Life drawing

By Neil Smith

Life drawing is great – you go to your local church hall and look at a naked lady for 2 hours – no guilt, and no quid in the beer glass. However, if you’re thinking of taking up life drawing, it’s worth noting that a strict, but unspoken, code of conduct is observed: It’s ok to talk to your model once she’s naked, but only to ask her to move an arm, or if she’d like the fan heater turned up. It’s not ok to compliment her breasts or comment on how short her legs are. Any kind of laughing is also a no no. Whilst a naked life model is surprisingly un-sexy, once they put their robe back on you may find yourself inadvertently peeking at a partially exposed knee. This is bad etiquette, and should be done discreetly. With my dodgy eyes it’s often tempting to move in for a closer look at the posing model. This will see you labelled as a ‘perv’ and thrown off the course. And finally, at the end of each session it’s is also important to compliment other students’ drawings with positive comments like: ‘er, the left knee is really nice’, or ‘ that looks like a Picasso’.