This sketchbook is my therapist. Not this one specifically, but any single one small enough to fit in my pocket. I tell it everything, from quirky thoughts and funny notes to abstract concepts, drawings and positive reminders. Keep it analog folks… a doodle, sketch, writing, poem, or scribble every day helps to keep the brain fit and the thoughts flowing. ✏️
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
I let the chickens and the roosters out to have their daily walk. I need to keep an eye on them, there might be foxes around. The raspberries had ripened, and needed to be collected before they rotted on the branch. The stork flew by, and sat on the roof of the abandoned house nearby. The storks live next-doors, quite lovely neighbors. He was watching the chickens with me.
A cartographic representation of the experience of moving to a new city in a foreign land. This work, dubbed as 'Introspectionism', provides the viewer with a snapshot over time of the inner workings of the process of the strange becoming slowly more familiar and the foreign becoming Home.
Health matters. A healthy person can have several goals. A sick person has one goal. Make good choices, because they will make you. Easy to say. Not always easy to do. Eat well. Move with intension. Read to learn. Meditate and pray, and receive from that. Do what I say, not what I do. This writing is for me, not you.
A page from my sketchbook during my Foundation Diploma in Art & Design in London. Diluted ink is a great medium. It always gives this authentic look. I think I used colouring pencils below to give it a strong colourful look. Love this one.
Pen on lined paper, I liked the aesthetic of this, what would normally be writing by pen familiarly associated with this lined paper, is instead a loosely sketched portrait.
It’s easier to remain silent for someone
whose words only ever got twisted.
(spoke in other forms though)
Running from what?
Nothing. And everything.
Until they fell off the edge - or flew-
and plunged into an epiphany where words can’t
even translate,
can’t touch you.
“Don’t you come looking for me”
on the wind.
I took an hour or two and drew some owls while watching the 7th Harry Potter movie. The black (it's actually dark purple) ink is in a Platinum Preppy refillable marker (I SWEAR BY THESE -- you just need the ONE and can keep putting ink in it) (https://www.gouletpens.com/collections/other-writing-instruments/products/platinum-preppy-refillable-marker-black?variant=11884751487019) and the green is in an extra-fine Lamy Al-Star (https://www.gouletpens.com/products/lamy-al-star-fountain-pen-bluegreen?variant=11884855885867).
(2B pencil on 132mm x 86mm paper) I did think of writing something in the speech bubble but decided it worked best as a kind of "silent scream" so I left it blank.
the black and yellow garden spider (also called the writing spider; Argiope aurantia) and the banded garden spider (A. trifasciata), which have vivid yellow and black markings on the abdomen, are commonly referred to as garden spiders.
https://www.britannica.com/animal/garden-spider
Although it is often refered to as a banana spider...which is were I am connecting the irony and source of my inspiration...from the piece #Comedian created by artist #Maurizio_Cattelan...known at the moment as the
A striking, high-contrast graphite study of a hand in the act of writing. Created in a rapid 45-minute sitting through self-observation, this piece captures the intricate anatomy and focused tension of the artist's own hand as it holds the pen. The tip being pencil the top being pen and finger tips slightly smudged incorporate all aspects of the mediums used to create it.
Elias Rosenshaw 8/29/2025
Mixed media on toned tan paper.
Starting next week, I'm going back to college. I'm very excited for my courses, especially art & writing. It will be a great opportunity to explore my curiosities, improve my art skills, and grow as a person. I will share my art assignments if my instructors allow it. I would also like to write a little about each piece, which may be required for my assignments anyway.
Lately, I've been inspired by fantasy & fairytale artwork. I think fantasy & horror will make good focuses for my pre-BFA portfolio. This was a little experiment with a fairytale aesthetic. One of my goals is to use limited art supply sets & swap out colours as they run out. I feel the first colours I picked out fit with aesthetic well.
I'm proud of this drawing, especially the dress & the night sky. However, I can see some areas that I should've done differently. I'm not happy with the proportions & foreshortening of the limbs. Also, I shouldn't have used a background colour for the flowers. I added the colour to cover up a smear from the watercolour. I should avoid making large areas of solid colour, especially with my coloured pencils. I am learning & improving.
I'm planning on writing and illustrating a superhero comic soon. So I'm practicing dynamic poses, foreshortening, all the stuff. Need to get better at bullets though. Yes, that is a pom-pom. It's the only hat she had.
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
#daulyrituals #inktober #benjaminfranklin @masoncurrey
