This was the first Stroud Life Drawing exhibition for five years and it felt great to be showing our work to a wider audience once again. Why the long gap? Well, for one thing, the government forced the closure of galleries, art groups and just about everything else besides! The lockdowns were a real blow to Stroud Life Drawing (and most community groups) from which it took several years to recover. I chose not to take our group down the virtual life drawing road but 'on-line life drawing' still exists and some of our artists continue to combine the virtual and the actual drawing experiences. Post Covid, the untutored Saturday sessions remained enjoyably quiet but the tutored Tuesday sessions quite quickly returned to the busy evenings that they had been for many years. Tuesdays have now become Monday sessions at the fantastic Raw Umber Studios, as I accepted their kind invitation to move my weekday class. This relocation has proved very popular and attendance is as healthy as ever. Thank you to everyone who made the transition so seamlessly. One of the joys of this exhibition was bringing together the artists from all three sessions, including the Sunday portraitists, as the distinct groups hardly ever meet. It's difficult to photograph the artwork properly but the pictures below give some idea of the high quality of the work being produced, as well as an impression of the busy evening event.

Thank you to everyone who turned out for the Bodyline private view, making it a really enjoyable social occasion and a true celebration of art, creativity and life drawing in particular. Thank you to all those artists who went to the trouble of framing and submitting work for the exhibition - without your commitment there would not have been a show! Tony, your help with hanging the pictures was invaluable and much appreciated by me - I thought we were an efficient team. Thanks must also go to everyone who comes along to the drawing sessions for creating such a friendly, supportive and non-judgmental art space. A special thank you to my wife, Helen, for being so supportive in so very many ways, of the group and me over a long period of time. It was Helen who took most of the photos on this web page! If I have including any which you would rather not be here, just let me know and it can be quickly deleted. Hopefully, we'll do it all again next October - the gallery is already booked.                                                             
Keith Symonds