The following emails are real. I was looking for a job as a life drawing model.
Reply to your ad: Serious amateur seeks life drawing models (paid)
____________________From: Guy
To: Renata
Hi Renata,
Good to hear from you. I find actors often make good models, and I would be pleased to meet you.
It would usually just be a one-off session at £15 per hour, though if we get on very well then we may both want to do more work together. Probably most models I see, I see more than once, so I cannot be that fearsome.
I don't otherwise sell or publish the pictures. If it matters to you, I'm a single white English male in my 40s (though look younger).
The venue is my secure, portered, flat in Regent's Park (2 minutes walk from the tube station of that name). I'm not nearly grand enough to have a dedicated studio. As I wrote in the ad poses are largely up to the model, since it is capturing the individual, and doing, which is important to me. I seldom ask someone to hold a pose for more than 20 minutes.
There's one more twist, which I left off the ad because I don't want to get the wrong sort of applicant. I draw in the nude, too, putting us on equal terms. Maybe that's weird, and it is certainly unusual - but gratifyingly many models have understood, and it seems natural.
If you are not feeling brave then I'm perfectly happy to meet on neutral ground before any session so you can see some more drawings and assess me personally. If you are interested then I would be grateful to know what times/days you might be available.
More questions... please, ask away.
Best wishes
Guy
____________________
From: Renata
To: Guy
Hello Guy!
Thank you for contacting me.
Sorry my late answer. I have been living in London for only two months.
You can imagine, " so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that I had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. But I learned that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds, and I had never forgotten that if I drink much a bottle marked 'poison', it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later".
Unfortunately, I am not available to pose for you.
Best wishes.
Rena
____________________
From: Guy
To: Renata
Dear Renata,
Thank you for letting me know, though I'm not sure whether I should be insulted to be compared to a red-hot poker, knife, or bottle marked 'poison'.
Good luck finding other work
Guy
