Arriving at my usual weekly life painting session ready for the job in hand. It slowly dawns, after some anxious clock watching, that our model would not be arriving as arranged. This happens from time to time and usually means improvising in some way. Fortunatly, painting in a group, there are a number of fellow artists willing to take time in the hot seat. As life modeling requires a particular set of skills and a certain temperament, we settle for a number of informal portrait poses of approximately 30 minutes or less. On this particular day there were four sitttings. The most successful for me was the one shown here. A range of textures from the fluid and turpsy to the denser more opaque ground with the employment of some vigerous brush marks hopefully capture something of the sitter himself.