The Candid Arts Trust in Islington runs regular life-drawing classes, both during the day and in the evening. Evening classes take place 7pm 'til 9pm from Monday to Thursday and daytime classes take place 11am 'til 1pm on Tuesday and Wednesday. As I'd been advised to work on my observational drawing at my interview, and as these classes are conveniently close to my office, I headed there on a Tuesday evening after work.
These are drop-in classes, so there's no need to book a place, but they do stop letting people in at about 10 past. The classes are held in a large basement room and are clearly popular – there were probably between 20 and 30 people that evening. Despite the size of the class the teacher made a valiant attempt to go around and talk to everyone individually.
There was a huge range of abilities on show, so there's no need to feel intimidated at all. The teacher had the model go through 14 poses over the course of the class. These were of different lengths and the teacher suggested different drawing exercises for each pose, though you could just do your own thing if you preferred.
15 minute pose (no stipulations)
5 minute poses (no stipulations), followed by 5 minute poses (continuous line) 
5 minute poses (continuous line drawn with off hand), followed by 5 minute poses (drawn with both hands simultaneously)
1 minute poses (not looking at paper), followed by 1 minute pose (not looking at paper drawn with off hand)
15 minute poses (no stipulations)
The session was split by a 10 minute break when you could look at other people's work, or head to the cafe upstairs for food or drink. It was an intense session - I'm not used to drawing for such an extensive period of time or working so quickly. But it was definitely useful and I left looking forward to going the following week!
*Or you can bring your own materials.
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