Wilf Lunn: Life classes with models Mavis and Margaret

Sep 26 2009 by Wilf Lunn

I HEAR Channel 4 is to do a programme on how to draw naked ladies.

In the art world they are called nudes. So that’s all right then.

The classes are called ‘Life Class’ to differentiate them from the lady with frock on drawing classes which are called ‘Costume Life’ class.

This TV show will be before the watershed because it’s not gratuitous titillation, it’s educational.

I won’t be watching. All my interest in naked ladies was removed from my psyche by over-exposure to them at a young age.

For four years from age 16 to 20 I had to attend Life Class. It was every Wednesday from 9.15 to 5 o’clock and for the last two years all day until 9pm.

Most of the time the model was Mavis. We knew her so well that if she hadn’t turned up we could have carried on without her.

We would do various things to relieve the boredom such as flicking bits of paper at her to make her lose the pose. We would on occasions be more scientific and mumble naughty things she could just hear.

What’s scientific about that you say? Well we liked to confirm our lesser known discovery of where the body starts to blush and in her case it was from the bottom and spread up.

We sometimes had a change of model which we weren’t always happy with. One had different coloured eyes which can look strange in a painting.

The worst was a woman who was very sun tanned. When dressed I supposed she looked great, but nude she was a bit odd. Two tone was popular in cars at the time but not with life models. It was all wrong.

The thing that made the painting and drawing of this woman worse was she had hammer big toes caused – she said – by ballet dancing. Her big toes were at right angles to her feet.

If you drew them exactly as they were it looked as though you couldn’t draw. Once we had a new model that we knew hadn’t posed before. We silently hid behind our drawing boards waiting till she took her dressing gown off.

Napier the teacher was always late to set the pose so she’d be standing there wondering what to do. Behind my drawing board I said to Roger Mitchell next to me: “Have you noticed that woman?”

He looked round his board and replied:” Crikey she’s got no clothes on.”

“What do you thing she’s doing here Roger?”

“I think she’s just wandered in off the street for a warm Wilf, poor thing.”