This website is essentially a labor of love for art. The concept evolved from a series of posts on a naturist website where a few dozen life models, mostly males, were members. Any mentions of nudism and nudists were carried over in adapting the posts for this site.

The site is not intended as a comprehensive resource of information on life modeling. There are many that serve the purpose. Rather, it's a simple introduction for those ladies and gents who are contemplating a career or a pastime modeling for figure drawing classes and open studio sessions. It's good to know the basics when considering any new venture. The details can be researched later once the decision has been made.

I got my start as a life model in the 1960s, in a small drawing group of gay guys. Because of the nature of the group and the public attitude at the time, we didn't seek models from the outside. Thus a few of us took turns under the lights. It was fascinating and educational. We quickly discovered that the hardest part of figure modeling is holding still — it always looks far easier than it is. We learned that dynamic poses are great for gestures but turn the body into a pain machine halfway through longer ones. Both the models and the artists preferred natural poses without knowing what they were called.

Despite the group's nature, it was non-sexual. It was rare when "that" happened, and obviously no one was offended. It made for some great banter. We who shared the modeling got pretty good at it. It was a total blast.

However, time marched on, a few of the guys moved away or just left, and after about a year, the group disbanded. We went our separate ways, and life interfered with that avocation.

My interest in modeling was rekindled by the posts on the naturist forum, but I am not now an active life model. This is not because of a lack of desire, but rather due to no known opportunities within 40 miles for males as models, let alone "mature", non-buff males. Such is the irony of living in an area that considers itself an art mecca. C'est la vie.

The information in this site is the result of months of Web searches and reading dozens of art and modeling websites. A major task was to determine what advice is commonly found on the sites, and to compile the info based on its frequency of appearance or its importance.

After that, the intent was to construct a simple, uncluttered, low-bandwidth, mostly-text format in deference to the millions of folks out there who are still connected to the Web via dial-up or other slow connections and/or who are still running older computers (anything over 10 years old is archaic) without warp-speed CPUs and graphics cards. There are no tables, minimal graphics (nothing animated other than one "smiley"), no Javascript, no frames, nor other "modern" Web "stuff" that detracts or distracts from its purpose. The site does not set cookies, nor is geolocation done. The viewer's privacy is deeply respected.

Efforts were made to assure that the site is compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Chrome browsers. Until Apple dropped support for its Windows porting of the Safari browser, that was also used for testing.

Any quoted text complies with the fair-use provisions of US copyright law, and a link to the source is always provided. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, over time links break as sites close or are revamped, or pages are deleted, with concomitant URL changes. At the time of this site's creation, all of the links were active.

All links should open in a new tab or window, depending on how one's browser is set. This is preferable to having to use the Back button to return to the site page.

The photos and graphics on this site were found via Google. Any faces in photographs have been digitally blurred to prevent identification. If a graphic on this site is copyrighted and the copyright owner wants it removed, contact me via the email link and it will be purged immediately.

The original forum posts were written from the perspective of male models, but the information is in most cases for both males and females. The generic male pronouns are used to avoid the clumsy he/she constructions.

Comments on the site from models and artists are welcomed, by email or by the Guest Book links on the Index page. Email addresses will not be shared with anyone, and the messages will be posted anonymously on the Inbox page only with the express consent of the sender. Online privacy — such as it is in the NSA era — is Priority One.

Peace and blessings, brothers and sisters of the dais. As they say in show biz, "Break a leg!"