The Waves and the Writing Lodge

After The Waves (Virginia Woolf's Writing Lodge)

 

I will not disguise the fact that this latest picture has been something of a slog. I tell you if I don't see another ruddy leaf it'll be a day too soon. Hundreds of the things there are in this. Well, that's what it felt like anyway. Which of course is the effect I was after, but still ...

 

I have promised myself an urban house next. Lots of bricks to take away the pain of all these leaves.

 

Having said all that I think I managed to approximate to what I was after re the subject of the piece, that is, the moment when Leonard comes out to tell Virginia that The Waves is a masterpiece. She sure earned that drink down by her side! (So did I when I glued in the last leaf). I've put waves (thank you, National Geographic) in the windows of her writing hut and there is a bit of a wavy thing going on with the whole composition too - chestnut tree included.

Sea greens and sea blues ... and a foam of daisies encroaching on the terrace.

Whoops - you'll have to click on the picture if you want to get a complete view (otherwise you'll miss the ubiquitous Amanda W cat!)

Virginia Woolf's wood pigeons

She has a lot.

Overhead.

Hope they don't disturb her train of creative thought!

 

Tricky little blighters to cut and stick too ....

 

 

 

I love the sound of these birds and seem to remember them calling when I visited Monk's House years ago. I daresay they aren't as gregarious as this little lot but that's my artistic prerogative!

 

So here's a detail of the writing lodge's spreading chestnut tree as it stands at present on my drawing board.

 

On we go ...

Progress on the Writing Lodge

 

This is the tricky bit .... stopping myself from getting caught up in the creative moment and going too far with blocking in a collage before it has been transferred to its paper base.

Even worse, it is a Sunday and I have no suitable paper other than the piece all these bits are currently occupying. Worse still, it is not one but two pieces which I shall have to tape together. The only available blue in the shop yesterday was a rather fetching teal shade, but far too dark for what I have in mind. So these two pieces it will have to be. And I will have to reconstruct the image so far.

Thank goodness for digital photos.

But blimey, all those little leaves on the spreading chestnut tree!

Serves me right for getting low on powder and mid-blue Canson papers.

Writing lodge doodles ...

 

Initially I thought about putting one of those convivial groups of Bloomsbury members sitting about in deckchairs outside the hut. But then I read this:

 

"It was here that Leonard came out in July 1931 to tell her that The Waves, which he had just finished reading was a masterpiece."

 

So, a bit of drama.

The deckchair will probably go.

Far too laid back (both literally and figuratively)!