Thursday evening, just got home from my fourth modelling job of the week. Only one more to go, tomorrow morning.
I arrived far too early at the village hall this morning, it didn't seem worth going home after dropping the son off at college. His bike has another puncture. So I took myself off for a walk as I was feeling a bit stiff, about a mile out of the village in intermittent sunshine. Dark grey clouds were louring but I thought I could get back to the car before they emptied all over me. Once I'd passed two noisy strimmers at work in the garden of a newly-renovated cottage (which called itself a villa) I enjoyed the urgent birdsong emanating from several orchards, admired a small group of cows with young calves, and startled some rather large rabbits. Reaching a pumping station I climbed the bank to look at the river, which was alarmingly slightly higher than the road, while enduring the oily boiled cabbage stink of the ubiquitous fields of rape.
Further on there were some very prosperous-looking (ex?)farms, complete with topiary in the gardens and some beautiful horses. I also spotted a moorhen with one half-grown chick on a rhyne. It all reminded me of my time in Norfolk many years ago, when I'd lived in a similar red-brick farm cottage in the middle of nowhere.
I had to remove two layers before I got back back to the car park, the threatened rain didn't fall and the gusty wind was decidedly warm. But the interior of the hall wasn't. The artists complained, and the tutor put the heating on. After a lot of short warm-up poses to Brazilian dance music I wasn't feeling the cold at all.
I'd remembered to bring my own accessories this week, and the tutor had her hat box full of goodies, so we had a field day deciding what to dress me in. One of the artists requested a curled-up pose after so many stretched-out 'limby' ones, so I ended up on a cushion on the floor wearing a hat and red slinky gloves with a floaty scarf wrapped round me. Forty minutes later it was a bit difficult to uncurl for coffee and a huge range of delicious biscuits - I managed to limit myself to one with almonds and pistachios and one curly finger covered in chocolate...
I was determined to wear my long purple velvet gloves and purple feather boa - I had the excuse that one of the artists had the exact shade of purple in her collection of pastels - so after another long curled-up pose which was even more difficult to extricate myself from (fortunately I spent the last ten minutes of it in a state of mystical trance listening to Tallis' Spem in Alium) I had the chance to admire how she'd used it. She'd captured all sorts of colours reflected on my skin too, nice.
The evening session was much the same - short warm-ups to the Brazilian music followed by long accessorised poses. I'd taken my own CD to play this time, called 'Kora So Far' by Ravi (not Ravi Shankar), and as it was their last session the artists used whatever materials they wanted - two worked in watercolour, one in pastels, one with acrylics (I think) and the other tried to stick to pencil drawing until the tutor gently urged him to experiment with some colour. He's one of the slow precise draftsman types, need a bit of loosening up. I had a chat with him during the break and at the end, mainly about books - we share an inability to get rid of books once read, leading to overloaded bookshelves in one's bedroom.
As it was their last session, they had the usual consignment of forms to fill in, and the tutor had to quiz them on their future plans, which was interesting to listen to. She'd brought all the biscuits that were left over from this morning's session too... perhaps she wants me to keep putting the weight on?
No more work for her until hopefully September, but I might invite her to my birthday bash - to play dressing up.
Wild roses in bloom now. A month early.
