Showing posts with label Albion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Albion. Show all posts

Friday, July 29, 2011

A Sussex Albion


Finished this today. 

William Blake and his wife metaphorically cast out from the Garden of Eden - or rather in this case Felpham - Adam and Eve style, after the incident with the soldier, and overlooked by one of his angels that lived in the trees.

Most of the cuttings for this collage came from a stash of old National Geographics - I believe the thatch in reality is a desert and the angel's robe, for instance, part of the Lascaux caves.
I love these transformations.
Anyway, it's a relief to have finished it at last.

Its completion coincides with my beginning a new book tomorrow which may or may not provide me with food for thought for my next House......

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Wrestling with Blake

This is possibly my most difficult one so far, in that it has so far caused not one but two headaches. There is a lot of standing up involved in making a collage, what am I saying, more standing up than sitting down. And the combination with a bowed head is not good. Last night I feared a migraine so took myself off to bed with the cats locked out. Ooof, very serious that. They are still sulking..

The hippy lookalike is gone and replaced with a tree which I hope looks a bit Blakean with some sheep and vapours. Blake was big on sheep. (While I am in danger of contracting the vapours). In fact I may put this vignette on the back burner for a painting at some point.

Hopefully it's all looking very Albion-y and green and pleasant landish. I think I'd like to go for a walk through this garden.

Oh, and the significance of the scythe - I nearly forgot:
"In the summer of 1803 Blake found in the garden of his cottage a soldier, called in by the gardener, it seems, to cut the grass. Blake did not like soldiers; he was against war as such, and against the war of English intervention in France in particular. He ordered the intruder out by main force. Ill-advised words followed, reported as "Damn the King, and damn all his soldiers, they are all slaves"; and some remarks about Napoleon more fitted to the mouth of a French than of an English poet ..."

The upshot was poor old Blake was tried at Chichester for treason but eventually acquitted.