NUDES JUST IN LIFE DRAWING TEACHER
The businesswoman, who has helped fuel a boom in art classes, decided to put her money where her mouth is and become a life model.
Life drawing classes, once something only art students did, have now become mainstream. Up and down the count r y, J o a n n a , 31 , h a s thousands of people signing up for classes which take place in bars and clubs with music play ing and drinks flowing.
De spi t e a l l h e r experience in working alongside naked models, Joanna admits she was always too afraid to take the plunge and disrobe.
But she finally found the courage with the help of Pilgrim the eagle, loaned to her for the shoot. Joanna, who runs her All The Young Nudes clubs across the country, said: “It’s amazing how quickly you forget about having no clothes on when you have an eagle on your arm.
“I was much more afraid that Pilgrim might decide to peck my eyes out than I was of being naked in public.
“Life modelling is such a normal thing for me. I started life drawing when I was at school, I loved life drawing throughout my student years and for the past eight years I’ve run my own life drawing clubs.
“I’m surrounded by life models, I help train life models and I would encourage anyone who wanted to become a life model to go for it. But I was always too afraid to do it and thought I never would.”
Animator Joanna, who runs her own production studio business, decided she would use her debut as a life model to promote an upcoming session.
She said: “We had decided to hold a Narnia-inspired event, where we had arranged for three birds to come along from Phoenix Falconry near Gleneagles.
“Our models were game for posing with an eagle, a Himalayan mountain owl and a peregrine falcon.
“I decided I would pose with one of the birds to promote the event so two of the guys from the falconry centre brought Pilgrim along to a local park and we did a photoshoot.
“The eagle was really heavy and I had to hold my arm really high and tilt my wrist at a certain angle to get Pilgrim to lift its wings.
“Before the shoot I was pretty nervous about taking my clothes off but on the day, all I was focused on was Pilgrim and trying to get the holding position right.
“The guys from the falconry centre kept telling me not to look Pilgrim in the eye – and I was petrified about what might happen if I accidentally made eye contact.”
The photos helped lead to a sell-out art class. She has since organised a session where her life models posed alongside three sighthounds – a greyhound, a whippet and her own lurcher, Frank. And she has plans for other bird and animal-inspired events.
Glasgow School of Art graduate Joanna said: “Our life drawing clubs aren’t like other life drawing classes. For a start, we hold them in pretty spacious venues with a bar, we play music and we might have up to 100 people drawing.
“Everything is relaxed and informal. It’s not really about art – it is a social night more than anything else, where most