Watching Skylarks.

Lying in the heat of the afternoon sun, they both felt tired after the long walk and a picnic lunch. His eyes were closed, his mouth restful, his arms outstretched. She propped herself on one arm, enjoying the opportunity to just watch him, quietly.
Her eyes roamed lazily up his legs, those thighs, across his chest gently breathing as he fell into sleep, pausing at his lips imagining the feel of them against her own. She reached out a hand, being careful not to disturb him, unbuttoned his shirt and placed her cheek on his skin and closed her eyes, she felt his arm reach around and hold her closer, and she too fell into a doze in the warmth of the Spring day.

The Skylark woke her. The beautiful rain of birdsong like a child's laughter. She opened her eyes and was dazzled by the brightness although the sun was lower in the sky now. She searched the clouds above for a sign of the small brown dot which she knew was the source of the sound. Finding it she held it in her gaze, watching, waiting, until it reached a crescendo and then fell from the sky and became quiet for a moment before it would rise again. She turned to look at him, lifted herself to gently brush her lips against his, he stirred but did not wake. She sat up, stretched, watched him again.

She could never just watch him without desire stirring deep inside. She traced a finger along the line of his open shirt, drawing circles on his muscular chest, around his stomach. She leaned down to kiss his soft skin there, barely brushing him with her lips and, as she did, almost involuntarily, her hand reached to his belt, unbuckled him and popped steel buttons, one after the other. She loved the sensation of popping those buttons. In that feeling was all the anticipation and memory of so many delicious moments together.

Shifting her weight she moved herself down his body, she felt him shift slightly also, his breath deepen. She allowed her hair to brush over his stomach as she kissed his boxers and slipped her hand inside to feel his cock. She heard him groan slightly, barely awake. She slipped his cock out of the fabric and savoured that first, greedy lick. Cupping him she sucked gently until he was entirely in her mouth, and she held him there. She enjoyed that he would awaken inside her, that he would come to awareness feeling her warm mouth around him... she sucked, rolling him around her tongue and smiled as she heard him gasp.

His hardness came suddenly, sending a thrill through her entire body. She moved him in and out of her mouth, sometimes sucking hard, sometimes simply enjoying a full lick with only her tongue, sometimes flicking her tongue teasingly over the head of his cock, her hands working his shaft and balls, and, her favourite, taking him so deep that her face could press against his body and breathe in his scent.

She became aware of his hips finding that particular rhythm, his body tensing, his breathing deepening and growing coarse. She was so lost in her own pleasure she sometimes forgot to notice his cues. He called her name, she sucked him hard against the roof of her mouth, sliding him in as he pushed past that tight spot in her throat, taking him so that he could cum deep inside her, drinking him down, loving the taste and feel of him filling her mouth.

She held him there once again. Feeling him subside, listening to his breathing return to a slower pace, feeling his body pulse with every movement of her tongue, enjoying the closeness to him, his skin, his scent and his pleasure.

They slept again in the afternoon sun, the Skylark raining down.

e[Lust] 35 - Whoop!!

Photo Courtesy of Vincent and Mia

Am awestruck to have my story "Strangers in a Bar" included in e[lust] 35's Top 3 posts. But forget that, there is enough reading here to keep you smiling for a whole month... until the next superb collection is out! Enjoy! Muse. x

Welcome to e[lust] - The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you're looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it'll be here at e[lust]. Want to be included in e[lust] #36? Start with the newly updated rules, come back May 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

Top 3
Strangers in a bar (Curious Muse)

Dealing with Abuse in Our Communities
Special Request

Featured Post (Picked by Lilly)
What Keeps Us Going
e[lust] Editress
Sex Toy Journalism: Seeking the Truths of Silicone via Flame Testing and Confronting Manufacturers
Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships
Comparisons Part Three
Cosmic Vibrations
Momentum: Reflections and Impressions
My Feminine Fountain is Finally Flowing (I squirted for the 1st time!)
PolyAnna's Musings: Attraction
Q&A Number 1: Play Partners
Sexual Bucket List (and a Brief Diatribe on My Self Censorship Hang Up)
The "Dry Rut/Root"! Non-sex?
Intolerance – Contraception Debate, Religious Intolerance, & Grumpy Cooper
Erotic Writing
Come Together
Encounter in the Spa
Flame
Good Bad Sex
I needed him there and then
inside
Make Me Cum
Namaste
Onomatopoeia
Play Lady Play
Quitting While Ahead
Rampage - YSL's birthday treats
sleep
the Confidante and I film ourselves
third
The first time I slept with the Girl in the Red DressTiming Is Everything
We drink each other's cum
Kink & Fetish
Assignment from M
Buttons
Cigars
Fucked Raw
Foot fetishists, come talk to me
Imprints
Make Me
Nice vs. Good
On "Closure."
Practicing My Religion
Please Fuck Me
Snap
Sex News, Interviews, Politics & Humor
Annie fucking Sprinkle
Voice and the Author

Life Drawing. Week One.

After two decades, two hours of Tom. 

The life class was a fairly typical bunch of enthusiastic amateurs. When I arrived frazzled from work, in my work gear, I was asked if I was the model. Not the start I had expected.

The real model, Tom was perfect. Fit and muscular which meant he could hold awkward poses without swaying around. My first two drawings did him no justice at all. Cringingly bad and I was thankful I had hidden in a small sketchbook! 

Then I attempted a charcoal sketch. Equally dreadful. I was never more grateful for a coffee break! 

During break I wandered around peeking at the other work in the class. It is a funny thing that often the loudest talker will be the least talented in a class and this proved to be very true of this talkative bunch. Being brutal they had not the appreciation to know that their skill level was consistently awful. Not just technical skill but any notion of colour or line or form; nothing to please the eye. But then there were two artists in the class who were clearly more talented. Their work was a joy to see; adept, linear, every mark on the page made to count. I would have taken every piece each of them had produced and happily displayed it on my walls! 

After coffee I decided to be stern with myself. I took an A2 drawing board, propped it up on a chair and selected my favourite 2B pencil. I decided to do it the hard way, I raised my pencil to my eye, squinted at young Tom and for 20 minutes I concentrated.. very ... hard..

It felt good to study, to take my time, but the pose was over so quickly and suddenly we were onto the last one of the evening; 25 minutes. The longest pose so far.

I would not say I am happy with these drawings, the lazy pencil work is still there. But I was happy that some of the seeing was still in me. After 2 hours I was beginning to feel my way around the model. In art school we would enjoy a solid 7 hours of drawing. Such a short evening class has left me frustrated. I'd love a longer session to just practice, practice.

But instead I shall have to wait two weeks. Progress will just have to be slower than I would like.

Impressions

Early morning sun

she stretches cat like to wake

ghosted hands a reminder

Exposure!

Here are the last few random artworks I have to share from those I found languishing in the garage. In a conversation on Twitter I expressed my dissatisfaction that I see no particularly definitive style in the work over time. Which is why presenting them here in random order makes no real difference. I do sometimes see lazy pencil work and that annoys me. And I wish I had not stopped so completely in my study.

 Many of the pieces I have shown are less than 30 minutes work, often only 5 or 10 minutes. I never applied myself to a longer effort. Fickle. In all things perhaps, unless my attention is held by constant challenge or unless my spirit is entirely broken. (I have experienced both in different aspects of life).

The tutor of the drop in life class has sent me his plan for the classes;

"I intend to run the class in 2 halves with a coffee break in the middle. The first part will be shorter poses and various exercises although I'll be going easy on everyone in the first class then build up to more demanding exercises. The second part will be one or maybe 2 longer poses. You can do what you choose in this bit and if you want to make several drawings from the one pose and move around the room that is fine.
As far as tuition goes I am happy to help people or give advice if wanted but equally as happy to let you get on with you own thing. I will be giving people the opportunity to look at everyones' work from the first half during the coffee break so that people can talk about each others work as I think this can be very helpful but it is your choice to take part in this.
I shall be supplying charcoal, pencils, paper and drawing boards but feel free to bring along any other materials that you have and may like to use."

 Oh my fuck! NOW I am nervous! I dread finding out how badly my lack of practice has affected my ability to translate what I see. I was thinking to take a little A5 sketchbook and find a quiet corner to hide away as was often my way.  No such luck!

I might perhaps practice on a few bowls of fruit between now and Thursday just so I am not completely shamed!  Do not expect me to be sharing my new efforts any time soon!

The art of touch.

Mono-printing. Simple and beautiful. I would arrive late at class (always), find a corner away from the tutor's attention and lay down my sheet of glass. Squeeze out just enough of the thick, acrid, black ink, slick it across the glass with a roller until it was the thinnest sheen, then softly lay on paper and begin to draw... just a few simple lines and then feel my way across the skin of the model's body with a finger, a thumb or the heel of my hand. Pressing and smoothing the curves and shadows into place.
I loved mono-printing. It was incredibly fast as a way to work. And I was fickle with my art. I liked to catch a moment and move on. 

 It wasn't so much that I didn't notice the model, or that I deliberately de-humanised them in any way. I just enjoyed them on an entirely visual level. I didn't really engage.
I arrived at this class, late as ever. Ducked past the tutor with a grin (it was really that simple) and set myself up to quickly begin enjoying the model's undulations. I think she might have been sleeping. She looked so peaceful, the class was unusually quiet, the room impossibly warm as ever. I became lost in her body. Trying to catch the feline shape she created.

 At some point someone called 'break'. The model stood and walked over to the window, her back towards me. I was preoccupied cleaning ink from glass, laying a confetti of artwork out to dry. Then she turned...

"Oh! Hello. I hadn't expected to see you here." It only ever happened to me that once. Everyday life intruding upon the peace of my life class.
My partner at that time (later my husband) refused to look at the drawings. "How will I ever go to the delicatessen and buy bread knowing that she knows I know she has a tattoo where I didn't ought to know she has one?"
It amused me enormously. His prudishness should have been a warning.

Pictures for Annie

I have been pondering life drawing since I posted here about my first class. Over the following 10 years there was rarely a time when I was not drawing naked people somewhere, somehow, however infrequently. I realise, thinking about it, that it is now almost 20 years since I have stepped into a life class.

The lovely Annie, who inspired my original post, has asked to see my drawings and I wondered how many of them I had kept. I remember one ruthless summer taking literally stacks of paintings and drawings to sell for a song to a man at a car boot sale. He seemed utterly perplexed, I was glad to be rid of the endless paper. I have tried never to be precious about my work. Many of the life drawings were charcoal on newsprint paper; not the most robust material for long keeping!
 
So this afternoon I have been rooting around in our outdoor garage hoping the works I had kept would not be badly damaged by the damp environment! It has been fun photographing and getting them into some sort of order (although the ones shown here are completely random).
I have also kicked myself firmly in the butt and after constantly promising myself I would do so, I have joined a drop-in life class. So in a few days time I shall be taking pencil, paper and serious nerves to enter that quiet, over-heated space of a naked person amongst clothed artists. Twenty years is a seriously long time, I am expecting to be back as the beginning, squinting at my pencil!

Drawing life

 I have always been a person who draws things. My young son is the same. We live in a household of scribbled scraps of paper and half filled notebooks. Pages in diaries get sketched upon whilst sitting in waiting rooms, beer mats in pubs are customised with a pen whilst having a lazy afternoon drink. It's a need to record, or portray or think outside the head and it can translate into the written word or pictures.

When I was 14 I began training my eye to draw the human form but I did not attend a proper (i.e. naked) life class until I was 16. During the long summer break my local art school ran a course for prospective students. I was desperate to attend from my provincial girls' school but not a little overwhelmed by the other young people there; so worldly and sassy already. Some even smoked! It was my first whiff of Bohemia. I had simple ideas!

I remember my very first life model well. She was motherly, enormous, curvaceous, with breasts like giant billowing marshmallows. She was an absolute joy to draw during the first three days of the course. Then rumours started that on the fourth day there would be a male model. Aside of an older brother during early childhood I had never seen a naked male in the flesh. I had no idea how that would be in a public environment alongside peers whose opinion of me mattered terribly. It felt very awkward. I knew I would blush!

The day arrived and we all set up our easels and, on the dot of 9am, the model arrived. Such a disappointment. He was old, wrinkly and serious, surly even. I wanted very much to draw his back and I longed for the olden days of plaster statues! The tutor, for whatever quirk of his own amusement, placed my easel front and centre. I was mortified. Perhaps it amused him to pick the most timid in his class. Certainly the comments and laughter from some of the more wordly girls made me realise already that I should not mention that this man was my 'first'.

You know that stereotypical image of the artist? Standing with pencil raised, thumb measuring some point in the distance at which they are squinting? Well it's not entirely false. When you are first learning about perspective, and particularly when you are learning about foreshortening, I would say it is essential.

And so there I stood. Trying to hide behind the 6 ft easel and my A1 sheet of paper (not difficult, I have never exceeded 5'4"). and trying to avoid having to measure... anything. The tutor was having nonesuch. He paced back and forth as I fumbled with materials and media trying in my futile way to delay the inevitable. So I began.

Relative spaces, proportionate balance. At a distance of barely more than two metres I measured every aspect of the man's body. By lunchtime he had a head, torso, arms, hands, legs, feet and a stool to sit upon. The tutor grinned at me as I left the studio for lunch. I blushed.

After lunch there was no avoiding the inevitable. As a scarlet faced and very naive 16 year old girl, barely daring to look directly, I squinted from behind my easel and pencil and I measured the man's cock and balls. I attempted to represent the foreshortening accurately. I used the skills I had been taught to give him three-dimensional form. To the old man's credit his flaccid cock was less challenging than might have otherwise been the case.

I have never been so relieved when a class came to an end (no pun intended!). As was the tradition in life classes, whilst we packed away charcoal and pencils, the model would wander amongst the easels, gazing indifferently at the works they had inspired. Some would do so naked, others barely covering themselves with a flimsy kaftan or gown. I busied myself in my art box desperate to avoid any dialogue with this man who had just allowed me stare at his body all day. To my eternal gratitude he passed by without comment.

As I finally reached the point of rolling my drawing to leave for the day the tutor came to stand behind me, assessing my artwork;

"I feel you have been rather too generous with your proportions Miss..."

I have no idea how I did not vanish in a puff of smoke my cheeks burned so hot!