a dramatic finale for our quiz, Esther hurled an entire milkshake up the front of my body and thus we stood while it dripped slowly onto the newspaper-covered floor…
June 2019: 8. Farage gets his cleaning bill paid after milkshake attack.
On 20 May, Paul Crowther hurled his £5.25 milkshake up the front of Nigel Farage as the latter campaigned in Newcastle. A court later ordered Crowther to do 150 hours unpaid work and pay £520, including £350 compensation to Farage for damage, distress, inconvenience and cleaning.
Question: 8. What two flavours were the milkshake that was hurled at Farage?
Pose IX – 19 minutes
We took a short break drinks break, then Esther invited anyone to join her in creating a tableau of chimps / politicians as a homage to ‘Devolved Parliament‘ by Banksy.
Pose X – 19 minutes
Popular uprisings were the themes of our final two group poses. To begin, Esther and invitees took up umbrellas in the style of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists…
Hong Kong’s umbrella revolution, September 2019
Pose XI – 15 minutes
Concluding the evening, I returned to fray and held aloft an Extinction Rebellion sign while others posed as protesters with hands glued to surfaces…
Quiz answers
After this final pose, I read out answers to all the earlier quiz questions. How well did you do in our news challenge?
Answer 1: Markle
Answer 2: Xi Jinping
Answer 3: 20
Answer 4: MMR
Answer 5: 16 – born on 3 January 2003
Answer 6: 2006
Answer 7: ‘A Complete Waste of Thyme’
Answer 8: Banana and Salted Caramel
The knowledgeable winner received two free tickets for future Spirited Bodies events, the next of which is set be Body Narratives with London Drawing on 25 January. If artist numbers there match those we had here, it’ll be another special occasion. I had been worried that attendance might be low this close to Christmas, so it was inspiring to see almost thirty people join us. I hope they warmed to our unorthodox ways.
Certainly many of their artworks captured the energy we tried to convey. A few artists sketched elements of different poses onto a single sheet, thereby effectively creating news montages. Just as we models look for new ways of energising artists, so artists continue surprising us with the imagination and talent in their interpretations. It was a grand way to finish life modelling in 2019. Let’s hope 2020 is as much fun.
steve ritter 