charcoal and chalk

A lovely quiet week. My Tuesday session was cancelled at lunchtime with a phone call saying that the tutor was off sick, so all I had was an hour and a half on Thursday at the college.
It was sunny for the second day running. Felt like Spring. The City and Guilds class were starting to feel like individuals at last, after being an amorphous mass of blue jeans for weeks. This session they had to work in charcoal and chalk, as they needed two charcoal drawings for their portfolios. They started by covering the whole paper with charcoal, then worked with a rubber to reveal the paper underneath, trying to make the drawing look 3D with tone and adding chalk for the highlights.
The first pose was head only, nice and easy for half an hour, could even keep my dressing gown and slippers on. The second pose was down to my waist for nearly an hour, which could have been very boring except that the students kept me amused with their horseplay. Charcoal is very messy stuff, and they took full advantage of the fact. I could see who was smudging whose face and attacking each other with long black lines, even if the tutor's back was turned. Several of them were sent off to the toilets to wash at various times.
They all finished before the end of the session, and even though they were supposed to come back with their sketch books and use the last ten minutes or so usefully, they seemed to take rather a long time in cleaning up, and eventually the tutor gave up and told me I could finish. He also confided that he hated charcoal as a medium.
Well, that's the last modelling work for over a week as it's half term round here, so I suppose I'd better get on with my writing. I made a good start on Friday with three hours researching at the local paper, and I have to admit to writing a few new poems recently... but that's another story.
Will be back when I have more to report.