Drawing Gorgone at a photoshoot of Japanese rope bondage

I'm in Jay Graham's photographic studio, a converted church in Camden. Nina Russ and Bruce Esinem are tying.

Gorgone is the strong, supple model. She can curve her spine like a U-bend. She is so slender that she appears to have nowhere to store her internal organs. Naked, she is invulnerable, and turns up the blaze in front of the camera. Her skin is an even gold.

Down on the floor, my core tools include bamboo brush-pens, bedraggled quills and a white gel pen. A grown-up Rotring drawing pen is auditioning to join the team. Felt-tips are my dirty little secret.

I protect the floorboards with the Financial Times which I like for its soft colour and absorbency. I draw on cream cartridge, Canson Mi-Teintes and a Galaxy wrapper.

More pictures if you scroll down.

...suspended in gauze...

...gauze...





In a suspended box





...gauze...

In a suspended box

...gauze...





Japanese rope bondage at Bound - third visit

Maya

Someone called Ella said 'A beautiful piece of emotional torture' to me the other day and it stuck. 

I'm at Bound at the Flying Dutchman in Camberwell with the artist Rose Hilton, who's astonishingly Zen-like after a hellish journey from Penzance, and my friend Heather who leads a life of respectability in Putney.

Heather remarks on how calm and friendly the atmosphere is. The hostess, Nina Russ, treats everyone like a supremely honoured guest.

Rose sits on the floor in a drawing trance. She's never seen anything like this. I'd hoped to watch her and pinch her ideas but I can't see her work from where I'm sitting.

Dr Phil is a French electrical engineer. He instructs people in rope bondage which he studies with masters in Japan. 'It's all about working with cabling,' he says. Tonight he ties two women and decorates one of them with paper windmills which catch the draught as her body rotates in suspension.

A high point: Red Lily ties a man.

Nina - a delicate, birdlike Romanian - hauls on the ropes with all her negligible weight to hoist MaYa.

Nina points out that my blog is about drawing from an uncomfortable position.

Nina looks at me.

I look at Nina.

'Just a couple of fingers or something,' she says hopefully.

It'll happen. Or something.



Dr Phil

Red Lily tying

Nina

Maya and Nina