Life Drawing

The few days we spent  with friends have flown by, from dog-walking to playing a hilarious 'Very British Problems' board game and having a barbecue.

We have just arrived at a B&B from a life drawing session in Hornchurch, Essex. It has been pouring with rain and trying to find the B&B in the dark was a bit of a mission.  Oncoming traffic in the narrow lanes didn't help - getting dazzled out and leaving us unable to see properly.  As a result, we missed the place and overshot the mark, according to the satnav, so at x-roads we turned around and found the place at last.  Time to settle down now and reflect on today's events.

Initially we were going to check into the B&B before going to the life drawing session but unfortunately the traffic was very bad for most of the way and when we finally did turn off, we headed down the wrong road – the M20 rather than the A20 which itself was bumper to bumper with traffic.  Too late to change our minds to get back onto the M25 to head towards Hornchurch! 7 ½ miles down the road we managed to come off the south-bound M20 motorway and get back on it to go northwards and meeting up with the M25 again. As we got closer to the Dartford Tunnel traffic got heavier.  We then noticed that , of the 4 lanes, the 2 right-hand lanes of traffic towards the tunnels were backing up yet the 2 left lanes were relatively free so we naturally took the faster lanes. As we got to the tunnels the traffic in the 2 right-hand lanes were at a complete standstill - their tunnel was completely blocked off. (For those of you who don't live in England, 4 lanes of traffic go through 2 tunnels under the Thames river, 2 lanes to a tunnel.  Oncoming traffic goes over a bridge.) We weren't sure what had happened but were only too happy to keep moving.

We arrived in Hornchurch with about 40 minutes spare but were glad of the extra time. Being new to the group I felt better meeting people as they entered the art room rather than to have to face a room full of people and feeling like “a rabbit caught in the headlights”.

It was an as an interesting evening, more so being it our second time to be models for artists. The sketches, drawings and paintings looked really nice. The artists were a pleasant bunch - more in their senior years with only 2 younger artists. Posing for 5 and 10 minutes proved easy but we got tired during one pose in a 20 minute session so for the longest 40 minute session, we took a nap - as per the painting at the top of today's blog. It was far easier that way than straining muscles!