Emotions

Gypsy Dance

ERWhittington 2 Comments

In my ongoing quest to make bellydance and gypsy/boho costumery a respected sub-genre of modelling in its own right, I give you today’s offering: a cacophony of movement and colour! These images were taken by Frank, a photographer from South Africa, shot in Gregory Brown’s studio in London. Frank said I made his day by asking if I could blog some of these, whereas actually by giving me permission he made mine. I love all the colour, passion and movement in these! I enjoyed doing all this styling myself (I specialise in eclectic and chaotic visual adornment).

I’ve got so much to do today, but am definitely definitely going to choose new dance classes to try next week. It’s probably a toss up between tap (my first love), contemporary and belly, at the moment I’ve had a break from the latter but maybe I’ll take this ‘freeze time’ two month-period (the name I have literally just come up with while typing) that I’m taking off modelling to expand creative outlets in the physical sense. I woke up this morning and realised I missed modelling. It’s taken me just five days – I have to admit I really didn’t expect that. (I have always thought modelling was just an extension of my love of dance/performance though, so I suppose it’s all entwined.)

What I call my ‘mermaid’ costume, bought at a dance festival…

What I might call my ‘vibrant earth chaos collision collection’… Featuring my incredibly joyous skirt/dress multi-option wear silk piece (seriously, it came with a little card with diagrams demonstrating 19 different ways of wearing it – no idea where that card is now) from Playa del Carmen, Mexico. And some other stuff from my bedroom narnia to make me suitably be-jangled.

Salome… featuring my favourite sheer dance veils, chiffons and silks…

Please let me in on your favourite shots, as always! Thank you! 🙂

Bedroom Glamour

ERWhittington 12 Comments

Sorry for letting that last post run a while, but in between a brilliant trip to Germany’s Black Forest as well as a great little trip to the Manchester/Stockport area, I wanted to allow the news of the new book to take precedence for a while here in my little online space. 🙂 However, my desktop is BURSTING with new images from various people which I can’t wait to show on here, so… onwards!

It was lovely to hear from Tony Ornstien, a photographer I have worked with quite a few times but hadn’t seen in a while, a few weeks ago and recently I went over to his and his wife Jennifer’s wonderful, mad house (it is crammed with enormous, intriguing art, and built like a ‘train carriage’, which means you walk through a seemingly endless stream of differently-styled rooms all in one direction). I was booked for another dose of photography, since Jennifer requested some new art for their walls. It’s always fun to work with this duo, and Tony wanted to create some natural, intimate, relaxed, elegant bedroom (‘boudoir’, maybe) scenes. This style is intimate, and somehow classical and retro at once, and the atmostphere is vaguely similar to the image I have down the side of my blog here, ‘Bis’ by Pamela Hanson, which I (obviously) love. Liberated and friendly and natural. We found that the trick was to act, move and actually perform the particular movements or mini-narratives, rather than pose stiffly in a scene, and there was a lot of silliness involved.

The final set was the ultimate in multi-tasking at the end of a shoot; clearing up my things and modelling at the same time… 🙂 I am pleased with many of these (and there are a lot of shots – trying to decide on one or two favourites for my website!) and I hope to visit Tony and Jennifer again sometime soon!

P.S. To the person/bot who keeps trying to spam my old posts with vacuous automated comments about how ‘informative’ and ‘well put together’ my content is, and then suggesting I take a look at their loans website, please kindly fuck off. If you knew how strongly I felt about people who make money through interest, you’d understand how liberally I am deleting your ridiculous attempts to advertise your probably-virus-filled evil website through my ART blog.

Public Service Announcement: a Book!

ERWhittington 1 Comment

I’m so excited to have in my hands the fruit of several months’ coordination and the physical result of some extremely generous and kind photographers. I’m holding (well, not while typing, I suppose, but it’s here on my desk) a collection of some of my favourite images taken over the last three years, during which I’ve been practising my happy deviation into a life of art modelling.

I’ve mentioned before that I thought it was sad not to have many actual prints to show for my hard work, unlikely adventures and gloriously fun modelling frolics so far, and that computer files didn’t really cut it; and that I had decided to put together a photography book for myself to look at when I’m old (or anytime between now and then…). I’ve now managed to finish this project.

The book focuses on just one theme; it uses shots from one of my twelve website galleries, ‘Faerie’, and collects 29 natural, gentle, romantic and pure shots of me as the nude, female figure in a loose ‘garden’ setting; in tall grass, entwined in trees, in pools of water, surrounded by flowers, in faerie queen headdresses, in pre-Raphaelite forest guises, in the cool, shady dappled light of Mediterranean gardens and against huge, jurassic plants. I’ve never made a book before, so this is a great feeling, and just so wonderful to be able to own!

I’m so grateful to the photographers whose images are printed in this book, and although this was definitely created just as an indulgence for myself, as something to keep, I do have permission to make this book available for others to purchase. If anyone would like to buy themselves a copy, some money from each book bought goes to Amnesty. If you agree with me that physical prints are sooo much more satisfying to look at than online virtual ones, and you like the idea of owning a version yourself, having it adorn your bookshelf and perhaps provide some visual and artistic inspiration, you’re welcome to preview it online and see what you think.

Huge thanks to the following. Click on the links below to see more of their work:
Rebecca Parker
John Evans
Paul Bartholomew
Rayment Kirby
Voyages2004
J H
DB Images
Dave Aharonian
Keith Cooper (website pending)
Imagesse
Robert Farnham
Gregory Brown
Michael Cordiez
Sean Buckley
and Pat Brennan

…I hope you like it. I’m so glad I finally did this and am already thinking of making a second book sometime in the not-too-distant future… Just need to choose a gallery/theme and start to gather my favourites!

Postcards – an exhibition

ERWhittington 2 Comments

As some of you will know, I am in love with the ‘Zen Habits’ blog, and when writer Leo Babuta featured the quote

~‘Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.’~

at the top of today’s post I couldn’t help but scribble it out and add it to the mounted collection of phrases and art postcards (picked up from galleries/museums) hanging above my desk. One of my all time favourites is ‘Creativity is unexpected connection’ – I think it applies so well, and so surprisingly, which is fitting, to many different areas of life! I also have ‘The big secret is the ability to stay in the room’ above Holbein’s Erasme écrivant.

My board of postcards was originally inspired by a similar one which hangs in the bathroom of a painter I spent a year modelling for, who is exhibiting later this week (9th-26th May) at Messum’s on Cork Street in London.

You can find information about Robbie Wraith‘s show here and browse the artworks which will be on display here. I will definitely be going once I’m back from Scotland to look at some I haven’t seen before – over the course of a year, there amassed quite a few!


It seems a fitting time to reflect on my first ever experience of art modelling when I am, three years later, busier than I’ve ever been, being sent booking enquiries so frequently I can hardly keep up, and so incredibly lucky that I am offered work in different countries across the globe that I am able to travel and see so much. I am so grateful! Upcoming trips include Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Paris, Cornwall/Devon, Stockport and more, plus a possible booking in a part of the world I would perhaps never have the opportunity to visit otherwise (but I won’t mention before it’s confirmed just in case), and from October onwards I am planning some international travel that will take me to some exotic locations, similar to last year (but different places!). I’ve updated the ‘travel’ gadget on the right hand side of this blog, to let anyone interested know about a few forthcoming trips.

Anyway, back on topic, I really fell on my feet with this first foray into posing – Robbie’s talent is extraordinary and the whole experience influenced my first novel hugely. At age 16 he was invited to study in Florence under Pietro Annigoni; since then he’s painted the Queen, Nelson Mandela and accompanied Prince Charles around Africa as travelling artist, and had works displayed in the Vatican amongst other places.

Here are some things we did, available to see at the show in London (click on the images to enlarge them):

Profile
Oil on panel
40.6 x 31 cm (16 x 12 1⁄4 in)
(I absolutely love this painting; as well as being brilliant, hey, why not just paint 29 other famous paintings from history??! Might as well… And the postcards are so cleverly positioned!)

Portrait Study I
Red chalk
30.5 x 23 cm (12 x 9 in)

Yvonne
Pencil
25.4 x 20 cm (10 x 7 7⁄8 in)

Study, Black Veil
Charcoal
45.7 x 33 cm (18 x 13 in)

Figure Study V
Charcoal
25.4 x 46 cm (10 x 18 1⁄8 in)

Blank Canvas I
Watercolour
30.5 x 41 cm (12 x 16 1⁄8 in)

Contraluce
Watercolour
30.5 x 40.6 cm (12 x 16 in)

 

… And here are a few more of my favourite paintings by Robbie Wraith, also to be found at Messums… 

Alexandra
Oil on panel
30.5 x 17.8 cm (12 x 7 in)
(An amazing portrait of a friend of mine; Hello Alex!!)

Artist & Model
Oil on panel
18 x 30.5 cm (7 1⁄8 x 12 in)

Bougainvillea, Rajasthan
Oil on panel
14 x 20.3 cm (5 1⁄2 x 8 in)

Hanging by a Thread
Watercolour
30.5 x 40.6 cm (12 x 16 in)

 Mr. Wraith’s Footsteps
Oil on panel
22.9 x 31 cm (9 x 12 1⁄4 in)

Lungarno Corsini, Florence
Oil on panel
22.9 x 31 cm (9 x 12 1⁄4 in)

Palazzo Corsini Gardens
Oil on panel
20.3 x 25.4 cm (8 x 10 in)

Leica, Bird on a Wire
Oil on panel
20.3 x 25.4 cm (8 x 10 in)

Puppet Shop, Rajasthan
Watercolour
21.6 x 30.5 cm (8 1⁄2 x 12 in)

The Frome below Wareham, Dorset I
Watercolour
21.6 x 31 cm (8 1⁄2 x 12 1⁄4 in)

Twenty-Seven Afternoons
Oil on canvas
76.2 x 122 cm (30 x 48 in)
(This painting formed the majority of the view during much of my own modelling; I love the position of the wrist.)


If you like what you see, drop by the exhibition sometime!

Portraits, Box, Stripes and Lightning

ERWhittington 5 Comments
Tonight, a massive medley from the marvellous Eric Kellerman!
First, a test shot in (well, mostly out of by then) Eric’s robe, plus some portraity things: 

The infamous box – an honour to step in this small, equilateral theatre.

A beautiful bodyscape that seems to have slipped through the net of my previous post ‘Strength in the Dark’. Hip bone glory:

Then some joyful striping around. I love this effect – so amazing, especially when in the mix with some curly stray locks lolling around in front of flesh and playing shadow games.

(I think I manage to look a bit ‘eighties’, skeptical and sulky all at once in a few of those stripy portraits above. Brilliant!)

Thanks Eric! …And as always, if any of you readers have particular favourites, etc., do let me know! I always love to hear from you.
…So yeah, I know it’s totally inappropriate, but something about the stripes (and the fact that this particular fancy dress theme came up in conversation this evening when out with some friends) is making me want to leave you with some images from 2007 taken on a university pub crawl… We were the coolest kids in Nottingham that night, let me tell you. (There were seven of us and our feet were tied together for the majority of the night. Tricky manoeuvres all round.)

Hello Bowie friends, if any of you are reading this!

The Spirit

ERWhittington 9 Comments

Desiderata — written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s —

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul. 
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

More from Billy Sheahan:

Boundaries

ERWhittington 4 Comments

My personal integrity is more important to me than money. I am confident in my values and aware that maintaining my boundaries is what will enable my modelling to be sustainable and as enjoyable as it is.

Sometimes imposing limits (on creativity, your time, or on your output) is the most liberating thing you can do. It amazes me that some people don’t protect themselves from other people’s demands, and from their own addictions to achieving what they think (and often this thinking is unexamined) is ‘successful’. I have felt (since I started modelling 3 years ago) that I have never reached my ‘potential’, that I don’t shoot as much as I could, I could travel far more (though I am travelling across Europe and across continents a fair bit these days, with global plans emerging for October onwards) that I should either shoot more or less (but can never decide which it is), that I should accept more bookings even if I don’t like a photographer’s portfolio or trust in their abilities, that I should give people a version of myself that they want…

…But then I think, actually, I’m doing it fine. I have to protect how much I love this ‘vocation’ by listening to my inner voice and blocking out what other people might be impressed by.

Some of my (quite mundane, actually) self imposed rules include:
– Don’t work on Sundays. I generally don’t now, unless on a trip, as I have been brought up to see Sundays as special, and involving walks in the countryside, family time and rest.
– Don’t shoot more than 3/4 times a week; my writing discipline would suffer, as would (probably) my enjoyment of modelling, which can be emotionally as well as physically demanding. Again this rule disappears when on trips, and in practise working every day can be energising and intensely creative, just not if it’s longterm. I usually take a few days off every month and value that time to catch up on other things and rejuvenate.
– Don’t shoot work which is overly sexy or provocative, whether nude or clothed. This is kind of frustrating for myself in some ways as (throwing all modesty out of the window, in both senses), I know that I would be bloody good at it. It’s also a lot of fun. However, that sicky ‘hhhm, what am I doing?’ feeling I would probably get shortly afterwards would not be enjoyable and is just not worth it for me, and doesn’t sit well with my beliefs or values.
– Don’t accept agency booking for shoots that advertise things I don’t particularly want to put my face to, however wonderfully paid they might be and however pleasing I would be to the agency if I were to accept all castings/bookings like a good little model. NO to the BP/Shell ads. In fact, ‘no’ to the general effing business of telling people they need things which they clearly don’t. Art is much more honest; I’m prouder of being naked on the internet for art than I would be for some other quite ‘normal’ things.

Here is me gazing wistfully into space while double-checking my boundaries (taken in Mexico by the lovely Gerald Oar):

And by Neil Huxtable: