Last Wednesday at Christ Church Life Class 

Always and interesting life session in the Art Room at Christ Church College in Oxford. This evening the tutor, Peter, suggested that the two hour session be split into two but with the same pose in both. The first half a sort of chair recline nude pose and the second half the same pose but now fully clothed. I chose to have a hat on in the second pose and with one shoe on and one shoe hanging off a finger (from the nude pose) that I had purposely placed loosely draped over my thigh from the start of the first  half of the session for the very purpose of dangling my unworn shoe in the second half to add interest to the final drawing. It seemed to work out well with one of the class (John) pointing out after the  session finished that a good life model does more that just turn up and assume a pose it's actually carefully planned from beginning to end. The loose relaxed hanging hand at the beginning proved to have a use in the end pose. I explained to John that from my experience gained over a good number of years life modelling is best viewed as a 'Performance Art' How true - How true!