‘I do feel we can be too prudish’: one woman’s experience as a life model

Life drawing hit the headlines when a north London class, which had been running for more than 30 years, was told to cover up its naked models or find a new location. Ellie Heney, 32, from Lancaster, has been a life model for 13 years and hopes to be one for the rest of her life. She explains why

It was my first year of university in Liverpool and it was a typical broke student situation. I saw a poster saying £20 for life modelling and when you’re living on beans on toast you think: ‘Well, I can do that.’ So I gave it a go.

It’s the strangest thing in the world when you do it for the first time. I remember my heart was pounding and the adrenaline was rushing and the back of my head was prickly because I was thinking: ‘What on earth am I doing? This is crazy!’

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