In the mood for nudes

Though I have known this moment was coming, I am ill-prepared for my own response at the sight of her proud breasts and the meandering lines of her hips, the provocative poise of her spine and the gentle rounds of her buttocks, the intoxicating play of shadows and brightness on her skin.

And if you think my attempts at painting the scene in words is cringe-worthy, you should see how I tried to draw the poor woman with my pencil.
"Was she very badly deformed?" my wife asked when I showed her my sketchbook upon returning home from my very first life-drawing class — for this was the scene of the above.

Admittedly, in the drawing she saw the model looks a little stocky, but it was a work from my early period, a time of understandable turmoil, for it is hard to keep one's wherewithal when faced with such a bounteous form.

My artistic career unfolded through the course of an evening at the Beach Blanket Babylon bar in Shoreditch, which has begun to hold free weekly drop-in sessions for would-be Titians.

Though I have not attempted to draw anything since the age of 14, now seemed to be a good time to give it a go, for nude life drawing, by some strange quirk of the zeitgeist, has become a positive phenomenon.

The Artangel collective is shortly to undertake a national project that will culminate in Channel 4 broadcasting naked models in primetime.

The Secret Garden Party festival next month will devote a whole arena to life-drawing, while tonight the Paradise Bar in Kilburn will host "Dr Sketchy's Burlesque Life-Drawing" night — yes, life drawing and burlesque together, how 2009 is that?

Beach Blanket Babylon's Tuesday sessions were the idea of Phillip Bodenham, who studied fine art before beginning a career in fashion, and was inspired by a similar class he attended in Sydney, which attracted 40-50 people a week.

"It was a wonderful thing to do — share a bottle of wine with friends, and sketch," he tells me. His interest is purely artistic, he maintains, but the frisson of eroticism is undeniable. Perhaps, given the controversy surrounding burlesque performance, this is the respectable way to enjoy breasts in public?

In fact, once the surprise of public nakedness subsides, as it were, the artistic part proves immensely absorbing. There are seven of us at the first session attempting to do justice to our model, the elegantly professional Billie-Suliat Baker, who adopts a series of poses, holding them for five minutes or so as we quickly try to capture her form.

Why do we stop drawing when we are young, I find myself asking midway through the second pose. Through childhood, creating art is a joyful instinct, more natural than writing, but it is one that most of us let drop just as we begin to appreciate looking at art. Now, as I shaded in the shadow under Billie's left breast, I found myself delighted to flex this forgotten muscle, and frustrated it had grown so sluggish. I also realised that I had never in my life attempted to draw a nipple.

My drawings were, it has to be said, pretty rubbish — more Jackson Pollock's #5 than The Venus of Urbino. Dear Billie at least pretended she was impressed.

Yet once Phillip outlined a few principles of measuring and musculature, the improvement was marked. I even found myself sketching people on the bus home, which is not to be advised when travelling through Hackney, and later surveying my wife's form as she worked at her laptop.

"Don't even think about it," she said.
Tuesdays 6.30pm at Beach Blanket Babylon, 19-23 Bethnal Green Road, E1 (www.beachblanket.co.uk), free.

Dr Sketchy's, Monday 8pm at the Paradise Bar, 19 Kilburn Lane, W10