Superstitions: Skull.
It was claimed in Ireland for many years that if a man took an oath on a skull and was lying as he did so, he would be struck dead soon thereafter.
* Maybe we should bring that back and make politicians swear on the skulls of those who lied and died. I bet there would be less lying thereafter.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGACG5jBcbo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Annuals are encouraged to seed in the less formal beds in our large garden.
We tend them, photograph them, and I draw and paint them. This is a colored pencil (Prismacolor) drawing of one of our seedling poppies. It was an odd form. Not exactly a single, nor a double and lacked the common cross markings in the throat.
Joan Miró (1893-1983)
Miró always maintained a rigidly inflexible daily routine—both because he disliked being distracted from his work, and because he feared slipping back into the severe depression that had afflicted him as a young man, before he discovered painting. To help prevent a relapse, his routine always included vigorous exercise—boxing in Paris; jumping rope and Swedish gymnastics at a Barcelona gym; and running on the beach and swimming at Mont-roig, a seaside village where his family owned a farmhouse.
Miró hated for this routine to be interrupted by social or cultural events. As he told an American journalist, “Merde! I absolutely detest all openings and parties! They’re commercial, political, and everybody talks too much. They get on my tits!”
From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
2023, Ballpoint pen on 5” x 8” acid free Moleskine sketchbook paper, Adobe Photoshop. First sketchbook drawing of 2024! Based on a photo of a model in a makeup company advert.
Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
On a late-night walk near Dublin harbor, Beckett found himself standing on the end of a pier in the midst of a winter storm. Amid the howling wind and churning water, he suddenly realized that the “dark he had struggled to keep under” in his life—and in his writing, which had until then failed to find an audience or meet his own aspirations—should, in fact, be the source of his creative inspiration.
“I shall always be depressed,” Beckett concluded, “but what comforts me is the realization that I can now accept this dark side as the commanding side of my personality. In accepting it, I will make it work for me.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
#dailyrituals #inktober #samuelbeckett @masoncurrey