Becoming My Own Halloween Cast: A Life Drawing Session to Remember

There’s something wonderfully chaotic about stepping into a life-drawing session knowing you’re not just posing, you’re performing. This Halloween, I decided to go a little bigger, a little stranger, and a lot more theatrical. Instead of being simply “the model,” I became an entire cast of characters, each one creeping, stalking, or swooping their way across the room while a circle of artists tried to keep up with their pencils.

I’ve always loved the stillness of modelling, the quiet connection between body and artist, but this time I wanted to inject a bit of playful mischief into the mix. So I built my own Halloween universe. One moment I was the eerie, stalking Raven creature, masked, feathered, towering with beak and claws and clearly nude beneath the costume (body positivity loves a dramatic entrance, after all). The next moment I was shifting into angles and silhouettes that felt equal parts spooky and cheeky. Every pose was a chance to blend humour with vulnerability, theatrics with bare-skinned honesty.

There’s a certain joy in performing while you’re completely exposed. You stop worrying about perfection and instead lean into the character, whether that’s a brooding raven perched before the class or a mischievous clown stretching into a pose that leaves nothing to the imagination. The artists seemed to love it too; there’s something about a model who moves like a story rather than a statue.

And speaking of stories, the Raven character didn’t stay trapped in the studio. I brought him to life on camera too, giving a dramatic reading of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, costume, atmosphere, and very me. It’s part theatre, part body-positive rebellion, and a reminder that performance art can be as fun, bold, and revealing as you’re willing to let it be.

Below, I’ll be sharing the sample gallery of images from the session, every feather, every curve, every gloriously awkward pose. And if you want to see the raven soar (and hear my best Poe voice), you can watch the full performance on my YouTube Channel as well.

Halloween may only come once a year, but slipping into these characters reminded me how good it feels to play, to perform, and to own the body I move through the world, with feathers, nudity, drama and all.