2nd Author Portrait: Virginia Woolf

5 x 7 inches (12.7 cm x 17.78 cm)
continuous line drawing in graphite pencil on paper

The second book I read this year was Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. It’s about a day in the life of several characters in post-World War I England, revolving around one woman’s preparations for an evening dinner party for high-society. As such, it’s a critique of the meaningless lives of English upper class society in that period. The most sympathetic character to me is a WWI veteran suffering from PTSD, what was called “shell shock” back then.

Woolf’s use of a stream-of-consciousness writing style to express the thoughts and obsessions of the characters is much more accessible to me than say, James Joyce. (I’m eventually going to give Joyce another chance, though.)

 I did this portrait in graphite pencil, using a continuous line style of drawing.