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5 Nudes: Bucket Listers
Five life drawings of one-off wonders
For many years I mostly drew models that had honed their craft through long hours of practice on the professional circuit of local art colleges and drawing groups. I occasionally caught a model making their debut, but would soon draw them over and over as the ‘stable’ of models in my area was a relatively small one. The group I attended most regularly had a rotation of around six models and I drew many of these on and off for nearly twenty years. As much as I appreciate professionalism — keeping still, keeping it varied, and not least turning up reliably, I did tend to find that the novelty of each model waned a little over time. Every model has a repertoire, some narrower than others, and you come to expect a certain pose or a gesture that would get as familiar as your own drawing style after a while.
So, in 2018, when one of my fellow artists told me that the University Art Club was opening to non-students, I leapt at the chance to draw someone new. What I didn’t realise was that the models would be almost exclusively first timers, and bucket listers at that. What’s the difference between a first timer and a bucket lister? A first timer might go on to pose again, make a career out of it even, for a bucket lister, it’s strictly a one-off experience they will (probably not) tell their grandchildren about. In all…
