Naked Tea Party - Sunday

We had a pretty big crowd in, today.  The Glasgow branch of Doctor Sketchy came in to put on a performance, so that drew in some Sketchy Afficionados.  I don't know if that's a genuine term or if I just coined it, but if I did then I hope it catches on.  I'm pleased with it.

I spent some time before the class helping to rearrange the club so that the tables and chairs were gathered round the stage, then sat at the bar for a while, tweaking the photographs I'd taken of Grettel Grimm.  I've got to the point, right now, where I've got a huge amount of pictures to work on and a huge amount of blog entries to write, so I'm probably going to be pretty busy for the next few days.  It's great, though - I've always been happier having too much to do than not having enough.  I've got one of those minds that never seems to slow down.

As everybody started to arrive, I got into character in the tea room, and waited to see if anyone would join me, but they mostly went straight through to the stage, so they could get ready for the art class.  But the compere (Boss? Ringmaster?) of the Doctor Sketchy group poked his head through the curtains, said "Hello, naked man," and invited me to participate in one of the poses.  I had no problem with that.

Now, I'm not a drawer, but I was invited to get dressed and join the class anyway.  So I sat in the audience and fumbled my way through six Doctor Sketchy poses - trying very hard not to make the models look grotesque.  An interesting bit of role reversal, since I usually don't do any drawing at all.  It's something I tend to avoid.  Even when I volunteered for the Edinburgh branch of Doctor Sketchy, I managed to duck those challenges, for fear of bringing my artistic deficiencies to the surface and revealing them to everyone.

First challenge - make eye contact with another member of the class and draw a picture of each other.  I nodded at a man who looked (from my skewed perspective) a bit like Hugo Weaving.  We also had to use our imaginations and draw gimp masks on each other, which was funny.  My drawing of him ended up looking a bit like the pumpkin guy from The nightmare before Christmas.  Well, at least it had personality.

Both models were introduced onto the stage individually - an intro that featured each of them doing a burlesque dance.  One had a routine with a giant balloon, while the other hung up some washing in a very saucy way - she had pegs (and a sock) strategically hidden.  Both models posed for the drawing challenges individually,  then posed together towards the end.  And then, for the final pose, I was invited up on to the stage to join them.

I was asked to do "a manly pose", so I tried to look both comedic and heroic at the same time.  Feet apart, hands on hips, and head turned to stare into the distance.  Both girls were positioned so that their backs were turned to me, in a disinterested way.  Snubbed.  The Doctor Sketchy compere (another term that I want to catch on, now) asked if I minded some pictures being taken of the pose and I was completely cool with that.  I hope to get some copies of them very soon - in which case I'll update this posting.

Later, there were a couple of talks and exhibitions, and I was invited to hang back and observe them.  First was a talk about the history of burlesque and strip tease in the UK, which was both educational and really funny.  After that, there was ArtWank - a short performance combining some vintage porn, a bit of audience participation (and once again, I was on the stage) and some more comedy.

A great way to end the Festival.  And I'm looking forward to getting involved once again, when more events kick off later in the year.

Naked Tea Party - Saturday

I brought a guest to this tea party.  After doing the hen night with Jodi, I invited her along so she could hang out and get comfortable.  I already knew she was cool with my nudity in the context of the hen nights, so it was no great stretch to imagine she'd be cool with it in the context of the tea party.

I think, at first, she possibly wasn't completely sure - but I talked her round and she came by.  And I think she really enjoyed herself.  At first, I showed her round and described the theme of the place - more Carry on and Benny Hill than erotica.  More seaside smut and innuendo than full-on sexuality.  I showed her some of Kat's pictures - which are, by the way, on sale on her website.  She was an art student before she was a stripper and some of her work is displayed in the Sapphire Rooms.

After that, I helped out with some of the setting up for today's exhibition.  Rehanging a couple of pictures and moving a couple of things about.  A couple of times I felt bad about leaving Jodi on her own while I got involved in other things, but she fell into conversation with a couple of the other people there and seemed to fit in quite nicely.

I spoke to Grettel Grimm about the pictures I'd been taking and showed her what I'd done with Kat's pictures - now "hanging" in my online gallery - and she seemed quite impressed.  I mentioned that what I really would love to do, would be to get access to the changing rooms and get some relaxed shots of the girls getting ready for their shifts, because my favourite shots were the completely unposed and natural, "backstage" kinds of pictures.  I know, however, that's not the sort of thing that's easy to arrange.  All the girls would have to be comfortable with my presence, and even though they're all very comfortable with their bodies, this is the place where they can withdraw from the public eye.  To have a photographer intruding on their refuge would be invasive and probably unwelcome.

Grettel told me that I was welcome to take pictures of her backstage, though.  And so, very shortly after that, I went downstairs with her, into the cellars and got more pictures again.  Later, I went through those and worked out the best editing technique for them - desaturate them, increase the contrast and make them black-and-white with a blue filter.  Or something like that.  I sounded a bit technical right there and actually bored myself as I was writing it.  Whatever I did, it brought out the musculature across her shoulders and made the environment - a dark, stark cellar, with really grungy stones - really stand out.  I automated the process and repeated it with every other picture.

This became her personal "theme" for that set of pictures.  Later, I'll pick out the best ones and possibly add some additional editing techniques to enhance any elements that might benefit from additional care and attention.  Then I'll show them to her and make sure she's cool with them being posted into my gallery as well.

Later, Jodi and I went into the Naked Tea Party room and I got "into character".  I tried to persuade her to join in, but getting naked was just a step too far for her.  She selected a couple of items from the clothes rack though, and changed some of her own clothes, so as to join in a bit.  Kat joined us after a while, and then the customer from yesterday returned.

It got to be a lot more fun after that.  Jodi and I found a couple of spanking implements and had a "sword fight" round the tea party room, while Kat snapped pictures of us.  I set up the timer on my camera to take some snapshots of Jodi, Kat and I lounging on one of the couches together.  And I got a few more relaxed pictures of Kat once or twice, when she wasn't paying attention.  By now, Kat and I have built up the kind of rapport where it's cool for me to snap away, because she's completely cool with it, she understands that I like the unposed pictures and I think she likes the results we get.

And that - apart from a couple of rounds of a "truth or dare" game I've got on my iPhone with Jodi and Kat - was largely it.  Later, Jodi and I left together.  She had plans for the evening, so headed off to Portobello after that and I went home.

Glum and bashful

This was Jodi's third class as a tutor, and her second time working with me.  She has now seen me naked three times, however - since today had her second and third opportunities for that.  More on that if you've been following my Naked Tea Party blog instalments, though.  But this posting isn't about those.  It's about today's hen party.

This was a good group.  Slightly hung over, as all groups of girls should be this early on a Saturday morning - but still ready to have a laugh.  They all turned up wearing Chinese hats, which was relevant in some way that I didn't quite catch.  I think they explained the connection to Jodi, but I wasn't paying attention at the time.  Either way, as soon as I saw the hats, I thought they'd make a good prop for one of the poses, but we never got round to incorporating them.

One of my favourite drawings was one that had a lot of character and personality to it.  I commented that the defining characteristic was "glumness" - the posture, the facial expression, even the tilt of the head.  The girl immediately drew one extra line and turned the ambiguous facial expression into a smile, instead.  I told her that she'd changed it from "glum" to "bashful".  It was definitely enough to win the first competition.

 

While I was posing, I told the girls about the Naked Tea Party and invited them to come along and join in.  They certainly seemed interested and intrigued - and they asked if I preferred to be naked.  Every time I have permission to do so, I told them.  I remembered how, in a recent class, Alison had commented on that.  She claimed that there was a complete posture change, every time I got undressed. Apparently, I'm a little shy and reserved until the clothes come off.

During one pose, one of the girls was challenged to get a little hands-on and actually cup my bum in the palms of her hands.  I didn't think she'd actually do it, but she was more daring and adventurous than I anticipated, so I had her quite happily cupping me for the following ten minutes or so.  The winning picture from that pose looked like she was actually reaching through and getting more exploratory.  It had to win, because of that.  I couldn't just let it pass, unremarked on.

In a different pose, one of the girls produced a drawing obscene enough that I subtracted three points from her as soon as I saw it.  I pointed at her and penalised her on the spot.  But then, before either Jodi or I had a chance to update her score - putting her into minus points - someone else pointed out that she'd been very flattering to me.  It was a good point, so I told Jodi to mark her up instead.  The scoring system is very arbitrary and depends entirely on whatever twisted, skewed bit of logic I'm using at any particular moment.  For example...

...for example, there was one that I thought looked pretty cool.  I was about to mark it as the winner of one of the challenges, but someone commented that it made me look like David Beckham, so I came close to penalising the artist instead.  There was a moment where it could go either way, but then I decided that I couldn't see the resemblance, so I went with my first thoughts and marked it as the winner.  To be honest, I should withdraw the comment about being "arbitrary" and just admit that I like being difficult for the sake of it.  It makes the classes a lot more fun, anyway.

The Make-A-Giant-Man challenge was the second-last pose and it produced the usual, fascinating results.  I adopted the usual "anatomical position" pose for that one, because it's an easy one for the girls to draw if they want to pick out a specific body part, and this challenge relies on them being able to do that.  Jodi collected the sheets of paper from the girls as they finished up, so she could start laying them out on the floor as we went along, and when I got up, the winner of that competition immediately presented itself.  I barely even had to look at the others - it was the giant big toe.  It couldn't be anything else.

We finished up with another of my favourite challenges.  It may be a cheat... it may be a slight variation on the Make-A-Giant-Man pose... but it's still a fun one and it's still different enough that I can get away with it.  It's the one where we divide the girls up into groups and get them to collaborate on a drawing so that the groups can come up individually and see if they can put them together.  This time, I dragged up three tall stools and lay across them, because I was feeling lazy and wanted to lie down for a few minutes.  It also meant that I was able to lay there for a bit longer again, while the girls presented their pictures for inspection.

Finally, I selected an overall winner from the pile of challenge winners, and - as promised - awarded that picture five points.  This pushed that girl into first place by a single point.  I might have to refine that scoring system a little for future classes, because it's too easy at that point - five extra points will almost always put that girl into the lead.  So, either I award fewer points for that one, or I throw in extra points at random all the way through the classes, or I just get completely nasty and fix every competition from this point onwards.

That last one could actually work.  After all, nobody's expecting fair play.  Not while I'm running the show.

Naked Tea Party - Friday

Today was the most fun day I've had this week.  It's fair to say that a lot of the events didn't go exactly according to plan, but this was pretty close to the original idea.

I found myself in the same room as the same girl and in the same condition as we were both in on Monday - the day I would have shamed myself if I hadn't been able to make strategic use of the couches and conceal some misbehaving body parts.  I was in better control of myself this time, though. So much so, that when I asked if we could take some pictures to illustrate my blog posting, I was actually able to share the same couch as her and get much cosier than before.  Her name is Kitty Kat, by the way.  I don't normally name the people I write about, but in her case, it makes sense since I'll be specifically referring to her a lot in this particular entry and since that's her stage name, rather than her real name.  And also, I took some pictures of her, which I'm going to be posting in my gallery, very soon - so I think it's only fair to promote her.

We had some other company, too.  A couple of the other dancers - and then a customer - joined us in the room and the conversation got pretty lively and entertaining.  I heard some cool stripper stories and learned a bit more about how the occasional breach of etiquette can take place.  A lot of it made me very grateful that the people who hire me are always very respectful, because a couple of the stories - of rude and disrespectful customers - actually shocked me at times.  I would occasionally find myself admiring the half naked girls I was sharing the room with, then mentally berating myself for being lecherous... for leering at the them... but compared to some of the people they have to deal with, I'm an absolute paragon of virtue and restraint.

Kitty Kat asked me if I'd ever been to a strip club before, and I said I hadn't, which seemed to surprise her.  It wasn't because I had any moral or ethical objections to them, though.  I just had never really felt the need to go.  Mainly because I like to get actively involved when I visit places, and strip clubs - being all about observation - just always seemed like they'd be a bit too passive for me.  I've been to a couple of fetish events, where there's a lot more play and interaction going on, but I haven't visited too many of those, either.

I've also gone to a few naturist events, but the main appeal in those is that I can get naked.  And that could be the main element of my reluctance to visit strip clubs... I'd probably get jealous of the naked girls, since I wouldn't be able to join in.

Later, we went back into the main part of the club and I went with Kitty Kat to the pole, where I messed around a bit and got her to take some pictures.  She was impressed that I had the nerve to let go with my hands and lean right back, but I told her that took a lot of psyching up before I was able to get up the nerve to do so.  Afterwards, she went on and I took some pictures of her dancing - and generally showing up my own complete lack of grace.

And finally, she let me take some pictures of her applying makeup in the bar mirrors, as she prepared for her shift.  Those are, without doubt, the best pictures I took that night.  Those will be added to my gallery very soon as well.

Naked Tea Party - Wednesday

There is a fetish called amalgatophilia and one of the spaces in the Sapphire Rooms is dedicated to it.  It's a sexual attraction towards statues and shop window dummies - things like that.  The space uses a mannequin to illustrate the fetish and it's pretty startling at times.  More than once, I've swished through a set of curtains, to find the mannequin just sitting and waiting for me.  It can really give a person a bit of a jolt.  It doesn't help that it occasionally gets moved around, so it might be in a different part of the space next time I walk into that area.  It means I can't get used to its presence.

It's also a badly behaved dummy.  Posing it is a swine, because the limbs really aren't very articulated at all.  Moving it is even worse.  Today, I had to take it downstairs, and one of its arms fell off.  That wasn't too bad - I picked the arm up and tucked it under my own arm as best I could.  But its other arm - now fully extended into some sort of Nazi salute - managed to snag a bra from the lingerie line on the way past.  This dummy - clearly not as inanimate as it should have been - really wanted that bra.  I was struggling to hold the whole thing together, not break off any more limbs and not drop the ones that had already fallen away - and the damn thing was trying to steal someone else's lingerie from the washing line.

Inanimate objects are seldom as inanimate as they should be.

Naked Tea Party - Tuesday

The Naked Tea Party continues to be fun, but it continues to to deviate from the plans that were set.  Today, I arrived at 11AM again, and spent the early parts of the day tweaking the environment a little.  Taking down posters and pictures to rehang them in different places.  It made sense, because a couple of them were a little wasted in the original placings.

Later, everybody got into character once more and we all took to our places.  Which meant I returned to the Tea Party Room and got undressed.  It was cool, I curled up on the couch with a book (Ecstacy by Irvine Welsh, if anyone's interested) and waited for members of the public to turn up and socialise with me.  Sadly, the charms of the Sapphire Rooms escaped the busy, thronging passers-by on Lothian Road.  I think I sat on that couch for nearly two hours, while a couple of the girls drifted in and out, concentrating on their own duties - and occasionally commenting on how chilled and relaxed I looked.

Eventually, I got dressed and stepped outside to talk to a couple of the girls.  We sat at a table on Lothian Road, talking about what could be done to improve the concept and draw people in.  Part of the problem is that Edinburgh's infamous "Pubic Triangle" is just around the corner on Bread Street and that's a very different environment - much seedier than this place - and as a result, it kind of tarnishes the Sapphire Rooms' reputation with its proximity.

The "Pubic Triangle" consists of three tiny little pubs that offer strip shows and lap dances.  They're all right next to each other, albeit on three different corners - hence the "triangle".  I admitted to a couple of the girls that I had always prejudged the Sapphire Rooms fairly harshly until last week and until I had met the girls.  A couple of them told me they had briefly worked in the Triangle, but moved on.  The clientele, they said, were disrespectful and openly rude.

It was interesting and funny to listen to the dancers' stories.  And to offer my own stories, from my experiences with the hen nights in return.  I don't do the same job as them, but there's just enough crossover going on, that I was at least able to contribute to the conversation.  The main difference is that my clients are always respectful of what I do, while they - even in the Sapphire Rooms - have to occasionally deal with people who anticipate something a little more "hands-on" than what's being offered.

Another really cool element about sitting at that table on that busy street in that beautiful sunlight (very different to the weather we've been having until yesterday) was the fact that I was sharing it with a half naked girl and nobody was paying any attention at all.  It was the girl in the black corset (Remember her? She hugged me yesterday.) and I was very amused by the fact that everybody was so cool about it.  They just kept on walking and never paid any attention to her at all.

Hopefully, we'll be able to tempt more people in tomorrow.  We've come up with a couple of possible strategies that might work.  The main difficulty, I suspect, is that other people might be prejudging the Sapphire Rooms in the same way as I did.  It just needs to be made clear that there's a show going on - a tongue-in-cheek exploration of sex and nudity, rather than a seedy and grimy strip joint.

Naked Tea Party - Monday

Monday

My first day at the Sapphire Rooms on Lothian Road didn't go quite as I expected, but I really enjoyed it.  The doors hadn't yet been officially opened and there was still a lot of decorating to do, so I joined in and helped out.  Moving furniture, hanging up posters, fixing up old picture frames - the whole lot.  For this week, the place is an exhibition from 11AM to 7PM, and then it becomes a traditional strip bar and pole dancing club - and therefore a public space.  It's during the exhibition times that I'm scheduled to be the host of the Naked Tea Party.

The people were really cool and I liked all of them.  I talked a lot to one of the girls - a dancer - and she gave me a couple of cool tips about getting my own pictures displayed somewhere.  I need to ask her again where the venue was that she recommended.  She spoke about the irony that she - as a stripper - often more clothes at work than young girls did on the street just outside the club.  She'd throw something on so she could step outside and be "decent", but see girls - often very young girls - dressed a lot more provocatively.

Later in the day, there was supposed to be a photographer from one of the newspapers along, so everybody was asked to get "in character" and that was the first part of the day where I actually got undressed.  At first I confined myself to my corner of the club - the Naked Tea Party room - because I wasn't sure if I should mingle without any clothes, but I relaxed that pretty quickly.  And for the next couple of hours, I wandered around casually, talking to everybody else and having a laugh.

One of the girls joined me in the Naked Tea Party room, and as we curled up in the couches talking to each other, I suddenly found myself with a bit of a problem that I don't normally have.  Being the only naked person in most environments, I generally don't have to contend with too much visual stimulus, so suddenly sharing a room with an attractive naked girl was definitely a heightened experience and I definitely responded.  Fortunately, I was on a different couch and I was curled up, so I managed to conceal the effects.  But I better make sure I'm just as discreet for the rest of the week if there are similar events.

The funniest part of the day was when two guys wandered in off the street and sat at the bar, expecting strippers.  I had been drinking a can of coke in my corner, and so hadn't seen them come in - and they hadn't seen me.  When I stepped out and walked over to the bar, they were very surprised that the one naked person they saw in there was male and didn't hang around for too much longer after that.

I had a couple of free beers towards the end of the day - something I'd been offered a few times but resisted until then, because I didn't want to go running to the toilet every five minutes.  And then, shortly before the club opened up its doors to its regular clientele, I was told it was about to become a "public space" and that naked men weren't supposed to be part of that ambience.  So, my shift was up.

So I got dressed and  then, just before I left, one of the girls - wearing little more than a black corset - came forward and gave me a hug.  She thanked me for joining in and lending a hand, so I told her that it was worth it to get a hug from a half naked girl - and then briefly wondered whether that statement was a bit too cheeky.  I'm not always very good at knowing where I've crossed a line - especially after I blurt out something like that.  She just laughed, though, and told me that she shouldn't have waited until I got dressed before offering me a hug.

After that, it was a short bus journey home to a much less glamorous environment.  But a lot of fun until then.

Gok Wan and Chewbacca

Today's class was held in Pitlochry.  We were promised three months of rain over the course of three days and this was the first of those days, so I made sure I allowed for plenty of travel time in case there was an traffic disruption going on.  Well, there was rain, but it was disappointingly average.  None of the torrential downpours I had anticipated.

I arrived in plenty of time to get set up and apart from a couple of minor teething troubles, everything went very well.  This venue wasn't used to having naked men, so wasn't geared up to providing the best possible heating conditions, but a radiator was quickly scavenged up and then everything went well.

A quick bit of advertising - because I have no problems with that.  The bar was McKay's and it's on the main street in Pitlochry.  The room we used was at the back of the bar and the staff were all great.  I'll even throw in a special mention to Wendy, because she was very nice to me - and she's going to feature in this posting once or twice.  And because - tutors aside - I usually don't name anyone else in my hen night postings.  Just a minor nod towards client confidentiality.  Like all the pictures (when I'm allowed to take any) don't completely screw that up all by themselves.

Today's class had a really nice moment of surrealism.  It may have happened in two different poses and through two separate artists, but I ended up looking like Gok Wan in one picture and Chewbacca in another.  It was great.  When I saw the Chewbacca one, my first thought was Planet of the apes, but one of the girls noticed that the hen night sash I was wearing (borrowed from the bride) looked a lot like Chewbacca's gun belt.  After that, the similarities were beyond dispute.

This left me wondering how Chewbacca would get on if he ever featured on How to look good naked. He's already naked, isn't he?  Apart from the gun belt, anyway.  And we've only got Han Solo's word for it that "he" really is male.  But I've got issues with Gok Wan.  I don't think he's really out to be as body positive as he claims to be, and I'm confident that poor Chewie would be sent for an intensive course of electrolysis at some point.  And then what do we get?  A bald wookie.  And nobody wants that.  Right?

The QI scoring style proved to be as much fun as ever.  One girl did some amazing drawings, which - sadly - weren't funny.  And it's the funny ones that win the competitions.  She still ended up winning the overall competition despite that, even if she had to overcome a couple of other challenges.  She lost her first three points almost as soon as she earned them, because - for some reason that I can't quite remember - I decided that she had earned a penalty as well.  You wouldn't think it would be possible to forget all these details, but they routinely escape me.  There's always just so much going on that when it comes to recalling it all later, I tend to struggle a bit - and then spend two paragraphs talking about wookies instead.

The competitive element among these girls was pretty high, too.  One kept almost winning, but not quite - and then she started getting vocal about how her picture was of a high enough standard that it should have won.  It was round about then that I started throwing in "runners-up" scores of two points each, but that still failed to appease her.  She pointed out - quite rightly - that she was only getting a sympathy vote.  She claimed I was being patronising.  I tried to dispute that.  Her pictures were good, but she was up against tough competition.  But worse than that, she was up against a judge with very arbitrary standards that would shift and change from one minute to the next.  A well-drawn picture doesn't matter anywhere near as much as a funny one or (better yet) a flattering one.

Also, she routinely drew me looking like I was in a foul temper.  Which suggested her own, quietly simmering rage at being consistently overlooked was manifesting its way into her drawings.  Actually, I wish I'd thought of saying that yesterday - it might have made for a funny comment.

(At this stage, I should probably point out there was no genuine ill-feeling involved among any of the girls and no genuine resentment at having lost any of the competitions.  From my perspective, however, it was funny to write this article as though the animosity was genuine, rather than good-natured banter.  The writer should take this opportunity to apologise to the girl in question for misrepresenting her and making her appear to have no sense of humour.)

At one point, the girls took a brief break from the drawing.  All of them decided they'd have a toilet break or get more drinks in, so they all unanimously decided to set the class on hold for a couple of minutes, while they left the room.  And as they walked out, the manageress of the bar walked in, called out that she wasn't looking and crossed the room quickly, so that she could set up the TV.  Apparently, back in the main bar, there were some patrons who wanted to watch the football or the rugby or something, and she had to wait for a lull in the class before she could come into this room and set it up.

I had to laugh at that.  Like all the other girls were allowed to see me, but she wasn't.  I told her that it was cool and I didn't mind, so while we waited for the other girls to return, she hung back to talk to me for a couple of minutes.  Her name was Wendy and she had come in briefly, back at the beginning of the class, when the girl who booked me had come through to introduce herself and talk to me about how to introduce everything.  Back at that point, I had initially mistaken her for one of the girls.  Towards the end of the class, she even posed for a photograph with me on my iPhone.  I've tried to text it to her a bunch of times since then, but so far it hasn't transmitted.  That might be the fault of the signal strength in Pitlochry, though.  I hope I get it sorted out, because she was pretty cool and she made myself and the group feel very welcome.  I'm definitely going to use that venue again, any time I get another booking in Pitlochry.

One of the other things I thought was surprising about this group was just how often they tended to focus in on the penis.  I set the Draw-A-Giant-Man challenge to them and all but two girls focussed in on that area.  I didn't even attempt to set the pictures down and put them together, because it would have been a torso, a head and six penises.  I did, however, pick out the two best penises and award the girls two points each, rather than three points for the best single drawing.  And that was only after a lot of deliberation - it just seemed like the best possible option.

I also returned to an old favourite - a challenge I haven't used for a while, now.  The one where I get the girls to split into groups, then - within each group - agree on a specific area to draw.  That one's always fun when the time comes to put the pictures together and see if they match up.  This is the one that had the Gok Wan picture, which I really liked.  I always love this one, when the time comes to see how good the overall result is.  It's always good for a couple of laughs.

This time, I set my own camera down, activated a timer I downloaded a few weeks ago and set it to take thirty pictures - each spaced one second apart.  Then I selected a few of the best ones (or the least bad ones) and tried to create a sort of sequence.  Only one of the teams came out looking even remotely workable, though.  That app is a bit hit-and-miss, sometimes.  But when it hits, it does sometimes create a great sequence of natural pictures.

At the end of the class, I still had a couple of hours to kill before catching the bus back to Edinburgh and the girls invited me to join them for a drink, which was a fun way to chill out and wind down.  I don't usually like to impose on the groups when the job is done, but then I don't usually get invited to join in, so it was nice to find the table and relax once I'd got dressed, tidied everything away and walked back into the main bar.

The girls moved on shortly after that, so I went looking for Wendy, made sure that everything was tidied up to her satisfaction - although, I only just remembered that I forgot to turn off the radiator that she brought through for me - and promised to text her the picture that was taken.  Then I walked down to the bus stop, had a cup of coffee in a little tea shop just opposite it and finally set off for Edinburgh once more.

The three months of rain ultimately turned into little more than a bit of a drizzle, as far as I could tell.  It definitely didn't slow any traffic down or create any real disruptions.  And ultimately, it was another good day with another good class.

Festival of the Erotic Arts

From Monday the 18th to Saturday the 23rd (and possibly Sunday the 24th) of June, I'm going to be helping out at Edinburgh's Festival of the Erotic Arts. I will be in the Sapphire Rooms on Lothian Road - a venue that I was pleasantly surprised to discover was much more upmarket and tasteful than I previously suspected.

I will be the host of the Naked Tea Party. Which means that for one full week, I'll be getting showered and dressed, going out to "work" and getting undressed again - and then spending the rest of the day (hopefully) being charming, sophisticated, debonair, urbane and naked. It sounds amazing. And in a refreshing twist for me, I might not be the only naked person, for once.

So you might not fancy joining me.  Or you might come along out of curiosity, but prefer not to get undressed.  That's all cool... but just a couple of hours ago, I read in the paper that we're going to get three months worth of rain over the next three days.  So is there anyone in this bleak, dismal little country who wants to escape the grim reality of a grey, grey sky that often seems to be just that little bit too close?  If that's the case, then why not come along, have a laugh and forget the misery.  Don't argue with the logic - just accept it.  In my head, a bit of nudity is the perfect antidote to this kind of climate.

Just... keep on your socks. That's the only rule. After all, we can't have any impropriety going on, so it's important that not every bit of clothing comes off.

So... maybe I'll see you there.

Timmy Mallett's glasses

I remembered the feedback book this time.  I'm still disappointed that I forgot it at the previous class, but at least I got my fix of ego stroking this time around.  I need the pictures of the book for this blog.  After all, the photographs of happy, smiling clients having a great time is not going to convince anyone, unless I also include these handwritten testimonials.

This group of girls also brought another great prop along to this class.  A large pair of comedy glasses that I used repeatedly.  Then, for a recurring theme, I got the winner of every competition to put the glasses on as well, when she posed for her victory picture with me.  A nice little extra touch.

I made a comment about looking a bit like Timmy Mallett, but that comment only got blank, uncomprehending stares.  I don't think any of them understood the reference.  All of them just a little bit too young for that.  Made me feel old.  And past my prime.

There was some amazing drawing in this group.  I couldn't believe how amazing a lot of the pictures were and I had a really tough job picking my favourites out of every challenge.  But two of my favourite pictures even seemed to have a connection.  One of them looked like a character from South Park and one looked like (it was Alison who spotted this) Stewie Griffin from Family Guy.  They genuinely are some of the funniest and best pictures I've seen in a long, long time. 

The Make-A-Giant-Man pose was just as much fun as always, despite some of the girls getting their senses of direction a little confused - a couple of them found it hard to tell the difference between left and right.  This meant that I was given two right arms and two left feet - which was surprising apt.  We fixed the arm situation by turning one of the - the puny one - upside down.  The right arm was more powerful than the left one - and again, that was surprisingly appropriate.  How many single men can't say that, though?

Alison got the girls to stand on the steps and hold up their pictures to make the giant man and we got a couple of pictures of that.  But afterwards, we decided it was more fun for me to lie down on the floor and for the girls to lay their pictures on top of me, so we could see what that looked like.  It came out looking pretty cool.

I can't remember who came up with the idea of me standing with my arms stretched right out to either side, but it was the toughest pose of this class.  And while I was standing like that, we got talking about how actual genuine life modelling - for an actual genuine art class - was a lot tougher than these hen nights.  Alison said that models often had to stand still for up to an hour, but I pointed out that it was even longer than that.  When I worked as a life model (and I still do that occasionally, just to remind myself how easy these classes are) I would routinely have to maintain a pose for seven hours at a time, with only an hour halfway through the day so the students could get something to eat.  Beyond that, models are allowed the occasional ten or twenty minute break.  One time, when I worked at Gray's School of Art at Aberdeen, I had to keep returning to the same pose for five days.  Actual genuine life modelling can really be an exercise in pain.  And this pose reminded me of that.  Towards the end of it, Alison pointed out that my arms had started to sag and asked me if they had a minute left in them.  "More like thirty seconds," I said.  I managed to last that thirty seconds, but only just barely.

Alison must have taken pity on me after that last pose, though.  Because the next one was easy.  We moved four chairs into position and I lay across them, propped up on one arm.  Very occasionally, in an actual genuine art class, I would get a pose where there was no pain and where I'd be so relaxed that I might even doze off.  This wasn't one of those poses, but it could have been like that if I hadn't been propped up.  It definitely was a lot easier than the last one, though.

This pose was the Work-Collaboratively challenge - and I really need to come up with a better name for that one.  It's the one where the girls are put together into small groups and all of them have to collaborate on the same picture.  At regular intervals Alison would tell them to change and they'd pass their pads to the person next to them and keep working.  The fun thing about that kind of challenge is hearing some of the girls occasionally claim that the person they'd just changed with had already drawn their favourite bit.

Since these pictures were collaborative efforts, the points were shared out among those who drew the winning picture.  And when they came up for their victory photograph, two of them held the picture.  Normally it's me who holds it and unless otherwise directed, I tend to hold it strategically to create a PG version.  This time, the girls held it higher, though, so for that one it was more of an 18 certificate.

 

Once again, we took to the steps at the back of the room for the group shot at the end of the class.  I think we used to struggle to think of the best location for these pictures, then when we first used those steps, it just became blindingly obvious - and I couldn't figure out why we'd never used them before.  I think we got a decent set of happy, smiling faces for it, though.  So I'm going to make a bit of an assumption and guess that it was another contented group.

Once again, Alison and I had a great time.  I love this job.  It barely qualifies as "work".