I’ve been booked many times by Adrian Dutton but always to life model for one of his own groups. This evening, however, would be different as Adrian was tutor and I was his model at a company’s life drawing session in modern offices near Tottenham Court Road. Seven colleagues had stayed after-hours to make art at the end of their working day. We began with one pose of 10-minutes, five of 1-minute, then 5 and 20-minutes.
It was a pleasure to be working with Adrian again and also a relief as he arrived a few minutes late, having been involved in a vehicle collision while on the road into London. Mercifully nobody was injured and, after dealing with the immediate aftermath, he was able to drive on. Such is his natural serenity and composure that we would never have suspected something serious had happened if we were not told.
After a short break we resumed the session with another 10-minute pose, followed by three more of 1-minute, and finally 25-minutes to the end. Camaraderie, good humour, natural talent, and a willingness to learn were all present in the room, which made for an atmosphere that was relaxed yet focused in all the right places. Both my unusual physique and style of poses were respectfully appreciated, so… nice work!
I arrived quarter of an hour early at The Star by Hackney Downs and glanced around for Drawing the Star organiser Catherine Hall. Failing to find her in the bar or at the seats outside, I went up to the first floor. No joy there either but the function room was immaculately prepared for life drawing, and the evening’s soundtrack already playing. I decided it was best to stay put and get changed into my dressing gown.
Meanwhile, somewhere downstairs, Catherine was waiting for me to arrive. No alarms however, just ships in the night. Come our 7:30pm start time she sailed into the room surrounded by an ocean of artists. Everybody grabbed art materials and chose a seat. Some had been here earlier, using boards and paper to reserve their favourite vantage point – the art equivalent of beach towels on hotel sunbeds. We started at once.
5-minutes, 4, 3, 2, three of 1-minute, three of 30-seconds, then 10-minutes and lastly 8-minutes rounded off a first half of quick-fire poses. When the artists returned from a drinks break, they voted on their pose-time preference for our final half-hour: 10-10-10, 15-15, 10-20, or a single 30-minute pose. Unexpectedly they opted for one long pose. Possibly unprecedented! So I sat on a stool and rewarded them with lots of angles.
I felt confident the resulting artworks would justify a few extra aches and pains. This is still a great venue. I’d last posed here in July, but my most recent visit was a fortnight ago when Sky News came to film superb model Leonora ‘JiggleChick’ at work, and interview Esther about her Spirited Bodies campaign promoting life drawing to young people as a way of developing body positivity in the social media age. Here’s the clip:
With thanks to Sky for supporting #ScrollFreeSeptember, an initiative by the Royal Society for Public Health to encourage healthier relationships with social media.
It is at least heart-warming, if not entirely room-warming, to enter a life drawing studio and find a single fan heater already purring at the heart of the space. Temperatures in London had plunged over the past three days, so this gesture by The Conservatoire was appreciated. In due course a second heater was switched on, then at 7:30pm we warmed-up properly with opening poses of 1-minute, 1, 1, 5 and 10-minutes.
So to our 2-hour pose. “Are you feeling energetic?“, asked tutor Victoria Rance when she arrived, “We haven’t had a long standing pose yet this term.” It is entirely possible that enthusiasm wasn’t etched vividly across my face; duly the idea evolved to see me perching upright on a high stool instead. I didn’t feel too guilty as I had volunteered the last term’s only long standing pose during my previous visit. I made my perch…
Preliminary study in a notebook.
Quick end-of-evening sketch from the rear.
Rest breaks took the actual pose time below 2-hours but I was still sitting motionless from 8:05 to 8:45, 9:05 to 9:30, and 9:35 to 9:55. It was far from the least comfortable position I have sustained and whilst I was never quite bathed in heat, the temperature remained satisfactory. How gladdening at the end to see so many artists on form and working with colour. They should all be well pleased with a good evening’s work.
Lochaber Hall in Hither Green has had a make-over; a new floor and removal of a low false ceiling to reveal a greater window area above the main entrance that allows more natural light to flood the room. All in all, improvements conducing to good life drawing.
This 3-hour session opened with seven poses of 5-minutes each, followed by a single pose of 20-minutes. I hadn’t reckoned on this being the first chilly day of autumn. Not a problem for the 5-minuters, but I felt the bite of bitter cold whilst standing for 20.
The remainder of the session would be occupied by one 2-hour pose, split into halves of an hour each. I accepted the offer to recline, and even more gratefully accepted the warm air blowing from heaters that were switched on at either end of my twisted form.
Before the interval for tea, masking tape was placed all about me to help me get back exactly into position. I’m sure this wasn’t quite achieved but, despite me asking twice, the artists didn’t seem fiercely concerned. They refocused and drew me very well.
It’s a strange psychology that has one inwardly celebrating the end of a working week while jaunting towards a portrait art session that will require one to stare motionlessly at some vague middle-distant locus for two hours. Compared with the challenging and dynamic requirements of life modelling, this may seem to be a lazy option or an easy option, but I assure you not. Both effort and focus are very much needed.
This was my fourth time portrait modelling for Hesketh Hubbard Art Society at Mall Galleries. As before, shirt selection was a key consideration – I opted for purple with no collar. At the venue itself my only concern was to ensure sufficient soft padding on the wooden seat that I would occupy for two hour-long sittings with a 15-minute break. Come 7pm, having safeguarded my comfort as best I could, the job commenced.
As I stared beyond short-sighted blurriness at some unidentified dark smudge upon a far balcony – my gaze point for the evening – so a dozen pairs of eyes began to gaze back at me, each of them scrutinising my every line, shadow, glint and tone. I’m past finding this disconcerting and have instead learned how to appreciate those long hard stares with almost detached amusement.
Discomforts endured at various stages included: facial itches that would come and go, possibly abetted by my long hair; aching ankles where my legs were crossed beneath the chair; and of course a gentle numbing of the posterior. Artists remained diligent till they could improve me no further, at which point they softly packed and quit their post. Many thanks to those that stayed the course, creating such fine facsimiles.
The Bolton, near Earl’s Court tube station, is the furthest west I’ve travelled to model for one of Adrian Dutton’s life drawing groups. Entering this grand old London pub at a quarter to seven, I gravitated intuitively up to the first floor and found their function room all set for creating art. The successful format used at Adrian’s other venues was to be reproduced here, so at 7pm we started with a warm-up 10-minute standing pose (with candelabra), and then continued: 3-minutes, 3, 3, 5, 15 and 20-minutes.
I had a couple of close encounters in the two poses before our break. Whilst sitting on the floor for 15-minutes I glimpsed a little black multi-legged thing crawling towards my buttocks. Without my glasses, I couldn’t tell if it was a spider or a fly – a swift tensing of muscles would spook the latter, but spiders can be trickier to shift. Mercifully it was a fly. Next, whilst standing I got a bump on the buttocks when an artist ran across the pose space to answer her phone, catching me with her drawing board on the way…
Two 30-minute poses completed our evening’s work after the break. A long bench with faux-leather padding was brought in to be my new platform at the centre of the room. I opted first to be seated, then finished by reclining along its length. I felt comfortable in each pose, and at the end appreciated an artist’s compliment that I’d been “as still as a glacier” – in other words, acknowledged to be moving but not sufficiently perceptible for anyone to care about. A very apt analogy for the reality of life modelling.
For my debut life modelling in a function room upstairs at the Royal Inn on the Park, I opted to begin with a new 10-minute pose: my right leg would be bent yet supporting my full weight, my left leg would also be bent and on tip-toe, and my left arm would be raised as if fending off danger from above. I should have foreseen the main danger was in fact an achy right leg that would fibrillate throughout the remainder of the first half…
This venue now hosts Adrian Dutton’s life drawing sessions on Thursday evenings. While the space was new to me, the format and many of the artists were reassuringly familiar. I followed the opening pose with three poses of 3-minutes, plus one each of 5, 15 and 20-minutes up to the interval. I took care to protect the weakened leg, but then ended up with dead arms when I reclined with them resting upon a wooden chair.
Artists vanished downstairs to buy more drinks. Meanwhile I was asked how I felt the Royal Inn compared with Adrian’s previous Thursday venue, Eastbourne House. After a moment’s reflection, I lamented only that complimentary cheese and wine could no longer be an option. Beyond that, each place has its own pros and cons. Purely from a life modelling perspective, I found it very comfortable here.
Two poses of 30-minutes concluded our evening’s work. Drawings were spread on the floor for general admiration and, as I roamed about, one woman told me I was the first male model she’d ever drawn. This was only her fifth time life drawing, yet already her work was of a very high standard. Similar for other artists who hadn’t previously drawn me. Reassuringly familiar or refreshingly new, it seems there’s a lot of talent out there.
steve ritter 