Skywatch Friday: Cloud Blotches

palm trees framing a gorgeous sunrise: LadyD Books

speckled eastern sky: LadyD Books

southern california sunrise: LadyD Books

Photos for Skywatch Friday


My grandson calls these random scattered cloud swatches, "cloud blotches." The textured layers of this painted eastern sunrise are just breath-taking. I thought you might enjoy seeing a glorious perspective from our view facing the eastern mountain range here in SoCal.

"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news." Isaiah 52:7



Daily Rituals: How Artists Work 


 Amazon Snippet


Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”

Kafka is one of 161 inspired—and inspiring—minds, among them, novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians, who describe how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”. . . Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day . . . Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.”

Here are: Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books . . . Karl Marx . . . Woody Allen . . . Agatha Christie . . . George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing . . . Leo Tolstoy . . . Charles Dickens . . . Pablo Picasso . . . George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers . . .

Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain”).

Brilliantly compiled and edited, and filled with detail and anecdote, Daily Rituals is irresistible, addictive, magically inspiring.

The Friday 56


"I wish I had a routine for writing," Miller told an interviewer in 1999. "I get up early in the morning and I go out to my studio and I write. And then I tear it up! That's the routine, really. Then, occasionally, something sticks. And then I follow that. The only image I can think of is a man walking around with an iron rod in his hand during a lightning storm." -- Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
I'm looking forward to reading this one. It was gift from my sweet mother-in-law. 

What are you reading?

Hope your Christmas was wonderful and that the new year ahead will be even better for you!






“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me." C. S. Lewis

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