As ever, I was early enough at The Old Nun’s Head to buy a handsome glass of red wine and prepare a leisurely pace. In the upstairs function room I was forewarned that “it’s been a bit quiet” at Nunhead Drawing Group this term and indeed, as our 7pm start time drew closer it seemed this evening would be another quiet one. Cometh the hour, it was just me and two of the group’s organisers.
It’s a shame as this has been a wonderful place for life drawing: lovely people, superb venue, ample drawing materials, plenty of space, good lines of sight to the model and always an excellent playlist (Laura Veirs featuring this evening). I suspect it’s simply a case of losing momentum after a long summer break, and needing to put out a little more on social media to reconnect with the previous regulars.
On the up side for the organisers, it meant they could use me – within reason – in any way they liked for their own drawings. We started with five 1-minute poses, then had a 15-minute standing pose, and 30-minutes seated on the floor. After a break, in which I was very kindly bought another glass of wine, we ended with 40-minutes standing – or rather half-perched on a fireplace. All hugely enjoyable, so come on artists – join in!
Saturday morning at The Dellow Centre in the Aldgate East end of London. I began with a 15-minute standing pose and followed it with a pivoting sequence of 3-minutes, 2-minutes, 1-minute, 50-seconds, 40, 30, 20, 10 and 5-seconds. In practice, however, artists continued to arrive throughout, inevitably disrupting the timekeeping – it meant poses that should have lasted seconds ended up being more like 2 or 3 minutes.
We completed the first half with two 15-minute poses: one kneeling whilst holding two broom handles; the other seated whilst leaning onto a single angled pole. By half-time there was quite a crowd drawing me – I estimated up to 35 people – including a group who were out celebrating a birthday. Everyone was well behaved, but the extra chatter over tea and biscuits meant our second half started a little later than usual.
It was announced that we would finish the session with two poses of 23-minutes each. Somehow that managed to become 30-minutes and 15-minutes, but as I was reclining for the first of these I was quite content to prolong the comfort. Life drawing Aldgate and Shoreditch continues to grow in success, now with Sunday morning meetups in addition to Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. It’s success well deserved.
After three weeks’ absence from the life drawing scene, including two weeks’ absence from Europe, I resumed nude shape-making with a second visit to Mycenae House in Blackheath. I’d first posed here for Life-drawing at Mycenae House back in March.
As in March we started with 10-minute poses – three to begin with, first kneeling then two standing. After this, to complete the first half, group organiser Jon suggested I sit on a chair for 20 minutes. I duly got comfy then added in a few angles.
When Jon announced an hour-long reclining pose after the break, one artist asked if I could be in the foetal position rather than stretched out. As I had just a yoga mat and a sheet for the wooden floor, I thought it best to lay on my clothes for extra padding.
For the first 40 to 45 minutes I was comfortable, but then inevitably there comes a bit of an ache where the hip and shoulder bones press to the floor. Not a problem though. This was a nice, gentle return to the world of life modelling.
This session was my sixteenth in 29 days since returning to the UK from a short visit to Aarhus, Denmark. Usually I would take just one or two of bookings each week, so this has been an exceptionally busy month’s modelling on top of my regular weekday employment. After this evening, however, I have a three week hiatus; I love my artistic work, but I can’t pretend it won’t be a relief to stop burning the candle at both ends.
If this was to be my final few hours’ modelling for nearly a month, I was happy to pass that time at The Workshop in Geffrye Street, Hoxton; Adrian Dutton’s London Life Drawing groups remain a pleasure for the purist. It was already dark when I emerged from Hoxton overground station a little after 6:30pm. The long hot summer nights here were clearly behind me, yet I found the room reassuringly toasty warm when I arrived.
Opening poses were 10-minutes, 2, 2, 2, 5, 5, 15 and 18-minutes. Aiming to create a favourable first impression, I made the schoolboy error of putting too many bends and stretches in the first pose. It’s not as if I needed to show off but sometimes, when the last garment falls to the floor, the body takes its own decisions. Thereafter the priority was management of potentially fibrillating leg muscles up to the break.
After a half-hour interval, in which I was replaced centre-stage by a table of breads and dips, I completed the session with poses of 30-minutes and 28-minutes. Perhaps they both would have been 30-minutes except, just like the first half, I gave rather too much to the opening pose and needed a couple of minutes extra to recuperate. I perched on a stool till the end… then dressed, said farewells, and shuffled away for a holiday.
There are various reasons why one might be chosen to model for a particular group or session – reputation, reliability, suitability for a theme, physique, and so forth – but in what was a first for me, I got this booking because my name is ‘Steve’. Croydon Life Drawing Group organiser, Francis noticed he had a couple of Steves coming up and decided to go for broke by booking more. I was number three in a set of four so far…
With the group meeting on Saturdays and the first pose due to commence at 9:30am, this is my earliest weekend modelling start. A first hour of quick poses gets my blood circulating, however: four of 5-minutes, then 4, 3, 2, 1-minute and two of 15-minutes. I had my back to a wall, which makes life easier as it denies any temptation to contort into a posture that’s interesting when scrutinised from 360° in the round.
After tea and biscuits, I settled down into a single long pose of 1 hour and 40 minutes. A modicum of comfort was vital so I opted to sit on a chair. Apart from that, however, I still added a twist of my left leg, a crook of my right foot, a flexing of my right arm and a slight turn of my body. OK, there was an ache or two, but nothing that needed more than a single stretch halfway through. Job done – now bring on the next Steve!
I was pondering the first of my four 30-minute poses for this evening at Mall Galleries when a regular of Hesketh Hubbard Art Society asked me, “Do you know Nijinsky?” Presuming she didn’t mean the racehorse, I replied in the affirmative and together we consulted Google for a specific pose of his that she had in mind. Fortunately it wasn’t a classical ballet pose, and even more helpfully I was asked to flatten it in the style of Assyrian sculpture reliefs she’d seen in the British Museum. Well, why not…
After this opening half-hour upright with knees slightly bent, one palm on my stomach, the other extended horizontally to my left, with face in profile, I continued with a sitting pose of more familiar stamp; one knee raised, one arm resting across it – I have been utilising variations of this one quite regularly in recent sessions. A fifteen minute break for tea and dark chocolate digestives restored me to my feet and kept me there for the start of the second half, this time in a rather more dynamic standing pose.
Finally a nice lie down. Well, not absolutely deliciously sumptuously nice as I’d put a twist in my torso and kept an arm, hand and index finger raised for vertical variety. My eyes were closed but there was little chance of sleep. Upon reanimating at the end, it was a pleasure to see such a range of materials had been used to capture my poses: fine pen and pencil work, scratchy charcoal, pastels both pale and vibrant, plus some bright splashes of watercolour. Warming feedback too. Lovely folk.
This was to be one of those tantalising evenings at The Prince Regent when Esther and I are both booked to model but we must do so just out of sight from each other in adjacent rooms. Still, it was nice to be sharing a session, whatever the circumstance.
Part 1
I started the session two 10-minute poses, whereas Esther was first to put to work on 2-minute poses. As Lisa of SketchPad Drawing was timing us both it meant my 10s overran by a few minutes to allow time for Esther’s changes of pose, but it was fine.
A 20-minute pose (plus a couple of added minutes) brought the opening half to an end for me. Whilst I’d been naked, Esther had been dazzling in a few costume props. Lisa does love a dazzling prop or two. It’s not my forte, but Esther always finds something.
Part 2
After a break and room-swapping, Esther was to finish with one long pose whilst I was to provide two 20-minute poses. At least that was the idea. I had been in position for a little while when some late returners from bar requested that mine be a long pose too.
I was asked and agreed. It was a pose I had used in a couple of other recent sessions so I knew it could be extended. Nonetheless, those additional 20-minutes proved to be a tad more achy than I hoped. Ah well, I could have declined. I guess I must enjoy it…
steve ritter 