Drawing the Nude

Mrs P. has always been a bit of an artist and recently she signed up with Sandford Catherine (as opposed to Cambridge Catherine or London Katherine) on a life-drawing course. Unfortunately for Catherine she was unable to make this week’s class. Luckily for me this meant that I could have a go at the old drawing.

You may or may not know that, when I get chance, I like to do a bit of drawing (I did pottery as a GCSE. Hey, stop laughing.). I’m not great at it, but it is something that I get quite a bit of pleasure from. Thus the opportunity to partake in some proper art-like stuff was one that I was happy to take.

Now life-drawing involves the drawing of the nude. Hmm. Week one of the class featured a 60 year old man. So for my week you might expect a change – a young lady, perchance? Yep. But as an artist, or at least someone who steps in at the last minute when a friend can’t make it, I wasn’t at all bothered by this.

What did slightly bother me, and I guess is a slight risk you run when you draw nudes in a smallish community, is that I actually knew the young lady in question.

And not just know of her.

The nude model was my neighbour. My neighbour of 18-months who I have seen often, yet spoken to about five times. Including nodded hellos. So not even knowing her name until 2 minutes previously, I was drawing my female neighbour 100% naked.

But far from being uncomfortable, it meant that Helen and I got to chat to her in the breaks, (whilst she was wearing a gown and socks). She was really nice and interesting, and the only thing that we felt embarrassed about was that we hadn’t spoken in the one and a half years previous.