Converts

I think I might have inspired a couple of artists to take up naturism, today.  During one of the poses, two of them were talking - and if I interpreted the snippets of overheard conversation properly - they were discussing whether or not to start hanging around naked at home.  I think they shared a flat in London.

Today's art class was at The Standard in Edinburgh - no rushed last-minute trips to Inverness this weekend.  It was relaxed, and fun and I settled into it with no problems at all.  Still a lot of laughs, but very easy.

The girls all arrived perfectly on time and I went through a similar routine to my last Edinburgh class.  I had Edith to help out, but I introduced myself as before, then stepped out of the room "in search of props" as before and walked back in, naked "as before".  The really cool thing about doing it this way is the impact - even if the girls have seen right through the charade and are already anticipating the nudity.  I'm not sure why it's so much fun to be walking about, pretending to be oblivious to my own nudity.  It could be that it's the performance of it.  Either way, it's a great start to the class.  The winner of the first challenge was a great drawing - one that had what looked like a stylised pubic hair depiction, coupled with a "censored" warning.

There were lots of questions about how often I got naked, whether I got naked at home, whether I'd ever been naked publicly, whether I'd call myself a naturist, whether I'd answer my front door naked - stuff like that.  The only difficult question was the naturist one.  I've never really been sure if the term specifically applies to me.  Yes, I like to be naked... but there's an element of exhibitionism and showing off that I think the true naturists disapprove of.  Ultimately, it's just another label and I've never liked labels.

Even when I asked for volunteers, the two girls who were "pressed" into the job seemed to briefly debate whether the other model should be naked as well.  This generally happens anyway - it's a natural bit of banter and not taken too seriously.  But every so often, it seems that the girls actually consider it for a moment.

I dug out the props for that pose.  I keep them in a sort of canvas bag, so it's kind of fun to rummage around inside it and dig them out.  The Dalek wad discarded pretty quickly, this time.  I don't think anyone wanted to have to draw it, so it was rejected.  It's a shame... Scottish Daleks are, after all, notoriously egotistical and like to participate in life drawing classes.

 

 

 

The wrist cuffs were used in two poses.  In one, I wore them on my own, and in the other pose, I was cuffed to the other model.  (That made me think of a film I watched recently.  It was called You instead and it was about two people - musicians who had a personality clash - were handcuffed together at T In The Park.  Sounds like a dire romantic comedy, but in fact it was a really cool indie film with great music.)  The blindfold was also used a couple of times as well.

My classes are often a bit of an ice breaker for these weekends.  The girls meet each other and have a bit of a laugh.  Often, in the larger groups, there are a lot of girls who haven't met each other before, so they're also a chance to interact for the first time.  This weekend, though, it was a small group and I think everybody already knew each other.  That's not unusual, but the interesting thing was that they'd already had a more lively event.  They'd already been to see Dreamboys.  I thought it was funny that they'd been to a live strip show, then gone to something more low key, less raucous and - I think it's fair to say - more intimate.  I think that it usually happens the other way round.  Apparently, they were entertained as much by the antics of the girls in the audience, as they were by the show.  One of them said something about some girls having to be "prised off' the dancers.

Nobody ever needs to be prised off me.  Which definitely means I'm safer in my job than male strippers are in theirs.  And, of course, we all want to be safe at work.  I shouldn't complain, though.  After all, nothing's perfect - and the job's still a lot of fun.

Some comments on "Game of thrones".

I read a snippet of an interview from one of the female stars of  Game of thrones  a few months ago. It was Natalia Tena - who plays the wildling, Osha and she was commenting on the lack of male nudity in the series.  The funny thing about her complaint is that it's completely valid, but as far as I can remember (and my memory isn't great) she's the only person in the entire series who had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it CFNM moment.

Anyway, since the third series has just kicked off, this led to me wondering whether anyone else had added their voices to her complaint.  And I found an article in New York Magazine.  If you're interested, you can read it here.  The article has all the brevity of the aforementioned CFNM scene, but there are plenty of people adding their own opinions to the comments.  Sometimes those can be entertaining and edifying (and confusing), all on their own.

And you can read Natalia's comments, here.

A couple of articles

We have recently been featured in a couple of newspaper and magazine articles.  We're becoming more widely known all the time - particularly in London, where Rachel McCarthy (who started this whole business off) is running her own classes.  She featured in The Sun on Tuesday the 9th of April.  I've included the article - that's her on the bottom of the second page.

OK, so fair enough... that's more about life modelling, than the hen night art classes we know and love from this blog, but there's another article - in Floodlight Magazine.  I'd never heard of it before, so maybe it's local to London.

Anyway, if you want to read it, you can find it here.

And just in case you the links aren't working, here's the online article -

We’re sure anyone who has ventured into the city of a weekend, will have already noticed that London is a haven for stag and hen parties. With its busy nightlife and abundance ofthings to do during the day, plenty of soon-to-be brides and grooms want to celebrate their last days before marriage in the capital.

Hen and stag dos used to mean just one night out dancing and drinking but they’ve now turned into whole weekends, featuring hotels, activities, and in some cases international travel. Brides and grooms-to-be aren’t satisfied with a drink at the local anymore – they’re looking to try new things and really make the most of spending time with friends before the big day.

London is the place to find hen party ideas and model agent, Rachel McCarthy, has come up a unique experience that will certainly be remembered by brides and their girlfriends:life drawing hen parties.

Rachel runs RAM – The Register of Artists and Models – and is always looking for ways to get work for the models and artists on her books. ‘A few years ago, I hit upon the idea of providing tailor made drawing sessions for private groups. One of those groups early on happened to be a hen party. And the rest is history. The idea took off and grew like wildfire!’

The concept is simple – you let Rachel know what you’re after and for how many hens and she will organise materials, the studio, equipment and the all important male life model – so for anyone after hen party ideas, it couldn't be easier. Rachel’s life drawing hen parties can be held all over London and her team will even come to your home or hotel. Plus, for those that want refreshments, it’s possible to organise an afternoon tea or cocktail making session alongside.

Life drawing hen parties are a civilised and artistic alternative to the now cliché tradition of embarrassing the bride with a male stripper and Rachel says this is part of their appeal, ‘A life drawing class provides the titillation of a hot, nude young man without it being in the environment of a tawdry strip joint. All our events are run very professionally with RAM accredited tutors and models.’

The great thing about life drawing hen parties is that as well as having a good laugh, the group gets to learn something. This is a concept that is becoming increasingly popular with women celebrating this sort of occasion, and course providers are offering hen party ideas in the form of jewellery making workshops and cupcake decorating classes. It means the whole group comes away with a new skill as well as some good memories.

For most of us though, the idea of working with a room full of excited hens sounds difficult, so is it hard to teach them? ‘Not really,’ says Rachel, ‘After an initial period of total shock (if it's a complete surprise) and a bit of giggling, they all settle down and draw! We take them through basic drawing exercises - all classes are lead by a workshop leader, so they're not left to their own devices.’

Of course, in the light hearted environment of life drawing hen parties, there’s not a huge amount of pressure to get your sketching absolutely perfect. It’s not always easy though – so what’s the most challenging part? ‘Everything, according to a lot of artists!Life drawing is the hardest form of drawing. They'd much rather be given a building or vase of flowers to draw, rather than a living, breathing human being. Seriously, though, the hardest things to draw, believe it or not, are hands and feet. Many artists leave them out or cut them off. Not literally, I hasten to add!’

Aside from becoming experts in art though, hens can expect a good giggle from Rachel’s life drawing classes and she says there have been a lot of funny moments, ‘Once, the bride wanted to take off her clothes and model too!’ She also says the drawings can be funny and as the hens can take them home at the end, they make a hilarious souvenir to remember the event by.

With a vast number of life drawing classes on offer across London (including ones for more serious artistic types who want to attend on their own), we asked Rachel to sum up why hens might want to book this sort of class for the occasion, ‘It's fun, you get to look at a fit young man with no clothes on, take a work of art (hopefully!) home with you, and acquire a new found skill.’

The Dalek was looking at me

After the first class was finished, the day wasn't over.  I had another one to hurry off to - but the second one was in Inverness.  It had been a late booking, so there had been limited time to plan for it, but - with a  couple of tweaks to the arrangement - I made it.  It had been scheduled for 7PM, but there was no way I was going to get to Inverness before 8PM, - and there was definitely no way to arrange for alternative models and tutors to cover it - so it was put back to 8:30PM.  And without the aid of a tutor.

I booked a bus to Inverness and caught it at 4:20PM - meeting Alison at the bus station on the way.  She brought the sketchpads and charcoal from her own class with her, so I could add them to what remained from my class, in case I was starting to run short, but there was little to worry about there.  I had judged the amounts very carefully.

It also gave me a chance to catch up with Alison and find out how her own class had run.  I had relaxed a lot, when I found out that her model had actually turned up, but it was still valuable to find out just how good he had been.  She thought he looked good, with the only real problem being a mild language barrier which meant she'd had to prompt him once or twice.  Beyond that, it all went well.  Her class was a little on the shy side.

Then it was off to Inverness.  Fine weather, almost all the way, then - just about an hour out of town, there was heavy mist gathering above the trees.  Then, suddenly, I looked up from my book and it was snowing - shortly before we left the Cairngorms National Park, I think.  I wasn't sure whether the weather change was geographical and we just travelled into it as we headed north, or whether it was just turning bad in general.  The fact that we left the snow behind as we headed south again this morning definitely suggests the geography, though.

Despite that we still got into town a little earlier than planned and I caught a taxi to the Beauforth Hotel.  I met two of the girls at the reception area and they took me to the room where the class was being held.  They had apparently booked a class with someone else, who had let them down late in the day.  I never did get all the details, although I was curious about them.  I imagine it was a competitor who possibly chickened out.  But not before he had made them get all the supplies - sketchpads, chalks and pencils.  I could have come up with nothing at all, and still been able to carry out the class, because they had covered it all themselves.

Suddenly, I was feeling very bad about how much I had charged.  Because of the transport, the limited time available, the logistics, the co-ordination and the fact that I was going to have to stay overnight, I went for the highest price and I based that on a minimum of eight people attending the class, so I was even more surprised to find that it was just six people.  I couldn't refund anything at this point, because it was negotiated through an agency, but what I could do was relax into it.  I had no reason to hurry off after the hour was done and it seemed that they had no pressing appointments, either.  So I told them that as long as I could come up with fresh drawing challenges and as long as our attention spans could cope, then we were just going to carry on and enjoy ourselves.

The smaller classes are a lot of fun, which is something I didn't anticipate when I first started this job.  They're more intimate and there's more opportunity for conversation going on.  In the larger classes, they can be a bit more chaotic - which is also fun - or they can be surprisingly subdued, because the girls sometimes haven't all met each other before and these classes are their opportunity to get to know each other.  This is the smallest class I've ever done, and the banter among the girls was very good-natured and friendly.  They were mostly from Aberdeen, although a couple of them live in Edinburgh, now.  In Niddrie - which was a bit of a shocker, because I know that area from back before it was flattened and rebuilt.  And back then, it was not a pleasant place.  Key scenes from Trainspotting were filmed there.

(On an unrelated note, my cousin and I were having a few drinks one night and we got into an argument about the scene in Trainspotting where Renton overdosed and was dragged out into the street.  I believe that scene was filmed in Niddrie - he believes that Niddrie had already been flattened by then, and that the scene was filmed somewhere else.  The debate got very heated.  I have it on video, because I wanted to film one of our drinking sessions.  It's very entertaining, in a volatile, NSFW, sweary kind of way.)

I broke out the props again for this class.  The Dalek is a master touch.  You could bring out anything - the most sinister piece of fetish equipment imaginable - but as long as the last thing is a miniature Dalek, it makes all the preceding stuff seem completely cool.  At one point, I posed for pictures with the Dalek held at crotch level, to provide a bit of coverage.  Then I looked down and adjusted it and insisted on a new set of pictures, because it had been facing the wrong way.  One of the girls laughed and asked if it was because it had been looking at me, but I had been more concerned about the direction its gun was pointing.

One of the girls in this group had already attended a life-drawing hen night and had been very entertained by it.  I think it was her idea to go for it again, so I'm very glad that I managed to make it work after the other guy backed out on them.  When she first mentioned it, I wondered if she'd been to one of my classes, but she said she'd done it in Perth, Australia.  I suppose she'd have recognised me right away, if it had been one of mine, though.  She asked about the challenges I was going to do, so I think she was hopeful that it would have a similar feel to the class she'd done before.  She specifically mentioned one where people would start a drawing, then change seats, but leave their drawings behind - then continue on the piece of paper that the previous artist had left behind.  I was really pleased that she mentioned that one, because I've done variations of that challenge before, but it had been a while since I'd used it.  I've built up a lot of drawing challenges that I can call on, but there's never enough time in any one class to do all of them, so - inevitably - a few of them can be forgotten for a while, then suddenly resurrected for a specific class and this can make them feel very fresh.  Other challenges can be set aside because the dynamic isn't quite right or because there aren't enough (or there are too many) people in a particular group, or they're too similar to a different challenge.  This one, though, had simply been forgotten and so it was fine to bring it back.  I'm not sure that it was entirely as she anticipated, but there's only so far you can stray from that particular concept, so I'm sure it still worked.

 

Another cool thing about this group was the easy flow of it.  There were a couple of times when I realised that we'd naturally fallen into conversation between challenges.  I was standing around, completely naked, and talking to the girls about various things, rather than doing any poses and had to give myself a nudge to "get back to work".  It was almost like I felt like, if I wasn't posing or setting a challenge, then I was being lazy and wasn't earning my fee.  One of the girls spoke about how she wasn't entirely sure how comfortable she wold be with a naked man in the room, but then - when I was there and talking to them and completely relaxed with my own nudity - she was completely cool with it.  It's not the first time I've had feedback like that, and I always appreciate it.

The bride also commented that she had specifically said "no strippers" and said that perhaps she should have expanded on that statement so that it referred to naked men in general.  By this point, though, she was also completely cool with the concept and was just joking around, and this led to a conversation about the differences between my classes and strippers.  I think the ultimate conclusion was that it was all down to the sexuality of the concept.  There's no getting away from the suggestiveness and the innuendo, but strippers play up the erotic elements and the sexual aggression.  I told them that the girls who hire me tend to be the kind of people who want to be a bit playful, but also want to keep a sense of decorum going on.

At one point, one of the girls did or said something (I can't remember what started it all off) that made me decide to knock a single point off her score.  I couldn't remember her name, so she lied and claimed she was one of the other players - trying to get me to knock the point from the wrong person.  So I told her that as a further penalty, I was taking away all her points and giving them to the person she had tried to sabotage.  This put that girl firmly in the lead.  A couple of times I tried to find ways to knock her back down again - just for the fun of it - but somehow, she kept winning other challenges.  In the end, I think she had about eighteen points, while her nearest rival had seven.  My memory is always hazy on the specifics and numbers, but it was definitely in that area.

A further cool touch - once I introduced the prizes (greetings cards I'd made up a few months ago, from pictures Alison had taken of me in the Fiddlers' Elbow) some of the girls asked me if they were for sale, because she wanted to buy a couple.  I tried to give some away at that point, but she insisted on paying.  I couldn't think of a realistic price to ask and actually felt bad about charging anything at all, considering how much I'd been paid for the class already.  Since the class was effectively over at that point, I was also happy to take a drink, so I suggested that if they bought me a second pint (they'd bought me one already) then they could all take their pick of the cards, but she insisted on giving me £10.  Then, at the end of the class, the bride herself dug out her purse and also insisted on tipping me.

About half an hour later, as I was booking myself a place to stay for the night, that extra bit of cash actually came in very handy.  There were no nearby cashpoints and the card facility was down, so only cash payments could be accepted and I had exactly the right amount on me to pay for a room overnight.  I ended up sitting in front of a log fire, chilling out with a glass of whisky that someone gave me and feeling really happy that the day had gone so well.  I had been pretty stressed by the potential for it to go badly, for most of the week, but - in the end - it was a lot of fun.

The phallic wine bottle

This weekend, I had two bookings at the same time.  Back at the beginning of the year, Alison and I agreed that I would step back from the modelling a bit and offer the jobs to other models, but we had nobody available for either of these jobs, so I did a bit of interviewing to find some new staff.  But since I always want one experienced staff member at every job, we decided that Alison would work with the new guy at the Fiddler's Elbow, while I worked at the Standard.

My class was a lot of fun, though I didn't completely relax until I knew that the model for Alison's one had turned up.  I made sure he had all the relevant information in plenty of time, and I got a text from him to let me know he was on his way, but I still wasn't fully happy until - about fifteen minutes after that - I called Alison to find out if he had arrived.  From then on, I knew everything was cool and relaxed into my own job.

When the girls arrived, two of them came downstairs to introduce themselves and we talked through the introduction options.  What we came up with was a lot of fun.  We decided that I would introduce it like it was a boring art class - something that Alison normally does on my behalf.

The girls left to get their friends, while I waited - still fully dressed, which felt deeply unusual and somehow wrong.  While they were gone, I wrote on the blackboard -

Art class

1 Bowl of fruit

2 Wine bottle

3 Chair and volunteer

When they came back in, I settled them all down and started talking.  I introduced the concept as a straightforward art class, claimed to be their tutor, pointed out the "lesson plan", waffled something about teaching them things like "composition" and "shading" and threw in a couple of other vaguely arty terms I've heard over the years.  Then I apologised for having forgotten the fruit and left the room to find a suitable alternative.

When I walked back in - naked at last - the response was great.  I spent a minute or two staying within the character I had already established and pretended I wasn't aware I was naked, grabbed a wine bottle and told them we were going to skip the first lesson and move on to the second one.  I said I would hold the bottle they were supposed to draw and recommended that they pay particular attention to its dimensions - the length and girth of the bottle were particularly important.  Then I told them that other groups had complained about this exercise.  There had been allegations that the bottle had been unnecessarily phallic and had therefore had sexual connotations, but that was clearly ridiculous.

I'm not sure entirely when the character was dropped, but it was definitely not one that could have been maintained throughout the class.  It would have become boring and limiting.  But it was definitely a fun one to kick off with.  I love how it's things like this that makes every class different and unique.

A slight disappointment was that the bride never once seemed to be fooled by the act.  I was convincing enough - I'm pretty sure of that.  But it's fair to say that when your friends are being mysterious and taking you into a strange place, then they've surely got more lined up than a basic art class.  As soon as I told her my name, she started laughing, because that's the name of her fiancé.  And she said something about never looking at him the same way again.  That was a clear hint that she was already anticipating a bit more than just an art lesson.  But I didn't let any trivial details like that get in the way.  I just carried right on right up to… and for a while after… the big reveal.

That was a really fun part of the class, though.  It kind of set the tone in a very fun way, so the girls instantly knew they could be a bit cheeky and relax into the whole thing.  Then, later, when I asked for the two volunteers - model and co-ordinator - it also meant that I could introduce the cheeky props.  A whip, a sort-of-flogger-type-of-thing, a pair of leather wrist cuffs with a flimsy chain linking them and a toy Dalek that once held some shampoo.  The first co-ordinator set the first model up bent over a chair, with me standing behind her like I was going to whip her and one of her friends drew her like she was a horse.  It's interesting to see what kind of directions the various peoples' imaginations will take them in.  

The second co-ordinator put me in the cuffs and blindfolded the second model - which essentially seemed to make us both submissive, without a dominant party in sight.  Perhaps she should have been a model all over again and filled that particular void.

Once it was all done, I counted up the scores and complained that they were too even - a bit dull - so started subtracting and adding points from people for trivial offences or random reasons.  Then I arrived at a result.  Then I remembered that I hadn't totalled up the scores for the winning pictures, so the previous result was voided while I came up with a new one.  All of which just kept creating more and more chaos when it came to actually coming up with a winner, before I could make a final announcement.  Thankfully, it's moments of blatant amateurism like this, that these classes thrive on.  I can get away with cock-ups like this, as long as I acknowledge them and make a joke out of them.

Perhaps, for a future class, I should set up a score for myself, as well - and the girls will be allowed to award and detract points on my score.  That might be fun.