Jane Austen (1775–1817)
Austen never lived alone and had little expectation of solitude in her daily life. Her final home, a cottage in the village of Chawton, England, was no exception: she lived there with her mother, her sister, a close friend, and three servants, and there was a steady stream of visitors, often unannounced.
...
Austen wrote in the family sitting room, “subject to all kinds of casual interruptions,” her nephew recalled. She was careful that her occupation should not be suspected by servants, or visitors, or any persons beyond her own family party. She wrote upon small sheets of paper which could easily be put away, or covered with a piece of blotting paper. There was, between the front door and the offices, a swing door which creaked when it was opened; but she objected to having this little inconvenience remedied, because it gave her notice when anyone was coming.
“Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton & doses of rhubarb.”
From Daily rituals by Mason Currey
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Benjamin Franklin (Part 2)
The plan worked, up to a point. After following the course several times in a row, he found it necessary to go through just one course in a year, and then one every few years. But the virtue of order—“Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time”—appears to have eluded his grasp. Franklin was not naturally inclined to keep his papers and other possessions organized, and he found the effort so vexing that he almost quit in frustration.
This timetable was formulated before Franklin adopted a favorite habit of his later years—his daily “air bath.” At the time, baths in cold water were considered a tonic, but Franklin believed the cold was too much of a shock to the system. He wrote in a letter: I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution to bathe in another element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise early almost every morning, and sit in my chamber without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. This practice is not in the least painful, but on the contrary, agreeable; and if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night’s rest, of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be imagined.
From Daily rituals by Mason Currey
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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Beethoven rose at dawn and wasted little time getting down to work. His breakfast was coffee, which he prepared himself with great care—he determined that there should be sixty beans per cup, and he often counted them out one by one for a precise dose.
From Daily Rituals : How Artists Work by Mason Currey.
#dailydrawing #dailyritual #beethoven #coffee #inktober @masoncurrey
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
In a 1782 letter to his sister, he gave a detailed account of these hectic days in Vienna:
"My hair is always done by six o’clock in the morning and by seven I am fully dressed. I then compose until nine. From nine to one I give lessons. Then I lunch..."
From "Daily Rituals: How Artists Work", edited and with text by Mason Currey.
FEDERICO FELLINI
In a 1977 interview, he described his morning routine:
I'm up at six in the morning. I walk around the house, open sindows, poke around boxes. move books from here to there. For years I've been trying to make myself a decent cup if coffee, but it's not one of my specialties. I go downstairs, outside as soon as possible. By seven I'm on the telephone.
- Daily rituals by Mason Curry.
#inktober #masonCurry #federicofellini #dailyritual
I was feeling listless about this inktober until I picked up Daily Rituals : How artists work by Mason Currey. I immediately knew that I want to do these portraits for the inktober.
FRANCIS BACON.
At the end of these long nights, Bacon frequently demanded that his reeling companions join him at home for one last drink - an effort, it seems, to postpone his nightly battles with insomnia. Bacon depended on polls to get to sleep, and he would read and reread classic cookbooks to relax himself before bed.
#inktober #portraits #francisBacon
