Over the last six months I have attended some 16 life drawing sessions. I am noticing an improvement. I hear my later mother at my shoulder all the time. I heed her advice.

Last week I worked on hands and feet; this week I put the body back. I even dared to try to add a face rather than ignore it.

Over 2 hours we did 5 x 3 minutes, 3 x 5 minutes, 2 x 15 minutes and a break. Then 1 x 20, 1 x x 10 …

I keep everything. Mum’s rules.

I never throw anything out and when I start a drawing on a sheet of paper I keep going, just drawing over changes. I rarely use a rubber, unless to erase black to leave white …. so it is like using a crude white pencil.

There is little time to measure the way I was taught doing a 3 hour single portrait; so I muddle between a quick outline and then correcting it, or, as today, placing the key positions of everything that trying to get the lines right first time.