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5 Nudes: Valentina
Five life drawings of one model
Valentina Carlone is an Italian actress living in Spain. I first drew her when lockdown restrictions forced a move to zoom life drawing, and for a year or so afterwards. After her initial session via a drawing group in Durham (bizarre, I know), I booked her for an hour’s one-to-one drawing to see how it would work. I found Valentina to be a very interesting person and an engaging, imaginative model who presented well lit, inspiring poses from her apartment in Barcelona.
As with all the online models I have drawn, I was fascinated by the exoticism of the situation and by how quickly it all became the norm. To be welcomed into someone’s home, albeit via zoom, was always a privilege, and it was enticing to catch glimpses of other people’s lives and the odd view from the window of a far off city, often in a different time zone. I subsequently drew her via a Manchester life drawing group and also again in a one-to-one when she was heavily pregnant.
1 Barcelona via Durham
This first drawing came at the end of a two hour session in Durham. I can’t remember now how I came across it, social media of some sort…
