Small world

Two more sessions at the college. On Thursday morning I had a group of 13 sixteen year olds with the talkative tutor. They needed a lot more actual teaching and supervision than the older group, and it was one long pose for the whole session. I didn't realise this when I started. Yes, of course I can do 'weight on one leg, opposite hand on hip'. Even while perched up on a table with lights on me from below. No thanks, I don't need a long cardboard tube to lean on.
Half an hour later I asked for a break, and a 2 minute stretch. It got harder after that. The next break, half an hour later again, was more of a serious 'ow' stretch. And there was still another half an hour to go. Oh dear.
I was walking with a slight limp for the rest of the day.
Friday was the all day session. He wanted me to do another long standing pose. I told him I wasn't doing 'weight on one leg' again - no, no, that was OK, just 'standing at a bus-stop' would be fine. So I stood at a bus-stop on top of a table, lit from below, for a very long time again.
The idea was to work from a hand-out he'd produced about a Degas sketch, looking at the shading and tone, and as if lit by footlights on a Parisian stage at the fin de siecle - look at Toulouse-Lautrec posters, they were told. He pointed out all the brightest areas on me, where they wouldn't normally be, and the darkest shadows.
After an hour of this we all had a break. There was no young tutor to buy me coffee this week, due apparently to the presence of an Inspector-type woman who was sitting in on the class. She was inspecting the whole Art and Design section, I was told. I watched her taking notes and wandering around the class to see what they were producing. She looked like a creature from another world - smart suit, full face make-up, shoes that weren't made for walking in. She seemed pleased with what she saw, at least.
There were 11 students to start with. After the break it had dwindled to 7, and by the end of the morning there were only 3 left. Maybe they were as bored waiting for the bus as I was. Yes, another hour and a bit of it. I know rural services are pretty dire, but this was ridiculous. I'm gradually learning that I only get a break if I manage to catch the tutor's eye or ear, which is not always very easy. It seems I must learn to be a bit pushier about my own comfort.
I was feeling quite faint by lunchtime, perhaps because of the fumes from the oil painter standing near me. I really needed a hot lunch this week. And then I insisted on a sitting pose for the afternoon.
Had some interaction with a couple of the students again. The oil painter really stands out from the rest - not least because he always wears a paint-stained blue coverall, carries his pots of paint around and sets them all out carefully before he begins, and throws his arms about and mutters to himself while producing particularly original creations. We were chatting at the start of the afternoon session, when no-one else had turned up, about what he wanted to do next, study-wise. He wasn't sure whether to go for painting or sculpture, but thought probably a sculpture course 'because you can paint anywhere, but you need all the facilities for sculpture'.
I expect him to be famous in 20 years.
I did notice that the lad who'd been told to 'look at women' all week hadn't come back. Presumably he'd found some better specimens than me then. Or his girlfriend had put her foot down.
Another one, the one who started chatting to me last week, was waiting for me after I'd got changed at the end of the session. Had I said I was a writer, he wanted to know? Yes. What was I writing?
Ah, OK. I did mention the blog, but quickly moved on to my projected novel (which was a cheat really, because I'm not actively writing it yet). Oh, New Age Travellers, I should speak to X, one of his tutors, they'd had some good talks about that and he'd watched the film about the Battle of the Beanfield too. A few minutes later that tutor just happened to walk into the room looking for something else. So we got talking, found friends in common from 1986, you know how it goes...
And there was me getting worried that I wasn't 'working on my novel' enough.