Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975)
Shostakovich’s contemporaries do not recall seeing him working, at least not in the traditional sense. The Russian composer was able to conceptualize a new work entirely in his head, and then write it down with extreme rapidity—if uninterrupted, he could average twenty or thirty pages of score a day, making virtually no corrections as he went.
But this feat was apparently preceded by hours or days of mental composition—during which he “appeared to be a man of great inner tensions,” the musicologist Alexei Ikonnikov observed, “with his continually moving, ‘speaking’ hands, which were never at rest.”
Shostakovich himself was afraid that perhaps he worked too fast. “I worry about the lightning speed with which I compose,” he confessed in a letter to a friend. Undoubtedly this is bad. One shouldn’t compose as quickly as I do. Composition is a serious process, and in the words of a ballerina friend of mine, “You can’t keep going at a gallop.” I compose with diabolical speed and can’t stop myself.… It is exhausting, rather unpleasant, and at the end of the day you lack any confidence in the result. But I can’t rid myself of the bad habit.
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
#dailyrituals #inktober #shostakovich @masoncurrey
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
Kant’s biography is unusually devoid of external events.
As Heinrich Heine wrote: The history of Kant’s life is difficult to describe. For he neither had a life nor a history.
In actual fact, as Manfred Kuehn argues in his 2001 biography, Kant’s life was not quite as abstract and passionless as Heine and others have supposed…. If he failed to live a more adventurous life, it was largely due to his health: the philosopher had a congenital skeletal defect that caused him to develop an abnormally small chest, which compressed his heart and lungs and contributed to a generally delicate constitution. In order to prolong his life with the condition—and in an effort to quell the mental anguish caused by his lifelong hypochondria—Kant adopted what he called “a certain uniformity in the way of living and in the matters about which I employ my mind.”
This routine was as follows: Kant rose at 5:00 A.M., after being woken by his longtime servant, a retired soldier under explicit orders not to let the master oversleep. Then he drank one or two cups of weak tea and smoked his pipe. According to Kuehn, “Kant had formulated the maxim for himself that he would smoke only one pipe, but it is reported that the bowls of his pipes increased considerably in size as the years went on.”
- From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
#dailyrituals #inktober #ImmanuelKant @masoncurrey
Kat is one of my favourite models. She has the most beautiful faces, full of character. Even when sitting between poses, as featured here, she has the most commanding look.
A fun drawing to do. I usually do a lot of crosshatching, but for this one I went for the smoothness, better to capture the light, I suppose, where crosshatching can be a little distracting. Or look like hair! As some have said.
Project for my health class. It's supposed to be a fingerprint, and the words written in are all postitive things, whether they are quotes or things I like. Thought this would be fitting for the "doodle" aspect. Drawn with FireAlpaca.
Sketch of Amy with various arm positions. A preliminary Moleskine sketchbook work-up for a future full-sized illustration. 2B Pencil, Soft Charcoal Pencil on 5.5” x 8.25” Moleskine sketchbook. Model: Amy_D
This week hasn't been great. My anxiety was pretty high for most of it, and it was honestly for no reason. My brain tends to be very chaotic, I suppose, and I have trouble controlling my thoughts sometimes. This was a random doodle I did last night at 10 p.m. I've decided I'm going to add color to it, which will either look good or make everyone's eyes hurt even more..at least I have a picture of this version.
This is my friend's Magic-User character in a Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons game I'm currently playing (it's the version of the game from 1981). His name is Ulemataz! In this world, he's from a country called Argos that is a combination of ancient Greece and Babylon. HIs magic missile spell is "suppose to be cone shaped objects like Bugles chips" :D
Shortly after graduating in medicine doctor Illness concluded that the treatment of people does not make sense since he constantly coming new ill patients. The great desire to explore the state of the disease, he began his patients exposed to hazardous situations contagion and infection. Curious and eager for knowledge about the most serious illnesses, supported and developed the existing disease in their patients. He did not hesitate to post the wrong diagnosis, prescribing the drugs that have not been treat difficult health situation, on the contrary, they encouraged further development of the disease. After several years, he was arrested and charged with numerous deaths. Very indignant, told the court that great scientists have never been properly accepted by a society full of prejudices and petty soul.
I do generally put pen (or some kind of tool), to paper (or some kind of surface), every day, but I'm really TRYING to do it purposefully in one singular location (journal). Here is a successful attempt from that particular day.
I'm also super lazy, which means I never go up to my actual studio and only use what's out on my computer desk.
2023, Ballpoint pens on 5” x 8” acid free Moleskine sketchbook paper, Adobe Photoshop colour correction. I was doing pre-purchase research before deciding on a set of noise cancelling earbuds when I landed on the Google Pixel Buds Pro website and found an interesting model in an interesting pose.
I first bought some cheap soft pastels back in 2018 and did a couple of sketches. I bought a nice set of Rembrandt pastels a few months later — didn't use them. I bought some pastel pads, none if which seemed right. September 2020, I bought a couple more sets of bargain pastels and tried a couple of pieces — no good, still couldn't bring myself to use them. Jess bought me pastel pencils for Christmas — I was too scared to use them. I even bought a pad of Pastelmat which is supposed to be THE paper to use for pastel paintings in January. I was too scared to use that as well!
FINALLY, after a few unsuccessful attempts at working with watercolour (brush issues), I cast aside my fear and thought I'd mess around with pastels. Some time later, and this was the result. I've finally broken through my pastel fear-barrier.
I've got to say, I love soft pastels and I'm excited about doing more pieces in this medium.
A life drawing I did yesterday via zoom with Drawing Life in Glasgow. The pose and theme were modelled after Egon Schiele. Charcoal, brush pens and conte on brown A3.
I generally make marks on something every day, but I'm really TRYING to do it purposefully in one single journal at a time. I also have super ADHD, which means I pretty much never go up to my actual studio and usually only use what's out on my desk, because out-of-sight-out-of-mind.
I wanted to draw Ash but without his bat features. Ash takes on bat like features in his orignal concept. I will be keeping those features, because I like how it looks. Every color I used in this picture was used for a reason. I had to do some research, so the colors would reflect is personality and his role he plays within the world in which I created him in.
Colors with purpose:
-Purple
-Green
-Red
-Orange
A true doodle? Messing around with some markers. I think this character was originally supposed to be a HH OC, but wound up looking more like some reject from an 80's cartoon (which is acceptable to me lol).
