Life Models | Life Drawing Network

Working as a Life Model:

Salary in the UK:

As Life models make things possible since 2003, we take especially good care of them and increase their national wage whenever we can, once we make this now industry evolve so that it gets possible. Here is when we raised their min. wage:

2003: from minimum wage then of £.3.80/h, we knew how abysmal their condition was, and simply, had to do something about it so raised it to £10/h (nearly X3). This changed the Life Drawing world forever with 10 times more models the year after and a thousand times, 10 years later. Artist could ,at last, after thousands of years of wait, draw a all variety of human figure of all shape, age and sizes.
2008: By then someone who probably couldn't pay her bills with running classes and life modeling, decided to do something that is considered illegal in many countries which is to charge life models to work, who precisely knew how many models at the time were hoping to work, facing a limited amount of classes. To remedy to this I started all sorts of groups such as on FB but she reported every word, photo I ever used so I had to start again and again 4 times but kept on going,. I then started the first Life model group on Meetup (the same as for the first Life Drawing classes ever in UK on Meetup) where those people again found a way to get us in trouble. They used some of their models to commit crimes anonymously in exchange for jobs (Money). Please boycott them if you can.
2014 we raised the minimum wage again to £15/h
2020: We now raised the minimum wage for all UK life models to £20/h for Online Video Streaming Life modeling and for Kching big classes that will start again in 2021, we hope. We now offer profit share options to life models who can spend time networking for us or any Art teacher they like and support so no need.
2021: The new way life models and models in general will make money is with all sorts of online groups who will become offline whenever possible, video recordings, photography/photo shoots and even probably all sorts of Acting jobs for Video filming (clothed).

In the near future we will write here the differences in salaries all around the World. We know already of a few other countries/continent who followed our salary rates, simply because local Life models expressed what was right, to pay from what works in the UK.

Portfolios:

I am spending time creating the best possible website for Life models, using this isolation time for that. Please don't pay ever again to work... Art nudity will be shown on that website, the way it should be for the sake of Art, work, even inspiration. Time to be proud of our Artistic human form is coming soon...

On the practical side:

During this time of isolation models/ life models who want to work can only work online using their best camera and after signing a Photo & Video release. Models should ask their friends to send them the best possible webcams or adapters to allow them to use their DSLR's. Only once we know your video quality is good that we can work with you.

Life Models: Please get in touch with photo and mobile so we can go Live and talk, look at you video quality, set up and see if we can work Live together asap or if you can record an untutored class by yourself that artist will hire and from which you will get paid at least 20%. It doesn't matter where you are in the world as long as your time fits with our Live sessions. We started creating groups for models at the lifedrawingnetwork.net where artists can do their bit and take tiny memberships to support them and follow them (the good way).

Portrait Models: Portrait models cannot get paid much unfortunately but can make this something they would offer to their group members at www.thelifedrawingnetwork.net

Burlesque and costumed Models: Burlesque is something we created around 2005/6 and we now pay between £20 to £50/h depending on Experience and performance. Recorded session will be used on a topical website and profits will be shared.

Why pose for Live classes or record yourself? Simply because when this virus is taken to Mars, we'll look at which models our audience wanted to draw the most or will tell us they'd like to draw again the most and recommend them to everyone, no matter where in the World.

On the Legal Official Side:

Any model who come to us saying that they are Ram members will be considered, not because of what they went through for the money they had to pay to work, but because it shows that they need a stamp that means "hard working, reliable and only interested in Work connections" and there is nothing wrong with that, quite the opposite in fact. In the future you will be able to say you are LDN members instead with the same qualities.

A model agreement needs signing for any Art classes or websites where any Photo and /or video get produced to covers the employer as well as the model.

Our Models do need to provide invoices for any paid work that we can provide as a template if needed.

Because we have the upmost respect for life models we always ask artist to provide examples of what they've drawn online and if they don't we simply stop offering the service to them.

Common sense side:

If any model come to us, because someone has been a bit too friendly to them, which is completely human , complaining about anything verbal or emails/text they received, they will be kindly advised on what to do, but if they intend to create unnecessary damage, they will be removed, banned especially if they use those to create online defamation on FB or others. There is another life model agency that specializes in this, that justifies the fact models must pay to work.

Since the beginning of time, Interest given from Artists to models is human and normal (can be vice versa too) so if models cannot deal with that in a civilized, confident manner after all the advice we can offer, they should simply not choose this job or only work for Art schools. Male and female Artists have always been and will always be human before anything else, same for Life models. From experience I know that Artists and students are 10 times more prude/serious than the Life models, has always been and always will be.

There are ways and techniques we gave/explained to many inexperienced life models that kept them safe from anything they'd rather not want to deal with face-to-face.

I actively tried to prevented incidents educating models on how the male works and think but was quite shocked on how little is known. I'll be happy to continue sharing my knowledge about how good Humans and Life both are when connected to Art and creativity.

Wherever you are in the world it's time to get in tough so we can check your video camera and hopefully never stop recording yourself, get better, feel better, look better, eat better and have a better LIFE.