Last week I attended a morning of life drawing at the Airetiko Ariel Art Retreat in the Las Alpujarras mountains, southern Spain. It was an exhilarating and creative experience because I had no time to think and I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Would the super fit models hold their poses long enough for me to change my sheet of paper?

Each of the three trapeze artists performed beautifully, holding some poses for up to a minute at a time. I know what a challenge it is to be up there for more than 3 minutes because I worked closely doing my video show with a trapeze artist in my early 30’s and I had a few goes myself.

Pencil was too labourishly slow in this environment, so I tried out a block of sepia charcoal, though I soon ditched that in favour of my beloved dagger brush and inks. I painted my heart out, following the lines of their muscular moving bodies and graceful shapes. I plan on using these studies as references for sculptures and paintings in the future. Here are a few of my favourites from the session.