Spring weather

Good to get back to work on this glorious sunny April morning after a two week Easter break. And it was back to work with a bang today - or is that a crunch? When I arrived at the college all the students were set up ready and the talkative tutor showed me a series of sketches he'd just been showing them. Lots of difficult short poses, basically. The other tutor (earrings man) didn't actually say very much all session, at least not to me; it looked like he'd asked talkative tutor to help him out with this rowdy class and how to deal with a naked woman too.
So it was up on the grubby table at the front of the room again, and leaning to one side for the first pose. The five minutes he'd promised me turned into ten as the tutor demonstrated techniques first, but I managed all right. The next pose was 'starting blocks', which gets a bit painful on the knee after a few minutes, rapidly followed by 'throwing a hand grenade', and a twisted leaning standing one - and so it went on.
The students were working with felt pen on large sheets of paper, several poses to a sheet, no detail at all. Simply catching the pose - 'this is how Manga artists work' they were told.
I had to endure several uncomplimentary comments, such as comparing my tummy and bum to a kidney bean on its side, and references to 'no bumpy bits today'. When we'd run out of his sketches I had to improvise whatever weird poses I could come up with, the more unusual the better he said. Makes them look more, makes for better drawings.
At least the teenagers got tired before me! They were moaning about how hard he was working them this morning, and it was with some relief that he declared the last pose. I was using my dressing gown for padding by this point, as he'd introduced a hard plastic chair to the set-up, and also asked for one with me perched on the edge of a filing cabinet (still on the grubby table though). Ho hum, makes up for all the times when I just sit and gaze into space for an hour I suppose.
The drive back was glorious, and the car was pleasingly warm. The hut had been unheated today. I noticed quite a lot of May blossom out already and the first pink buds of apple blossom about to open. A very early Spring round here.