At the super friendly life drawing class held in the unlikely confines of Surrey Quays Shopping Centre by the artist Rod Kitson, the very talented Hannah gamely modelled during a brutal heatwave. For the first hour, we shook out the nerves with a series of short poses that were captured with scribbles and scrawls – wonderful work from Hannah which I’d been quick enough to capture better. My final warmup sketch of around 8 minutes is here:

Then, after a quick break (with a much-needed sugar hit from a homemade peanut butter brownie supplied by one of the other sketchers), it was time for a one hour final pose. I used a few Faber-Castell Pitt pencils, previously experimented with my sketch of Morgue, but on a smaller piece of paper and thus, more tentative in application. I wanted to convey some of the pretty intense warmth in the room through the tones, and Hannah’s wonderful resilience in holding strong through it.