Patron Saint of Dawn and Dusk and Fog.
Dedicated to the Hedgehog in the Fog, one of the best animations ever and to the Horse in it as one of the best mystical creatures in the film.
#dailyDrawing #PatronSaint
St. WIlgefortis. Patron Saint of facial hair and of people seeing a refuge from abusive husbands (and fathers).
When I was doing my research into existing Patron Saints, I stumbled onto St. Wilgefortis. I thought that was a fun combination - until I read to the end. From Wikipedia: "According to the legend of her life, set in Portugal and Galicia, she was a teenage noblewoman who had been promised in marriage by her father to a Moorish king. To thwart the unwanted wedding, she had taken a vow of virginity, and prayed that she would be made repulsive. In answer to her prayers she sprouted a beard, which ended the engagement. In anger, Wilgefortis' father had her crucified."
I considered giving her a knife, to fight off the unwanted husbands and vile fathers, but that would not be true to her suffering. So I included her blood instead.
#dailydrawing #patronSaint
Daily Gesture practice.
I have been practicing for 30 minutes every day for two weeks. I aim to improve, but mostly to have fun. Feel free to give me pointers !
Patron Saint of Overbearing Mothers. And absent fathers.
This was a hard one to draw. The Overbearing mothers was suggested and then I added the Absent fathers.
#patronSaint #dailydrawing
Patron Saint of small sorrows.
A dead bee on a sidewalk, a dead plant, accidental break of a favorite cup. Small sorrows are many and everywhere.
What is a patron saint you want to see?
#patronSaint #dailydrawing
Patron Saint of Moths and Knitting.
I do love moths so much. There is so much quiet beauty in them. Just wish they would stay away from my favorite sweaters.
#PatronSaint #dailyDrawing
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
In the 1870s and ’80s, the Twain family spent their summers at Quarry Farm in New York, about two hundred miles west of their Hartford, Connecticut, home. Twain found those summers the most productive time for his literary work, especially after 1874, when the farm owners built him a small private study on the property. That same summer, Twain began writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. His routine was simple: he would go to the study in the morning after a hearty breakfast and stay there until dinner at about 5:00. Since he skipped lunch, and since his family would not venture near the study—they would blow a horn if they needed him—he could usually work uninterruptedly for several hours. “On hot days,” he wrote to a friend, “I spread the study wide open, anchor my papers down with brickbats, and write in the midst of the hurricane, clothed in the same thin linen we make shirts of.”
Whether or not he was working, he smoked cigars constantly. One of his closest friends, the writer William Dean Howells, recalled that after a visit from Twain, “the whole house had to be aired, for he smoked all over it from breakfast to bedtime.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
― Mark Twain
#dailyrituals #inktober #MarkTwain @masoncurrey
Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
At 9:30, Tchaikovsky set to work—composing at the piano only after he had dealt with any proofs or his correspondence, chores that he disliked. “Before setting about the pleasant task,” his brother noted, “Pyotr Ilich always hastened to get rid of the unpleasant.”
After lunch he went for a long walk, regardless of the weather. His brother writes, “Somewhere at sometime he had discovered that a man needs a two-hour walk for his health, and his observance of this rule was pedantic and superstitious, as though if he returned five minutes early he would fall ill, and unbelievable misfortunes of some sort would ensue.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music.”
― Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
“If you do not want to write, at least spit on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and send it to me. You are not taking any notice of me at all. God forgive you – all I wanted was a few words from you.”
― Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
#dailyrituals #inktober #PeterTchaikovsky @masoncurrey
Herman Melville (1819–1891)
"I rise at eight—thereabouts—& go to my barn—say good-morning to the horse, & give him his breakfast. (It goes to my heart to give him a cold one, but it can’t be helped.) Then, pay a visit to my cow—cut up a pumpkin or two for her, & stand by to see her eat it—for it’s a pleasant sight to see a cow move her jaws—she does it so mildly & with such a sanctity."
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“I would prefer not to.”
― Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener
“A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.”
― Herman Melville, Pierre; or, The Ambiguities
#dailyrituals #inktober #HermanMelville @masoncurrey
Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
From the time he arrived at Down House until 1859, when he finally published On the Origin of Species, Darwin led a double life, keeping his thoughts on evolution and natural selection to himself while bolstering his credentials in the scientific community.
Meanwhile, he divulged his secret theory to a very few confidants; he told one fellow scientist it was “like confessing a murder.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
― Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
#dailyrituals #inktober #CharlesDarwin @masoncurrey
René Descartes (1596–1650)
Descartes was a late riser. The French philosopher liked to sleep until mid-morning, then linger in bed, thinking and writing, until 11:00 or so.
His comfortable bachelor’s life ended abruptly in late 1649, Descartes accepted a position in the court of Queen Christina of Sweden.
Descartes accepted a position in the court of Queen Christina of Sweden,Arriving in Sweden, in time for one of the coldest winters in memory, Descartes was notified that his lessons to Queen Christina would take place in the mornings—beginning at 5:00 A.M. He had no choice but to obey. But the early hours and bitter cold were too much for him. After only a month on the new schedule, Descartes fell ill, apparently of pneumonia; ten days later he was dead.
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.
(English: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am")”
― Rene Descartes
#dailyrituals #inktober #reneDescartes @masoncurrey #wouldratherdiethangetupearly
P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975)
Once, when he was beginning a Wooster-Jeeves novel, he experimented with using a Dictaphone. After he had dictated the equivalent of a page, he played it back to check it over. What he heard sounded so terribly unfunny that he immediately turned off the machine and went back to his pad and pencil.
After this, according to the biographer Robert McCrum, “he might snooze a bit in his armchair, have a bath, and do some more work, before the evening cocktail (sherry for her, a lethal martini for him) at six, which they took in the sun parlour, overlooking the garden.
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.”
― P.G. Wodehouse
#dailyrituals #inktober #PGWodehouse @masoncurrey
William Styron (1925–2006)
“Let’s face it, writing is hell,” Styron told The Paris Review in 1954.
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“We’re all in this game together.”
― William Styron
#dailyrituals #inktober #WilliamStyron @masoncurrey
Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010)
“My life has been regulated by insomnia,” Bourgeois told an interviewer in 1993. “It’s something that I have never been able to understand, but I accept it.” Bourgeois learned to use these sleepless hours productively, propped up in bed with her “drawing diary,” listening to music or the hum of traffic on the streets.
“Each day is new, so each drawing—with words written on the back—lets me know how I’m doing,” she said. “I now have 110 drawing-diary pages, but I’ll probably destroy some.
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands...”
― Louise Bourgeois
“Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it, and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor.”
― Louise Bourgeois
#dailyrituals #inktober #LouiseBourgeois @masoncurrey
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943)
After he had started his own company, Tesla arrived at the office at noon. Immediately, his secretary would draw the blinds; Tesla worked best in the dark and would raise the blinds again only in the event of a lightning storm, which he liked to watch flashing above the cityscape from his black mohair sofa.
Tesla ate alone, and phoned in his instructions for the meal in advance. Upon arriving, he was shown to his regular table, where eighteen clean linen napkins would be stacked at his place. As he waited for his meal, he would polish the already gleaming silver and crystal with these squares of linen, gradually amassing a heap of discarded napkins on the table. And when his dishes arrived—served to him not by a waiter but by the maître d’hôtel himself—Tesla would mentally calculate their cubic contents before eating, a strange compulsion he had developed in his childhood and without which he could never enjoy his food.
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Of all things, I liked books best.”
― Nikola Tesla
“One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”
― Nikola Tesla
#dailyrituals #inktober #NikolaTesla @masoncurrey
Truman Capote (1924–1984)
He compulsively added numbers in his head, refusing to dial a telephone number or accept a hotel room if the digits made a sum he considered unlucky.
“It’s endless, the things I can’t and won’t,” he said. “But I derive some curious comfort from obeying these primitive concepts.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”
― Truman Capote
#dailyrituals #inktober #TrumanCapote @masoncurrey
George Balanchine (1904–1983)
Balanchine liked to do his own laundry. “When I’m ironing, that’s when I do most of my work,” he once said. The choreographer rose early, before 6:00 A.M., made a pot of tea, and read a little or played a hand of Russian solitaire while he gathered his thoughts. Then he did his ironing for the day (he did his own washing too, in a portable machine in his Manhattan apartment) and, between 7:30 and 8:00, phoned his longtime assistant for a rundown of the day’s schedule.
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“I like to do things certain ways and I disagree with everybody but I don't even want to argue.”
― George Balanchine
#dailyrituals #inktober #balanchine @masoncurrey
This was one of dozens of daily sketches I did in a small book for my daughter's Christmas present a couple of years ago. Love the wacky gulls. So many in my area.
W. B. Yeats (1865–1939)
A lyric poem of eighty or more lines took him about three months of hard labor.
Fortunately, Yeats was not so careful about his other writing, like the literary criticism he did to earn extra money. “One has to give something of one’s self to the devil that one may live,” he said. “I give my criticism.”- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”
― W.B. Yeats
#dailyrituals #inktober #WBYeats @masoncurrey
Woody Allen (b. 1935)
I’ve found over the years that any momentary change stimulates a fresh burst of mental energy. So if I’m in this room and then I go into the other room, it helps me. If I go outside to the street, it’s a huge help. If I go up and take a shower it’s a big help. So I sometimes take extra showers.
“I think in the cracks all the time,” he has said. “I never stop.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“Some guy hit my fender the other day, and I said unto him, 'Be fruitful, and multiply'. But not in those words.”
― Woody Allen
#dailyrituals #inktober #Woody Allen @masoncurrey
Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
Eco says that he is able to be productive during the brief “interstices” in the day. He told The Paris Review’s interviewer: “This morning you rang, but then you had to wait for the elevator, and several seconds elapsed before you showed up at the door. During those seconds, waiting for you, I was thinking of this new piece I’m writing. I can work in the water closet, in the train. While swimming I produce a lot of things, especially in the sea. Less so in the bathtub, but there too.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“When men stop believing in God, it isn’t that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.” ― Umberto Eco
#dailyrituals #inktober #UmbertoEco @masoncurrey
Louis Armstrong (1901–1971)
Armstrong relied on music to lull himself to sleep. Before he could get into bed, however, he had to administer the last of his daily home remedies, Swiss Kriss, a potent herbal laxative invented by the nutritionist Gayelord Hauser in 1922 (and still on the market today). Armstrong believed so strongly in its curative powers that he recommended it to all his friends, and even had a card printed up with a photo of himself sitting on the toilet, above the caption “Leave It All Behind Ya.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.”
― Louis Armstrong
#dailyrituals #inktober #LouisArmstrong @masoncurrey
David Lynch (1946-2025)
I like things to be orderly,” Lynch told a reporter in 1990. For seven years I ate at Bob’s Big Boy. I would go at 2:30, after the lunch rush. I ate a chocolate shake and four, five, six, seven cups of coffee—with lots of sugar. And there’s lots of sugar in that chocolate shake. It’s a thick shake. In a silver goblet. I would get a rush from all this sugar, and I would get so many ideas! I would write them on these napkins. It was like I had a desk with paper. “
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
“I don't think it was pain that made [Vincent Van Gogh] great - I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had.”
― David Lynch
Thank you for all your amazing art!
#dailyrituals #inktober #DavidLynch #goals @masoncurrey
