Modigliani and hats

Thursday morning, thick mist when I left the house, becoming hazy sunshine across the Levels with thick shadows of willow trees across the road. Rooks were nesting, lambs giving suck, two swans lay at their ease in a field and bunches of mistletoe dangled profusely from every poplar tree.
When I arrived at the large and cold village hall, the artists were in the kitchen revving up with coffee and looking at pictures by and articles about Modigliani. They admired my outfit, chosen especially - oh, very French, love the beret, we'll use that. I even took a silky lilac dressing gown printed with sprigs of cherry blossom, which they allowed me to keep on for the first two five-minute poses until the room warmed up a little.
So, Modigliani - long necks and faces, stylised eyes, demure poses. Orangey skin hues.
'They all look miserable,' observed one artist.
'Bored,' said another.
'I think they're serene.'
OK, OK, I'll do my best.
I settled onto a chair in a demure pose with drapes behind me and my hair piled into a loose bun on top of my head, and looked at a distant telegraph pole for nearly an hour with what I hoped was a suitably miserable, bored and serene expression, chin lifted to give the longest neck I could comfortable manage for that length of time. I watched the sun alternate with shadow. I watched rooks and starlings settle and fly off, distinguishable only by the size of the black blobs and how they flew. Thrillingly, I watched a swan fly past, wings flashing grey and white and the longest neck you could imagine. Finally it was time for the break, coffee and little flapjacks. I had a peek at their work. Some astonishing interpretations and use of colour. The tutor told me that they'd been very resistant initially to copying the style of well-known artists, but that their art was progressing in leaps and bounds and now they enjoyed the process.
I was pleased that I hadn't modelled for the Egon Schiele week. Next time it's Botticelli. I'd better eat cream cakes and chocolate all week then.
The second half of the session I looked the other way so I could get a matching crick in my neck, and I wore the black beret against a white background. Nothing else. I didn't think those ones worked so well. And to finish off, a couple more short poses, standing. The music was nice, sounded like Handel, Baroque certainly. Good for musing to.
The evening session was with the same tutor but a different group, location and for Adult Learning and Leisure (ie lots of forms to fill in). The hut was closed up and dark when I arrived and the students sat in a line of cars outside, waiting. Finally the tutor drew up full of apologies and tales of a slow bus on country lanes that she'd been stuck behind. When we opened up the room there was a distinct and most unpleasant smell of fish, which I traced to an empty mackerel tin in the waste bin. I removed all the rubbish to a wheelie bin outside and we wafted the door as long as possible. Good job the weather's mild.
The music this evening was a CD of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, to my delight, except that it was a live version and there was distracting applause at the end of each track. Apart from that, it was a repeat of the morning's session, but with only five students, who had rather less of an idea of what Modigliani painted. I took a different hat, and the tutor brought one too, so the two long poses had dark or light backdrops and light or dark hats. There was a wide variety and standard of painting produced, but I could certainly see the improvement from when they first started.
Drove home through light drizzle and managed a shower before falling into bed. Another full day at the college tomorrow.