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.

The Superman pose

Between the two classes, Alison and I passed a recruitment stand for the armed forces.  I had 1% battery life in my iPhone at this point, which was just enough time to snap off a single picture, because the stand was flanked on either side by a group of anti-war protestors, who were clearly there as a response to the recruitment stand and I couldn't resist the opportunity to capture this political moment.  Alison said later, that she hadn't even noticed it, which was hardly surprising - there were a lot of people passing back and forth between us and them.  I noticed it right away, though.

We went to Waterstone's book shop on George Street, because the dad of a friend of hers had just written a book that she was hoping to buy.  It wasn't in stock, though, which was disappointing.  So we had a coffee and we spoke about a couple of other classes.  She had sent me a text recently, asking me if I'd ever done a hen night, where I'd been asked to wear a horse's head mask, because she'd seen pictures of it on Facebook.  She wasn't sure that it was me, because of the mask, but she had seen little wooden boxes in the pictures.  I used to use them for holding the charcoal and chalk, but had eventually "retired" them when they started getting a bit too damaged as a result.  I wanted to see the Facebook page, but we never got round to trying to find it, before we started to walk  back to The Fiddler's Elbow.

There was an exhibition of some pictures on ST Andrew Square, that we took a look at on the way, which was really cool.  They were set up to reflect scenes of nature, and some were really cool.  At least two of them represented Fibinacci sequences - a concept that I first heard about back in the late nineties, and which really fascinated me at the time.

And eventually… back to work.  If classes like these two could ever really be called "work".  Just check out the pictures...

          

Clearly, the morning class had established a precedent for the day and it didn't take long before we started to be concerned about whether the second model's reliability as well.  Alison had been disconcerted by the first guy's failure to turn up, so she had gone through all her notes, all her texts and made sure she had got all the details right - venue, time date.  She already knew she hadn't messed up, but was making sure.  She had also made repeated 'phone calls to him, to find out what his reason was - and repeated 'phone calls to the other guy to make sure he wasn't going to do the same thing.  And she hadn't had a single answer to any of the calls.

So as we returned to the Fiddler's Elbow, I suggested we wait until 3:55PM and if the model didn't turn up, then I'd get changed and ready for the class.  By then, she was getting pretty frustrated in general and shaved five more minutes off that time.  It makes sense - after all, the models need to arrive a good ten minutes early for the classes, so they have time to get ready.

So, he didn't turn up, I ended up doing two classes, and I really enjoyed both of them.  The second group were a bit more raucous, but in a good way.  Sometimes groups like that can be difficult to maintain, but this lot were just a bit lively and loud, with their good humour adding to the general atmosphere.

They had no trouble coming up with ideas for various poses, but I had to knock back the "handstand" suggestion.  At one point, I almost got tempted to try it out against the wall, just to see if I could, but Alison had a bit more sense than me and talked me back from that particular ledge.  After that, there were various Olympic sporting pose suggestions, and I had to shamefully confess that I didn't know any of them.  I admitted that I clearly didn't have enough patriotic spirit in me to even bother watching the opening ceremony.

In the end, the first pose had me on my knees, with my hands in the air, making "victory" signs.  That was fun, but - like the "lion-lunge" pose from the morning's class - I couldn't hold it for long.

We had an extra little incentive for the challenges in the afternoon class, though.  I'd bought a couple of boxes of toffifee, and offered them as additional prizes to the various winners.  I don't even know how to pronounce the word, and somehow manage to say it a bit differently every time I attempt it, so that was my own personal challenge - just managing to offer them as a prize.  I definitely like them, though, so I've got plenty left for myself, now that the day is done.

One of the girls had bought a load of sweets from the farmer's market, though, so she handed them out as well.  Skullcrushers, cola cubes, cola bottles and perhaps a couple of others.  I took one of the skullcrushers.  I didn't have my glasses on at the time, so when she held them out, I genuinely thought they were white mice.  I'm not generally a fan of white chocolate, but I think I've got some sort of nostalgic fondness for white mice.

There were a couple of failed attempts at something called "the Superman pose" that the girls wanted to try out.  I didn't know what they were getting at, at first, but soon worked it out.  I was supposed to lie on my back and hold the girl's hands, then plant my feet in her stomach - then I was supposed to raise my legs, while she lunged forward.  If it had worked, then she would have been Superman - sort of in a flying position.  I protested that my feet would be dirty, but she was completely game for it, regardless.  In the end, she lay on the floor between my legs, while I stood astride her, holding a handwritten "Sorry Martin" message.

There were a couple of failed attempts at something called "the Superman pose" that the girls wanted to try out.  I didn't know what they were getting at, at first, but soon worked it out.  I was supposed to lie on my back and hold the girl's hands, then plant my feet in her stomach - then I was supposed to raise my legs, while she lunged forward.  If it had worked, then she would have been Superman - sort of in a flying position.  I protested that my feet would be dirty, but she was completely game for it, regardless.  In the end, she lay on the floor between my legs, while I stood astride her, holding a handwritten "Sorry Martin" message.

We finished up with the always popular "Make A Giant Man" pose and it was probably the least successful and most deformed result we've ever had.  Mainly because there were two bums and five penises - and someone had managed to draw both a bum and a penis in the same picture.  There were also at least three torsos and two of them were from behind.  Now, this pose can often go a bit awry and that's part of the fun.  But it's never gone quite as awry as this one, before.

After the class was done, everybody was really in a good mood and none of us were all that particularly bothered about moving on.  I think we might have stayed as we were for ages, just milling around in little groups and having conversations with each other, while I stayed naked, if that had been an option.  But I started worrying that perhaps we'd taken up the room a lot longer than we had said we would, and perhaps the management would be keen for us to move on, since the class was done.  So, since Alison and I still had to tidy everything up, I encouraged everybody to move downstairs, then I got dressed and we packed everything away.  It was a shame, because we were all still enjoying ourselves, but it was probably a good idea to start winding everything up.

So… now Alison and I have made some vague plans for meeting up more socially, later.  Probably next Sunday.  We'll probably catch Cloud Atlas at the cinema, then go to watch (in my case, rematch) every episode of Utopia.  She's seen the first two episodes of it, been hooked and missed the rest.  I'll be very happy to watch it all over again.

We're still very frustrated at the two models who didn't show up.  Last week, I spent a lot of time worrying about some of the things that could have gone wrong, but I never seriously considered that we might be let down by our own staff, so I'm definitely glad that I was able to step in and cover for them.  And not even just once - but twice, by two separate models in the same day.  It would have been disastrous if I hadn't been there.  The main thing isn't the money I'd have had to pay back, although that would have been a pretty brutal loss.  But the disappointment and frustration to my clients would have been much, much worse.  Thankfully, it didn't come to that.

But now I'm very curious to find out if either of those two models ever get back in touch with Alison to explain themselves.  It would have to be an intensely good explanation, though, if they're to stand any possibility at all of getting a second chance.

It looks like they've lost all chances of ever working for us - but they could always try to enlist.  And the first task for any new recruits is clearly getting past the protestors.

Hello, Kitty

A couple of months ago, I booked The Fiddler's Elbow for two classes to be held today.  Then, a fortnight ago, I tried calling them up to make sure everything was running smoothly and to check that the classes were still confirmed.  I made a bunch of calls, but got no answer.  Eventually, a week ago, I went in personally and found that the venue was closed down.  I started to panic slightly, and made some more 'phone calls and finally raised the manager who assured me that the place would be open in time for the classes.  Not before I'd checked a couple of other places as alternatives, but got knocked back each time.  Too little notice.

Yesterday afternoon, Alison went in and checked it out as well.  She met the manager personally, who assured her that everything was on track.  A ceiling had collapsed and had to be repaired.  The venue was also under new management, but the new people seem happy for us to keep using the place.

Then last night, my cousin came round to visit.  I was tempted to take all the sketchpads round to the Fiddler's Elbow the night before my class, so that when Alison got there, all she would need to do was set everything up and take care of it all herself.  Since I wasn't going to be modelling, there was no real need for me to be there.  That way, I could stay up drinking with my cousin all night, without having to worry about an early rise.

But I wasn't keen… I still wanted to go in personally and set everything up.  And I wanted to see how the place looked after the refurbishment.  Mostly, I wanted to be there on the spot, in case anything went wrong with the classes.  It's not performance anxiety if I'm not going to be performing, but I knew I was still going to stress, so I figured I'd much rather be there, just in case.

(We stayed up late drinking, anyway.  After all, it's not like I was really bothered about looking my best if I wasn't going to be modelling.  So six hours of sleep on the couch - my cousin and his girlfriend had my bed - was going to be plenty.)

Anyway, the new management team at the Fiddler's Elbow were keen for everything to run smoothly, so they had the chairs arranged and the floor mopped when I got in - all ready for me to just put down the sketchpads and charcoal and props.  So I had the room completely set up in plenty of time, so was sitting and talking to the new manager when Alison arrived.  We went upstairs, tweaked everything very slightly just a little bit more, and then sat around waiting for everybody else to arrive.  Alison told me that since there were two classes - one at 11AM and one at 4PMM - she had booked two separate models.  They were both new and this would give her a chance to check on both of them on the same day.

The girls arrived at 10:55AM, but the first model hadn't arrived yet.  I spoke to the girl who had made the booking and apologised to her, and said the model was probably running a little late.  She apologised for being early and said it was her fault, which really amused me, because - at five minutes - she was just barely early.  Meanwhile, Alison kept trying to call the model to find out where he was, and kept getting no reply.  And so it was quickly decided that I was going to model for this class after all.

I've never had a model chicken out before - and I still don't know if that's what happened this time.  It's always been a fear of mine, because that's the sort of thing that could be disastrous if I'm off covering another class and there's no backup option.  Thankfully, that wasn't the case, today.

(Thankfully, I wasn't feeling particularly rough from the drinking and I knew the lack of sleep hadn't really taken its toll, either.  That's one of the truly great benefits of a fast metabolism.  Keep the momentum going and the enthusiasm will just sweep the tiredness aside and carry me along.)

 

I had a pair of gold hotpants in my case.  They were a prop that I'd bought specifically for a previous class - one that was supposed to have a Rocky Horror theme going on - but had never been used before.  But it's more fun to start any class off wearing something, rather than being completely naked from the outset, so the hotpants were used today, for the first time.  Alison burst out laughing when she saw me in them - she hadn't anticipated that I'd have to improvise, due to the lack of an alternative model.

The girls in this first class were great.  They really seemed to enjoy themselves and got completely into the spirit of the class.  For the very first picture, they wanted me to stand like I was lunging at the bride, which was a lot of fun.  That's normally a difficult one to maintain, because it can be tough to hold my arms up for a long time, but we kept it short and I managed it without any real difficulty.

The second one was a killer, though.  I was asked to get down on all fours (a common request at these events) and pretend to be a lion.  Again, I was supposed to be lunging at the bride.  This one too tough, though.  I was able to hold my arm up for maybe three or four minutes, but it hurt really badly in almost no time at all, and I had to abandon it pretty quickly.  We knew that was going to happen, though, so we made it a "rapid drawing" pose.  One of the girls had enough time to interpret the "lion" element fairly literally, though, so she won that particular drawing challenge.

There were a couple of "Kitty" references among the girls going on.  An in-joke that Alison picked up on pretty quickly, while I completely missed it.  Then, when the bride posed with me for one of the challenges, the winning artist got very creative, drew me with a cat's head, added an extra filthy detail and had a word balloon with "Hello Kitty" in it.  That's when Alison asked about the reference and the bride said it was embarrassing, so I offered her three extra points in the competition if she would tell us the story.  She said it was the nickname that her fiancé had for her.  I thought she was holding back, so I said I was keeping the points, but would give them to any of her friends who would give us the full story.  But, apparently, that was indeed the full story, so she got the points in the end.

While the class was going on, I could see out the window.  There was a small farmer's market setting up across the road, in front of the ST James Centre, so when the class was finished, Alison and I took advantage of the four-hour gap between the two classes, went across for something to eat and spent some time chilling out and catching up.  We felt sure that we'd been spoiled, because the first of the day's classes was so much fun and had so many nice people involved, who really seemed to get right into it.  We were sure the second class would be a lot less fun.

We were wrong.

Aberargie

This year, Alison and I decided that I would step back a bit from the modelling and start offering more work to the younger models.  She's getting more of a pool of younger models to choose from, so it makes more sense to use them.

Since the jobs outside of town require a bit of travel, however, we also agreed that I'd continue to cover those.  The buses get a bit sketchy sometimes, and the travel gets more complicated.  It can get very frustrating.  And if things go wrong, then I've got no guarantee that a model won't get discouraged and just head back to Edinburgh.  They are automatically less motivated than me to do a good job, so if that happens, then I'll lose the transport costs and I'll have to return whatever I've been paid for the class that gets cancelled as a result.  Plus, I'll have some very dissatisfied customers who won't be saying nice things about the professionalism of the business.

Now, fair enough - it's not just the model who's doing the job.  Alison, or a different tutor will also be going along.  But still, if the model decides to just quit, then she's not going to be able to forcibly prevent him from going home again.

That's a worst case scenario, but it's the sort of thing that preys on my mind.  Combine that with the length of time it takes to travel anywhere in Scotland and the infrequency of some of the buses and the unreliability of the weather, which can slow everything down or bring it all to a complete halt.  So a job that lasts a single hour, could involve a full day of travel.  So add in the fact that I'd have to make sure that both model and tutor are fed and I'd have to allow for the possibility of them being stranded somewhere overnight, so might have to pay for a B&B.  Stuff like that doesn't just cut into the profit margins - that's the kind of thing that can have me running at a substantial loss.

So I'm going to continue to do those classes that are out of town.

Anyway, things definitely went wrong with this particular class.  It was at a private venue in Perth, so I checked out the location online.  The journey involved a bus trip to Perth, then a shorter local bus trip to a small town called Aberargie, with a hotel.  That sort of thing is perfect.  Get as close to the venue as possible, make sure I arrive a couple of hours early, make sure I know where the venue is, work out how long it'll take to either walk or catch a taxi from the hotel to the venue, then sit in the bar of the hotel and order coffees until it's time to leave.  Perfect.  Unless I arrive two hours early get off the bus, into some really miserable, drizzly rain and find that the hotel has closed down.

I saw a postman and asked him for directions to the nearest hotel or cafe or anywhere I could sit in the warmth and wait.  He points down the road and tells me to go to Abernethy.  So I start walking.  Forty minutes later, I'm still walking down this little country road, dragging the sketchpads along behind me in the case, in this nasty rain - and I'm only just getting into the outskirts of the town.  And still no sign of any kind of place to eat.  And the whole time I'm aware that unless I find a taxi or a bus service, I'm going to have to walk all the way back.  And eventually, I had to admit defeat.  Time is starting to run out.

So I turned round and headed back into Aberargie.  And walked past the turning for the venue.  And lost another twenty minutes, while I figured out where I'd gone wrong, headed back and walked up another, smaller country road, looking for the venue.

The class was due to start at 1:30PM and I had intended to get there at 1PM, so I could have plenty of time to set up.  I wasn't late for the class, but I did lose some of the startup time.  That was intensely frustrating.  Also, by then, my clothes were pretty soaked, so there was a bit of shrinkage going on, which wasn't doing my ego much good.

When the class started, though, everything picked up.  All the stresses fall away at that point.  If there's anything that could go wrong, then that's already happened and been dealt with.  And if nothing's gone wrong, then it's all cool.  Either way, once the class starts, all the performance anxieties and the tensions and all those things are in the past and all I need to do is enjoy myself and make sure the girls are enjoying themselves.

This was the first class of 2013.

The venue was a big house, so the bride was smuggled into a different part of the building, while I was sneaked past some of the other girls and upstairs to the room where the class was being held.  It was a beautiful room and I just suggested one tweak to it.  I got permission to move a couch slightly, so that the focal point of the room was more focussed and I could stand in that area.  Then I stepped into the next room, got undressed, discovered how good Scottish weather can have a spirit-crushing effect on some body parts, dealt with the confidence sapping consequences of that, debated the wisdom of some "hand-fluffing" activities, wondered what that would look like if someone entered the room to check up on me and caught me at it, abandoned that potentially compromising activity, listened to the room next door filling up and waited for my cue to enter.

It wasn't one of the livelier classes.  The girls seemed to enjoy themselves, but they'd also been enjoying themselves the night before, and this had made them a bit more restrained - possibly even a bit fragile.  So we took it easy.  There was the usual banter and the usual drawing challenges, which they took to with creativity, but possibly not with complete enthusiasm.  But we took our time and relaxed into it, we went through the various challenges, picked out the winners for every round, got an overall winner and finally - I gave a card each to that winner and to the bride.

The journey back to Edinburgh was a lot easier.  It usually is, though.  For some reason, it's a lot easier to get into that town, than out of it.