Monday's Life Class



Tough class - haven't been in an age and have gotten really rusty and we had to draw the model who just won't do anything interesting.

Before class I had a cup of tea in the Candid Cafe. A bohemian long narrow low ceiling'd affair. Under the huge painting of a nude a man lay across the lap of his companion rattling his keys discussing with her something that had challenged his thinking that day. Two women behind the parlour palm leaned together conspiratorially over a small table. The sun was going down, the light fading through the dirty windows. A brazilian and a man with a Bergerac smirk talk over coffee. The brazilian does most of the talking. And all the smoking. Bergerac is listening his crows feet creased from smiling. Wafts of conversations "...I passed out downstairs but she was fully clothed so I don't think anything happened...so why do you want to take the test?...I walk somewhere and I find a baths and I went in and have a turkish bath...I know it suits her very much. She's very good. Its great to draw, you know, the nude..."

Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.