An evening of drawing the figure

About 6 months ago I found this lovely blog called Le Tramizal which I instantly loved.  Catherine is originally from, well, all over the world, but her last place of residence was NYC.  She has been part-time in France for something like 15 years, but in 2005 she moved permanently to a little village in the Lot, about 1 hour from our house.  She is an illustrator for children's books and an amazing artist.  She holds watercolor workshops in the summer and watercolor classes (which I'm hoping to take) one day a week and on Monday nights she holds an evening of drawing the figure, it's not a class, but an open studio for people to come and draw, it's 8 euros for 3 hours.  Bruce was very interested in attending, since he loves to draw the figure and so before we moved here I contacted her and then promised that we'd be in touch once we were settled.  

Last week I emailed her to let her know that Bruce wanted to come on Monday night.  Then Bruce said to me "why don't you come too and why don't you model".  WHAT?  Me?  I've never been a model before, let alone for a figure drawing class, with people I don't know, possibly naked!  He thought it would be cool and so I decided what the heck...life's short, I'm comfortable with my body, I'm in France and the french think the body is beautiful and these people are artists and draw the human form all the time, so I contacted Catherine and she booked me as the model.  I'll even get paid 40 euros.  

So, last night we headed up to her little village.  Like I said, it's only 1 hour from us, which is nothing and when you are driving from one little village to another, down 1 lane roads, seeing beautiful scenery it doesn't matter how long it takes.  We arrived a bit early so we could talk a bit.  She's wonderful and place(s) are amazing.  2 homes, one is her main cottage that she rents out during the summer, it's beautiful and quaint and the location can't be beat.  The second home is her "summer" home, where she stays when her main house is rented.  And then there is her barn/studio which is so beautiful, we forgot our camera, which is a bummer because it's such a great space.  Next time.

I decided to start with my bathing suit on, since I had never modeled before and wanted to get a bit comfortable with being in front of people.  I started with short poses - 2 minutes then 5 minutes, then 10 minutes.  It was great...I was so comfortable that off came the top.  The people who were there are artists and have seen many naked people before and they are there to draw, not stare and my husband was there, drawing me...kinda sexy.  After about 1 1/2 hours of doing short poses (longest 15 minutes) we took a break and I did 3 longer poses, a couple 20 minute poses and one 15 minutes pose at the end.  All I can say is that it was a hell of a workout,  towards the end it got hard to hold poses for 20 minutes, but I didn't move.  It was empowering and I loved it and I'd definitely do it again.  Here are some of the longer poses Bruce drew of me.