A big boy's pistol

I've been keeping a video diary, lately.  Just filming things at random, editing them down, adding music and then "stitching" them together to create a sort of "snapshot" of a period of time.  For anyone interested, this is the part of the diary that relates to this specific art class.  The full video - with better picture quality - can be seen here, if anyone is interested.

The timing is a bit off, but I tried to line up a lyric from the song with a scene on the video.  It never really worked, though.  The song is called The gutterati and it's by The Fratellis.  This is an acoustic version, and it can be found on the Little noise sessions album.  The line is "I may not have a big boy's pistol, but I'll help you any way I can."

This class was held in Inverness.  I had a bit of a struggle finding a venue at first, but then I remembered a class I held last year, at the Beauforth Hotel.  That was a very fun class, with some really nice girls, so I was hoping that a return to the same venue would bring about an equally fun class.  An unscientific approach, but it still worked.

I took the train to this event.  Normally I take the bus, but this time I left it too late to book a ticket, so lost my chance.  But it's a nice journey - up through Aviemore and Pitlochry.  Always very picturesque.

And it was a beautiful day.  Nice and bright and sunny.  I filmed a lot of the scenery from the train window and incorporated a fair amount of that into the video diary, too.  All of which made me feel less disappointed that the finest day of the year - so far - was largely spent on a train.  If it had been at all possible - if we'd had access to a remote, private venue, for example - I would have definitely suggested we hold the class outside in the fresh air.

The room we were given had two big windows.  One of them overlooked the car park and the main road running past the hotel. It was only a first floor window, so people walking past would have been able to see into the room quite clearly.  It wasn't an issue when I was first preparing the room, because I was able to stay just out of sight of the street, but eventually I knew that once the class was running it was going to be a distraction.  I was always going to have to keep it in mind and make sure I wasn't inadvertently creating a show for a less receptive audience.  It was a bay window, though, so I was able to pull the front set of curtains closed and leave the sides of the bay open to let a decent amount of natural light in.  The other window was on the other side of the room, so I didn't need to close those curtains at all.  I just arranged the chairs so that I had no need to walk over there.

I introduced a new feature to this class.  An attempt to find out a bit more about what the girls actually anticipated, so I could tailor my approach to them a bit more efficiently.  And also an attempt to recycle those sheets of paper that had become scruffy and couldn't be used for future classes.  I tore the sheets into strips, then distributed them among the girls, and told them they could write any thoughts or suggestions down.  I said that I'd do the first couple of poses and drawing challenges, then I'd read out what they'd written and hopefully incorporate some of the thoughts into the routine.

It was only a partial success.  In the end, I had to threaten to start deducting points from anyone who didn't write anything.  It wasn't even an idle threat - I do like to deduct points for various random reasons.

It was definitely another fun class, despite that.  And I'm sure the lack of success with the suggestions element was down to my own clumsiness in describing what I had in mind.  I'll try it again, with my next couple of classes, just to see if it continues to fail, and then I'll ever improve it or discard the format.

I did a couple of poses using the girls as models, this time.  We were in no real hurry to conclude the class, because my return train wasn't due until 5:30 PM, so I had plenty of time.  The downside to this is that as the class proceeds, I can start running out of ideas for the challenges, and sometimes end up recycling a couple of them.  This time, I picked one of the more vocal girls towards the end and returned to the extra model idea.  The ideas did continue to feel fresh, though, even with the slight element of repetition.  I feel that the creativity doesn't rely so much with the type of pose, but more with how it's carried out or interpreted.

Towards the end of the class, one of the girls had to do something at the bay window - I can't remember what - and I didn't pay too much attention to what she was doing.  About five minutes later, I looked round and realised that the curtains were suddenly wide open and I was in full view of Culduthel Street.  Thankfully, there weren't any shocked and scandalised people standing around and getting offended, but it still gave me a bit of a jolt.  I can't help wondering whether the girl opened the curtain deliberately as a practical joke.  I don't blame her, if she did.  Under different circumstances, I might have done something similar, myself.

I was exhausted by the time I got back to Edinburgh.  But it was another good day and it's always fun to get out of the city.

Captain Two Swords

The first class at The Standard this year.  But it's not called The Standard any more - it's called Mother's.

The place has been refurbished, but it's still recognisably the same old place.  Still got the same charm and the same personality.  Different name, but the identity's the same.

I had a new temporary tutor for this class.  Amaundine - a French girl came along and helped out.  She did a bit of drawing of her own, but I didn't let her participate in the competition.  I still accused her of cheating, though, when she misinterpreted the rules of one of the challenges and didn't draw in straight lines.

Some of the girls were running a little late for this event, so the beginning was very slightly awkward.  A few of them were sitting and chatting among themselves, while a couple of them were getting drinks at the bar and trying to find out where the latecomers were.

I spoke to the girl who had booked me, though, and she told me that everybody knew what was happening, so there were no surprises in store.  Given the circumstances, this made everything a bit easier.  It meant that I could relax and not have to worry about inadvertently spoiling anything.

I was still unsure of where to pitch the showmanship, though - for lack of a better term.  I didn't want to start the event before everybody was present or before the first girls were ready to get started.  But I did feel like I should be at least a little bit active.  Engaging with them, somehow.  As opposed to looking bored or ill at ease.  After a moment's thought, I produced the books of drawings that had been left over from previous classes.  I had salvaged a lot of pictures that had been left over, photocopied them and bound them together to serve as an example of the kind of thing that other girls had done.

Once the two girls returned from the bar, they told me that their friends - the four who were running late - had just told them to get started.  By this time, we were running nearly half an hour late.  I asked if they had any pressing need to go anywhere after the class had concluded, then told them that Amaundine and I were in no hurry to move on, either.  So we could relax and make up time at the end.  Then we kicked in and got on with the show.

It's a good job I'm not a slave to the rules of these classes.  I always feel that improvisation is an important element, so if there's a good enough reason to shake things up, then I'll go for it.  One of the girls spotted the bag of props I took along and wanted to use one of them for the second challenge.  I normally don't introduce those until the third challenge - which is generally when I start asking for volunteers from the crowd to pose with me.

This time, though, the blindfold was utilised and when I was looking at the pictures, I was quite taken with the one with the very red lips.  Someone said it reminded her of Eddie Izzard.  I've never looked like him before, but I liked the comparison.

So in the end, the third challenge didn't really use any of my props.  But one of my favourite drawings of the entire day came from that one.  It made me think of 1950's American sitcoms - although one of the girls compared it to a character from a Disney film.  Of course, the presence of a naked man destroys the logic in both circumstances, but apart from that, the comparison is definitely an accurate one.

This was the first of the two drawing challenges using a volunteer model from the girls.  Her friend posed us together and told us to look like we were dancing.  I can only hope the look of delight on her face isn't entirely down to the artist's imagination - that would definitely flatter the ego.

It wasn't until the fourth challenge that I really felt like I was on top form, though.  Sometimes the girls can take a little while to fully settle into the concept and start enjoying themselves, and this is the one where the laughter and innuendo really started to kick in more freely.  We used another girl from the group as a model and her scarf was improvised as a prop.  The idea was that she was catching me and I was fighting her.  I think there was definitely a sense of conflict in the winning picture, this time.

It got very hard to choose winning pictures from a couple of the challenges.  The straight lines challenge produced a few truly great ones - even if Amaundine didn't follow the rules properly.  Ultimately, the best one was definitely the red one.  Both that one - and the runner-up - had a slightly shy look that I really liked.

Even then, though, there was a third one that was definitely worth a mention and that one didn't look even remotely shy.  I couldn't help commenting that the penis looked a lot like a sword and one of the girls called it "Captain Sword".  I said it was a pity there wasn't another penis, because then it could have been "Captain Two Swords".  Sometimes puns don't go down too well, and the groans told their own story when I came out with that one.  I tried protesting that it might have lacked wit, but at least it had some spontaneity, but that cut no ice at all.

And there was still a fourth picture from that challenge, that I thought was worth a mention.  In fact, it reminded me of a similar picture from a different class I held in August of 2013.  Four winning pictures from one single challenge would have been too much, though - especially since there are only three points at stake each time.  Not that I have any problem with breaking my own rules.  But in the end, it had to be the red picture.

So... from being slightly reserved group and gradually transforming into a bunch of girls who were fully engaged and completely enjoying themselves - this turned into one of my more ego boosting classes.  I loved that I was able to get them to relax and have so much fun.

And, of course, there was still room for a picture that has become something of a tradition at these events.