Here is our list of FAQs you can easily navigate to. To find any word please use Ctrl F:
-
History
-
Today
-
Tomorrow
-
Costs
-
Ethos
-
Terms
-
Privacy
-
Community
-
Memberships
-
Social Media
-
Refunds
-
Advice
-
Groups
-
Blogs
-
Articles
-
Tips for beginners
-
Tips for Intermediate to advanced
-
What we do here
-
What we don't do
-
What we can do now that could not be done before.
-
What it took
-
What we changed/Influenced
-
Bad behaviour
-
Bad competitors
-
complaints
-
Spam
-
Press/Media/TV
-
Portrait Modeling
-
Life Modeling
-
Photos/copyrights
-
Drawings
-
Exhibit/Sell
-
Competition
-
Teach privately
-
Teach with us
-
Jobs
-
Internship
-
Volunteering
-
Bartering
-
The Art map
-
Friend's Map
-
Jobs offered by us
-
Jobs from Schools and organizers
-
Courses
-
In person classes
-
Online classes
-
Corporate/Offices
-
Private Hen/Stag/celebration groups
-
Travel
-
Hosting classes abroad
-
Why Free classes
-
Portrait classes
-
Guided classes
-
Auditions
-
Recommendation
-
Promoting the Art internationally
-
Promoting models
-
Promoting in Person Classes
-
Promoting Online classes
-
Advertising spaces
-
Local Newsletters in Blogs
-
Emails/Junk management
-
Only here to Draw
-
Here to Draw but also Socialize
-
Mainly interested in Socializing
-
Exercises and intense practice
-
Equipment advice
-
Artists Demos
-
Anatomy for Artists
-
Birthday/Christmas gifts vouchers
-
Referral
-
Patreonage
-
Internship
-
Digital Tablets
-
Virtual reality
-
Legal
-
Donations
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History:
-
This Network History
-
Our Founder's Story
-
History of what has become an Industry
-
Life Drawing through time
-
Life modeling through time
This Network History:
In 2003, our Founder, Tony Picanco, known as Tony Picano on FB, (we'll explain why this change later on) went to his First Life Drawing class in the UK (as From Paris originally) In the Old School off Church street in Stoke Newington, Hackney, London and was simply gobsmacked to see such an amazing class and crowd. It was a Practice session very affordable as being part of Adult education evening and weekend classes for unemployed as well as working people. Every class was exciting, even scary at first, models were happy as all the Artists were with a really funny interaction amongst themselves, out of a Comic film or School. Every week we all knew we would have a giggle, some little arguments here and there even attitude. All artists and model personalities could show because no-one was stopping it from happening. This literally saved Tony'd health and life after spending about 12 years including 5 intensive ones extending his derelic property in all humanly possible directions and absolutley everything else and more...
He worked as a Photographer for Press, Newspapers, and as a freelance because he truly found a small Gold treasure while digging in cellars under Paris to help his Sister pay her rent and so he could buy himself cameras and films. He became madly obsessed about Photography, also in the Darkroom and ended up working in Jessops Camera shops where he became a bit of a legends for beating sales records and for transforming things in many ways. This is explained in our Influencing paragraph. He is descendant of a family of Architects and Artists with Direct descendance to Vasco Da Gama who created the Spice route to India in the 16th Century. So after spending about 10 years in Photography up to his ears he saw the end, or at least what looked like the end of the negative film with new Digital cameras nearly everyday. This meant going from an Amazing 200 years Old system and experience to cameras with 1 or 2 mega pixels selling like pancakes. He stopped working there as there was no way to take time off on the Millenium weekend that he spend on Mombasa Beach dancing and watching the sun rise... Wow!.
When he came back he bought a property he found cycling around with his Lifelong lady Partner. This was the beginning of a Grand Design project that lasted 15 years and will never end but he likes that.
He then Spent 4 years by himself planning, drawing, Studying, Learning, building by himself and his partner and wish he filmed this Smart home project.
After 3/4 years of Isolation he had to find a way to keep sain and this is what Life Drawing gave him and so he could continue doing a perfect, Artistic, without shortcuts job.
After finding this Lovely class in Stoke Newington he even joined his neighbours weekly Life Drawing class with friends where the cost of the model was shared with on/off periods. During one of those off periods Tony investigated around Hackney to find hopefully another amazing class and found a Class at the Brand New Shoreditch Campus. This was a new era of a country getting ready for The Olympics and where money stopped from going to the Arts and instead went to constructing thousands of new homes and Stadiums or improving all transports.
Tony found a new class where all was opposite to what he was now used to. It was a tutored class without tuition where the Art teacher had to show his value by commenting every single drawing and repeating a small set of exactly the same words. Because maybe the crowd was younger, the tutor was making this class into something very irritating and they knew as many expressed their discontent which led to worse conditions. Tony who loves improving anything he sees started talking to others attendees and asked them to have meetings at the Pub after the class to try to find a solution. Using Pubs after any class was a completely new thing and only possible to smokers then, long before the smoking ban happened. 5 or 6 of them became a bunch of friends by doing just that including someone called Nils you may know from his classes in Bethnal Green... At the end the conclusion was to take the pain and start our own which was completely Science fiction then.
There were so many restrictions and rules that it felt like this was a children's class but most of us were in our 30's. Being more than 5 mins late was considered as not acceptable and many had to turn back home because of that. The word Drop-in class did not exist then. The only good thing that could be found were the tea breaks. Drawing appreciation at the end of any class did not exist and so we went to the Pub to look at each other's drawing for years, which became really the very reason to go there after a class.
Tony had at the back of his mind then to Start his own class and begun his research. He asked the teacher of that class to pop in at the pub were we would go to after each class. She accepted and the conversation became a 2 hours conversation with rather bad vibes where she would tell Tony to keep away from an Education system run and built by Woman. She told him to keep away and forget about the idea of starting classes. He went and one day did the same with a Life model he miraculously managed to invite to that same pub. Models were told not to have communication with artists. Tony then found out that they had good reasons to feel like going on Strike. At least 1/2 of all Life models used at classes would try to make Artists feel for them, so they find all sorts of ways, from turning their back and that's it, to crying, not shaving, talking to themselves etc... Tony found out that they had to sign 2 to 6 weeks contract or they would not get the job. They'd get paid the very minimum wage at that time which was £3.20/h minus Tax. Tips for models then did not exist. Those models were hard to find but they did with the help of a small group of Life models who called themselves R - M. They would obviously keep better paid jobs to themselves and friends and send others to the rest. Which is quite normal and human I guess. Originally it was for them to get as many jobs as possible which is a good thing and so they started talking to Art Schools and Unis. The job since Antiquity has been so badly paid that the only way was to try to do at least 2 jobs a day and so they did, learning by doing it without much or any Artistic background at all, cycling from one job to the next. Some of them even started learning from qualified Art teachers while modeling and did negotiate to continue posing for people they could learn from, sending other models to the less interesting or worst payer class organizers. All very normal and logical.