The force is not strong

Third class of the year and third new venue of the year.  This time, the class was held at Sofi's Bar.  And it was the most fun I've had in a long time.

The day didn't start off too well.  I woke with a horrible migraine, and was really worried that I might have some genuine difficulty doing the class, but couldn't get anyone to fill in for me at short notice.  It didn't help that the client had changed the time pretty late in the day, which had knocked the schedule off.  The previous model had been cool with the original time, but just couldn't accommodate the update.

In the end, though, the later time worked in my favour.  Because with the extra couple of hours rest, and with the aid of painkillers, I was - ultimately - completely fine.  In fact, on more than one occasion, I was the very picture of good health.  Absolutely glowing with it.

Sofi's Bar is down near the foot of Leith Walk and is a really cool little place.  If I lived down there, it would definitely be my local - no doubt about it.  The back room where the class was held was very snug, but had a lot of character.  There were candles in there as well, and someone had thoughtfully turned on the radiator - no doubt for the benefit of the nude model.  It was too hot, though, so I turned it off and opened the window.

When the girls arrived, it took a while to get started.  The air of chaos was prolonged, but good natured.    Everybody seemed absolutely delighted to see each other, which was cool.  The smaller classes are always the best, because they seem to be full of friends who like each other a lot.  I've noticed that in the larger ones, there are often animosities, rivalries and cliques that have to be noted, if an event is to run smoothly.

The girl who hired me had a beautiful tattoo on her back.  I absolutely fell in love with it.  And she had gone to a lot of trouble for the bride.  She had created name rosettes for everybody and she had provided little gift boxes with dares and shots and novelties inside.  I'd seen something like this before and I had provided incentives as a result - anyone who fulfils their dare during the class will get extra bonus points as a result.

It took a while to get everyone seated and get the class started, and everything was cool.  I went through the usual routine of donating points for good drawings and subtracting them for various imaginary slights.  I tried to kick off by subtracting points before I'd even donated a single one, but failed miserable.  Most of the girls were wearing tartan, so the ploy was to penalise anyone who hadn't followed the theme.  But they pointed out that they were all wearing tartan in some form or another.  So no point reduction.

The girl who ultimately won the competition pointed out that she'd won it through technicalities.  She said there had been no artistic merit at all.  I can't remember if she'd won any of the challenges, but I know that at one point, she wrote something on her sketchpad and showed it to someone on the other side of the room.  I asked her to share her secret message with the rest of the class, but she refused.  I bribed her with three bonus points and she held it up for me.

"The force is not strong with him."

I'm guessing that I missed something, somewhere.  A gag at my expense, or something like that.  Not surprising - the aftermath of a migraine often makes my head a bit fuzzy and I won't pick up on some things that are obvious to everyone else.  She certainly wouldn't be the first person to make such an observation, anyway.

Before the class was finished, I gave someone else a bonus point for fulfilling a dare.  It was"kissing a man with a moustache" - which essentially meant she kissed me, while I used a bit of charcoal as a fake moustache.  I gave another girl a bonus point for kissing all her friends.  Most of the other dares weren't achievable in that environment, though.

A final touch… one of the girls told me she had to persuade a man to give her an item of his clothing.  I offered her my boxers.  It was the only article I could realistically give away, since I still had to go all the way back to Gorgie.

All in all… it was a very fun class. The most fun I've ever had with a migraine.

Venue hassles

The bus got into Edinburgh with less than ten minutes before the class started and I took off running.  I was on St Andrew Square at 5:54 and pelting towards the Rabbie Burns Whisky and Wine Bar, but the whole time I was taking comfort in the fact that at least Qba would surely be showing some initiative.  I hadn't been able to raise him since Xan had cancelled, but I had planned ahead and delivered all the necessary equipment to the venue, so all he would have to do was set out the sketchpads and the charcoal.

The next jolt I had was just as I was crossing North Bridge.  A text from the manager of the Rabbie Burns - nobody had turned up.  At all.  Not Xan (obviously) but also not Qba, nor any of the girls.

I turned onto the Royal Mile and kept running.  I was at the Rabbie Burns about a minute later.  I went straight downstairs and started setting up.

With Xan's cancellation, I had been ready to step in and be the tutor for the class.  If Qba didn't turn up, it looked like I would also have to be ready to be the model.  This would have been fine - I've been both model and tutor for a lot of classes before now, anyway.  And I'd appointed both Xan and Qba, because of the potential time restrictions involved in getting from Glasgow to Edinburgh - restrictions that no longer applied.  So I would have had no problem with that.  But then, just as I had almost finished setting up, Qba arrived.  And then I got a 'phone call from the girls.

They were on Cockburn Street and couldn't find the Rabbie Burns, so had called up looking for directions.

This was a surprise.  I had originally planned on holding their class in the offices of Crew 2000 - a place I do some voluntary work a couple of times a week.  But for a couple of reasons, I'd had to change that, so had found the Rabbie Burns instead.  It seemed that the agency had given the girls the updated venue name, but not the updated venue details or address.  So they were looking for the Rabbie Burns in the wrong part of town.

That could have been disastrous, but Cockburn Street was just a few minutes away.  I asked Qba to finish setting up the room and I went out to meet the girls, then lead them to the proper place.  They were very nice about it.  Exceptionally nice, in fact, given the circumstances.  And when I found out that another vital piece of information hadn't been passed on to them, I really started to squirm because I had to give them another bit of bad news.

The offices of Crew 2000 didn't have a bar, so if the class had been held there, they would have to buy their own drinks.  While in the Rabbie Burns, they would have to buy drinks from the premises.  But, of course, if they didn't have the updated address, they also didn't have the updated information about drinks.  So they were carrying wine and gin all sorts of other things with them.  Again, though, they handled the fresh information well, although I wouldn't have been remotely surprised if a couple of them hadn't started to grind their teeth a bit, at this point.

We got back to the Rabbie Burns and I went downstairs to check on Qba's progress.  And then, eventually, we started the class.

In the end, we were only about fifteen minutes behind schedule and I made sure that was made up at the end.  And the class went really well.  For the first time, I found myself as the tutor while I set up poses with a male model.  And rather than being awkward or clumsy, I found it an easy transition to make.  All the jokes and comments I usually make about pictures were simply directed at Qba, rather than at myself.  It was easy.

When the class was done, Qba got dressed and headed off, while I tidied up and talked to the girls a bit.  And I realised they were trying to decide what to do with the wine and the drinks they had brought with them.  They wanted to go out drinking, but didn't want to carry all the stuff with them, and their residence was too far away.  I felt like this was my opportunity to set a couple of things right, so I offered to take it to their hotel for them and leave it there.

That didn't work, though.  They were staying in a private residence, rather than a hotel.  Someone suggested giving me the key to their residence, so I could put the drinks inside, then post the key back through the letterbox, but that was too much for me.  I stepped in and told them that I would really rather not take their key.  It was too much responsibility.

In the end, they came to a new conclusion - they gave it all to me.  Most of the white wine was gone, but the red wine was still completely untouched.  And there was a little bit of gin and some tonic left over, as well.  It was a really nice gesture.  And that, as much as anything else, made me realise that they had no genuine animosity about the way things had gone.

It was a great conclusion to a stressful, but ultimately successful day.

Ragna's first class

What should have been an easy, relaxing class, turned into something a little more stressful, when I got a text from Xan, just before 11AM.  I had two classes that day.  One at 3PM in Glasgow, and one at 6PM in Edinburgh.  I had arranged for Qba and Xan to cover the Edinburgh one - this would have been her second event.  And I was going to do the Glasgow one with Ragna.

Xan's text opened with the word "PANIC!!!"  I haven't added any of the exclamation marks or capital letters - those are all hers.  It went on to say that her boss required her to stay late at work, because she had to interpret for a visiting client.  She was the only person able to speak Mandarin.

So, all my carefully set plans suddenly fell apart.  I had to be present for the Edinburgh class, as well.  And there was no guarantee that I would be able to finish the Glasgow one and make my way to Edinburgh quickly enough to start it on time.

I ran through the times in my head.  Do this class.  Keep to the schedule, get tidied up by 4:30, take off for the bus station, get into Edinburgh and run for the venue.  It was possible.  And there was nothing I could do about it now, so I might as well just relax into it.

I held this one at the Piper Bar, just off George Square - so pretty close to Glasgow's bus station, which was a bonus.  I set up in one corner of the upstairs bar, where I thought the lighting would be good.  Overlooking George Square.  I was anticipating six girls for this one, but in the end, there were only four.  I felt very bad about that, because they had to pay for a minimum of eight participants, so they actually paid twice the usual price.  But they were very nice and pleasant - and working with four girls meant that it felt a bit more intimate than usual.

Ragna arrived, while I was still setting up the room.  She had been a Couchsurfing guest of mine a couple of years earlier, and it had been fun catching up with her again, while she was back in the UK.  I think she was a little nervous about her role, but she was great at it.  She had a lot of questions about protocol and etiquette and I felt bad that I didn't have a lot of proper answers for her.  A huge amount  of the classes are about spontaneity and flexibility, rather than having a precise plan.  I could only tell her that when we got a chance to speak to the girl who had booked us, we would have a much clearer plan.  I think she wasn't keen on how vague that sounded, so she pressed me for a default option that she could fall back on, so I did my best to provide one.  I was actually very pleased that she was taking it so seriously.

One of them texted us when they arrived, so I sent Ragna down to meet her and bring them upstairs. And  once it all kicked off, she was great.  Completely relaxed and very friendly with the girls.  And she was able to follow the general banter pretty well - it seemed to me that we had a very good working relationship.

As usual, all the worries and concerns about timing and schedules and the potential for the next event to run badly… all that faded away, when this class started.  I got into the routine and enjoyed myself, setting up the challenges and talking to the girls.  It was all fun.  It was great to get back into the swing of it, after the winter break.

When the class was done and we had waved the girls off, I was able to tidy everything up and pack it away in record time.  Ragna and I walked up towards the bus station and separated on the other side of George Square.  I caught the very next bus back to Edinburgh.

QI

The Register of Artist's Models featured on a recent episode of QI.  Watch it here…

Comely Bank

This was one of those classes, where everything was up in the air, right up until practically the last minute.  It was being held in a private venue and I didn't know where I was going for a long, long time.  I couldn't raise the girl who had booked me and couldn't get the address from the agency, so had to keep making 'phone calls and sending texts until I knew what was going on.

Eventually, I got the address - then, just a few hours later, I got another text from the girl who made the booking.  The class was scheduled for the Saturday afternoon, but she went into labour on the Friday night.  Babies have absolutely no sense of timing.  I was impressed and grateful that she had the presence of mind - between contractions, presumably - to send me a message and give me an alternative contact number.

The venue was in Comely Bank.  Quite a pleasant part of Edinburgh and one I wouldn't mind living in at all.  Nice houses, nice neighbourhood and nice shops.  Everything is really nice, there.

I made a wrong turn when I got off the bus, but it wasn't hard to find the way and quickly got back on track.  Got onto the street and called up the backup number I had been given.  The girl came downstairs, met me, sneaked me into the room and gave me time to set up.

I set up the room, made some minor tweaks to the furniture and got everything ready.  It's sad that there was one girl missing, but once all the seating was shifted and adjusted, there was still space for just ten of the eleven girls present.  One of them was always going to have to stand.  And the space wasn't huge, so if there had been a pregnant girl, we'd have been taking that into account the whole time.  It wouldn't have been overly problematic, because the classes are flexible enough to cope with that sort of thing.  It would have created a more challenging vibe, though.  And one of the drawing challenges would have probably had to be either tweaked or discarded.

We went for the classic introduction - the one that fools absolutely nobody, but is still fun.  The only girl who knew what was going on let me introduce the class.  Then, when I said I'd forgotten the fruit, she led me into the kitchen on a quest to find some props.  As I was stripping, one of the other girls stepped out of the sitting room and - for her, at least - the surprise was blown as she copped an eyeful.  She kept quiet about it when she returned to the room, though.

I was given a bowl of fruit and I carried that back into the sitting room.  Pretending, as usual, that there was nothing strange about suddenly being naked and carrying on as normal.  Waiting for the shock and laughter to subside, then holding up a banana and two limes and talking about taking the dimensions of the banana into account - the length and girth - before drawing it.

When the first actual drawing challenge was introduced - the one where I ask for two volunteers to be  the other model and the co-ordinator - I might have pushed the comfort levels of the group a bit too far, for a moment.  I produced the canvas bag and the props, but the cheeky nature of those props was a bit misjudged this time.  Normally, the suggestive nature of the whip and the ties (which were given to me by a group who were doing a Fifty shades of grey theme) is received with enthusiasm, but this time they were a bit too much.  I brought out the Dalek and held it up, but even that was rejected.  The Dalek is a great counterpoint to the more suggestive props.  As the last one to be introduced, it almost always brings about a few laughs, because it's such a contrast to the others.

The challenge that would have probably needed to be tweaked is the "Musical Chairs" one.  If everyone is changing seats in a room with limited space, then it's possible that a pregnant girl might have made that a bit less flexible.  I still think it would have been nicer if everyone had been present, though.  We could have adapted that one - or simply discarded it if necessary.

When we got to the "Make A Giant Man" pose, we hit on a new tweak - and one that I might use again, in the future.  One of the girls - the hen - allocated body parts to individual artists, and they all set out to draw them.  The really fun part was one of the girls asking for - and being granted - the penis.

Professionalism slipped a bit towards the end of the class.  Not to the same extent as last time, but there was definitely a bit of growth towards the end, as I was posing for photographs with the girls.  I'm going to have to be careful about that.  I know it's natural and it's inevitable that such things will happen from time to time, but I hate the idea that slips like that might offend anyone or make people uncomfortable.  Thankfully, that didn't seem to happen.  In fact, when I went into the kitchen to retrieve my clothes and get dressed, I think I saw a couple of the girls laughing about it.  That's a better response.

Ultimately, it was a fun event.  As always, I really enjoyed myself and I think the girls did, too.  And perhaps they might get in touch with me later, to let me know how our missing participant got on.  It's a shame she couldn't be there, but I hope she appreciated the pictures and the photographs, at least.

Pavlov's dog

Pavlov studied conditioned responses in dogs.  He rang a bell as he was about to feed them and noticed that they soon equated the sound of the  bell with the imminent arrival of food - and so started to salivate before the food was produced.  This is called a Pavlovian response.

This isn't about Pavlov's dog, though.  It's about my "dog" and about the conditioned responses that men sometimes have to suppress.

Now, some dogs are better behaved than others - everybody knows that.  Young dogs tend to be excitable.  They're eager.  They'll jump to attention very quickly and draw attention to themselves.  A little bit of training, though - maybe a bit of anti-Pavlovian condition - will help to take care of those youthful impulses, so the dog gradually becomes a bit calmer and learns to behave itself.

Now, normally, I can keep good control of my own "dog".  I've always got to be aware of how he's feeling and usually - almost always - I'm able to anticipate any signs of eagerness and have a quiet and discreet word.  Today, though, was different.  Very different.  In fact, it's fair to say that there was absolutely no chance of keeping him quiet.

It started off fine.  The girls arrived, I introduced the class and we kicked off.  They had ordered some bottles Prosecco, so I even had bottle opening duties at a couple of points, which was fun.  I can be easily entertained, sometimes.

I introduced the Dalek for the first pose.  It's a great "warm up" challenge, sometimes, because there's often someone who will completely ignore me and only draw the Dalek.  One of the drawings went through a couple of transitions.  The girl gave it eyes, then added a thing that made me think of a burglar.  I said something about waking up in the middle of the night to find it burgling your home - you definitely wouldn't challenge it.  The girl added some spikes and tried to make it look like Darth Maul, but by then, I thought it looked a bit more like a punk.

It wasn't actually until the third pose that I started having any problems.  I asked for two volunteers and got them pretty quickly - something that doesn't often happen.  Usually, the girls will nominate two "volunteers" and those two will agree.  I've got to make sure there's no peer pressure that's responsible for people being pushed into something they're not cool with, but that doesn't generally happen.

But this time, the two volunteers were genuine volunteers - they quickly nominated themselves and joined in.  I produced the bag of props and showed them to the co-ordinator, who set about posing myself and the other model - she was positioned as a dominatrix and I was positioned on the floor at her feet.  She took a flogger and held it above me.

I'm not entirely sure, though, if this part was an accident.  As I was lying on the floor, the "tails" of the flogger brushed across my penis.  (Yes, that's right - the dog was just a metaphor, for what I was really talking about.  But I'm sure most of my readers were probably able to see through that bit of camouflage.)

Anyway, I was blindfolded, so couldn't see whether there was any intent or not, but the response was immediate.  Now... normally, the girls in these groups are very aware of where my penis is at any time - and even if they're not, then I certainly am.  So there's almost never any contact with it at all - even accidentally, when we're posing together for pictures.  But this brush against it felt very sensual and I rose to the occasion without any kind of hesitation at all.

The next pose is the opportunity for the model and co-ordinator to switch roles and it seemed that the dominatrix theme was reprised.  I was positioned on my knees, with one of my ties being used as a prop.  It was meant to be translated as... I think... a bridle and I had to hold my hands behind my back.  The model also held up my hat, as an extra little detail.  That's as close as I'll get to publishing evidence of the misbehaving dog here, by the way.  There'll be no photographs of it.

 

I was worried while I lay there and waited for the pose to finish.  There was general laughter going on, but that's kind of normal for these events - nobody seemed to make any reference to the erection that I was now painfully aware of.  I tried to convince myself that it wasn't that obvious.  Perhaps I was too aware of every single twitch and - since I couldn't see it - perhaps I was exaggerating it in my head. But when the pose was finished and I stood up, there was no denying it at all.  No ignoring it either, so all I could do was apologise and make a joke about it.  Try and hide it behind my hat.

I looked down and was pretty obvious.  Then I turned and looked in the mirror, so I could see it as the girls were clearly seeing it - and it was much, much more obvious than I could have imagined.  I think, by then, I must have been really blushing.  I could certainly feel that my face was very hot.

I kept hoping it would go down, but it seemed to be there to stay.  I've heard the theory that embarrassment feeds an erection - it makes the owner of it very aware of it, and very conscious of it.  And awareness tends to be an ingredient that an erection genuinely thrives on. And, to be honest, the very feeling of it bobbing and swinging - the weight of it as I move around - has a sort of sensory, tactile effect that doesn't help.  And that feeling of being so completely on display, definitely contributes towards feelings of arousal as well as embarrassment.  I still tried to ignore it and hoped it would go away - but it stuck around.

I was completely aware that seven girls were sitting all around the room.  There wasn't a single direction I could turn in and be hidden from sight from everyone.  And even if I succeeded, there was no way I was going to be able to run a class properly, like that.  I was just going to have to cope.  To brazen it out and keep going.

So I carried on.  I introduced the poses and the challenges, and - after a while - it did go away.  But it didn't stay away.  It returned twice more at different points in the class.  A couple of the girls drew it into their pictures, so whenever it was relevant, I made further jokes about it.  But I started to worry about how sleazy it probably seemed.  I pride myself on my self control at these events.  I don't ever want it to look like I'm enjoying myself too much, and so make it look like the classes are for my own creepy fun, rather than the girls' entertainment.

The humour helped, though.  One of the girls used Pan as a theme and drew me looking like him - adding horns.  That led on to a couple of vague gags about there not being any visible horns at that particular moment.  I genuinely felt that the best thing to do was laugh about it and treat it like it was something funny, while still acknowledging that it was a bit embarrassing for me personally.  I somehow perfected an air of resigned, vaguely apologetic sheepishness.  And the fact that the girls seemed to be completely relaxed about it anyway, made it all feel better.

One of the pose suggestions I had was something brand new - I was asked to stand "like a lobster" with my hands in the air.  Someone really ran with that concept and created something a bit creepy and very, very cool.

Towards the end of the class, though, I hit a stupid note.  I told them that I was on medication - that I had an infection in my knee and was taking antibiotics. I suggested that the reason for the arousal was chemical, rather than biological.  And instantly, a bunch of them harangued me about the fact that I had spent an entire class flattering them, and had suddenly withdrawn the flattery.  They were joking with me, of course, but it was still true.  They had clearly not taken any offence at all, and so - to throw in such a transparent excuse - was unnecessary and stupid.  I was annoyed at myself.

We finished the class with the traditional "Make-A-Giant-Man" pose and some of the girls left, because they had other things to move on to.  The remainder gave me a glass of Prosecco and I hung around talking to them, for a while.  Then we posed for more pictures by the scoreboard and then they thanked me and left.  Almost all of them took cards and promised that they would pass them on to friends.  A couple of them even gave me hugs, as they left - which happens occasionally, but not always.  So, another sign that nobody was offended or bothered by my indiscretions.

In fact, they were genuinely a lot of fun.  It was one of the better classes I've had recently.  A little traumatising and embarrassing at times, obviously, but still great fun.

Stags

I did my first ever stag night, recently.  It was an interesting and very different experience.  One I had to think long and hard about, before I was fully confident that I could - or should - deliver it.  After all, it's a very different vibe.  And not necessarily the right one for the kind of philosophy my business should aspire to - if the business actually has a philosophy.

In the end, I decided that just once couldn't hurt.  Just to find out whether it really was likely to be problematic or troublesome.  The main concern was that men might not be respectful to a female model, but then - that was a bit presumptuous.  I figured that for an art class the likes of which I normally do, they were no less likely to be respectful than the female artists I usually get.  They'd be just as cheeky and most likely a bit laddish.  That surely wouldn't be too bad.

So I hired a model.  It was Alison who helped me with that - she suggested a girl called Karla.  She had, apparently, just been talking to this girl about my classes, and she had suggested that she would do the job for a stag night if there was ever an opportunity.  So the timing was perfect.

It didn't go entirely without incident.  I arrived at The Standard and found out that I'd been double booked - that there was a wedding reception planned for most of the afternoon and the room that I use wasn't going to be available.  Unlike The Fiddler's Elbow, though, the management here really care about these events and they weren't just going to let me down or treat it like it wasn't their problem.  There was a quick 'phone call made and I was literally offered the use of someone's flat - just above The Standard.

Second problem was when the party actually arrived.  One of them was in a wheelchair and the flat was up a narrow flight of stairs.  The guy who booked me was very irritated, but thankfully not at me - he put the blame on the agency for not giving me all the relevant information.  Which was a fair point, because if I'd been warned, I'd have found an alternative option.

But the group got their friend up the stair without a huge effort, we moved into the sitting room and settled down and I introduced our model.

It was a variation of the same introductions that have been developed for my own class.  I made it sound like a boring art class, then stepped into a little side room just off the sitting room, took Karla's hand and led her into the sitting room.  After that, I had to learn how to step back a bit and let her run the show, to an extent.

Essentially, I had to make sure I wasn't upstaging the model - something I've criticised a couple of my tutors for, in the past.  There have been people before now, who have simply tried to take over the whole thing.  I'm tolerant of my staff making mistakes, and the business even thrives on improvising around small things that can make a class more interesting.  But when someone listens to everything I say, then turns up for an event and tries to run it her way - ignoring everything I've said - I don't give her a second chance.

So, I ran this event.  I stepped back and let Karla set the pace, but stepped forward and described the various challenges.  I instituted a blanket "no photography" policy, but discussed that with her first.  That's why this particular posting isn't illustrated.  I might relax that rule if I do more stag nights in the future, but even then I'll be the only person taking pictures.  I can reassure my models that I won't be compromising with the pictures.  Karla said that she would be cool if the guys didn't post them onto FaceBook or the internet, but I pointed out that there was absolutely no way of guaranteeing that - once they had pictures, they had complete control over what would happen to them.

The guys were definitely laddish, but - as I anticipated - respectful of Karla as well.  There was banter and good humour, but it was all just the male equivalent of the same kind of comments and questions I get in every one of my events, so it was all cool.  And Karla was able to banter right back with them.  She seemed to have a lot of fun, too.

In the end, once the party wrapped up, I set about tidying up the sitting room, putting the rearranged furniture back into their original places, returned the key to the bar manager and relaxed.  I'd been tense about the potential for spillage and damages, since we were in someone's private residence and I had responsibility for things like that, but it all went great.

And it was a really cool flat, too.  I wish I could afford to live there.