Low life | 29 August 2013

We agreed that we ought to get dressed, leave the holiday apartment and do something else for a few hours in the evening. There was a choice. Richard lll performed outside on a grassy bank, or we could drive over to the St Ives School of Painting for the drop-in life drawing class. We had a copy of the play with us to acquaint ourselves with the plot. But while reading it she took offence at a
misogynistic speech made by the hunchback King. Also the weather looked a bit uncertain. So the life drawing class it was.

She paints and draws and is familiar with life drawing classes. I’m used only to six-inch brushes and Dulux Weathershield. I’m not a prude — at least, not lately I’m not. Neither am I against public nudity. In fact, I live close to, and occasionally lie on, a popular nudist beach. But I wasn’t sure that I wanted to scrutinise minutely a naked stranger from an embarrassingly short distance, then try to depict what I saw on a sheet of paper, then have my effort criticised by an art expert.