« Give me a scrap of a man's drawing. A line never lies. In 5 seconds I will tell you if he has any talent or should become a brewer"
Rembrandt via Sherrie McGraw
"Technical perfection rarely makes great art. Learn to develop the differences and imperfections in your drawing. Creative interpretation is more valuable than sedulous aping." ...
Mark Hampson, 2015
"He who pretends to be either Painter or Engraver without being a Master of drawing is an Impostor"...
William Blake, 1787-1847
"When I was young, I was greatly moved by Rembrandt. I felt I stood more chance with persistence, digging deep, then something reasonable happening, simply by laying siege to the subject...Some people are natural draughtsmen. I sometimes feel sorry for them - you have to work through that to something deeper."...
Frank Auerbach, 2012
"[David Hockney] has long experimented with photography and new technology but told Devanay that the camera cannot convey the intense emotion of a painted portrait"...
2016
"The eyes are where I return always, like a ship to the lighthouse"
Judy Cassab
Rembrandt via Sherrie McGraw
"Technical perfection rarely makes great art. Learn to develop the differences and imperfections in your drawing. Creative interpretation is more valuable than sedulous aping." ...
Mark Hampson, 2015
"He who pretends to be either Painter or Engraver without being a Master of drawing is an Impostor"...
William Blake, 1787-1847
"When I was young, I was greatly moved by Rembrandt. I felt I stood more chance with persistence, digging deep, then something reasonable happening, simply by laying siege to the subject...Some people are natural draughtsmen. I sometimes feel sorry for them - you have to work through that to something deeper."...
Frank Auerbach, 2012
"[David Hockney] has long experimented with photography and new technology but told Devanay that the camera cannot convey the intense emotion of a painted portrait"...
2016
"The eyes are where I return always, like a ship to the lighthouse"
Judy Cassab
"There was something disagreeable about their "all the tiles on a roof' business."
Delacroix
"Seize the life, note the movement, render the atmosphere",
Alexis Jeanneau
"When I see light on skin, my heart sings..."
Sarah Marie Lacy, 2016
"You can have an amazing likeness or whatever, but it can be a terrible painting. The structure and the language has to be there that holds it up."
John Beard, 2016
"...and fire my longing to seek a way of painting that is more sincere, more honest, and less literal."
Anon
"Liberty is not a countess from the noble St Germain district. She is a strong woman with powerful breasts"
Delacroix
"You have to fall a little in love with your models. They don't have to feel the same about you!"
Paul Delprat
"I'm very aware of the face as a kind of landscape...with bits of rock sticking out..."
Colin Davidson
"I just know how hard it is to make a decent painting..Over the years, it hasn't become any easier."
Peter Doig, 2017
"Can you pull it [your painting] out of the fire?" Joshua Smith, via Yve Close
"Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio- draw and don't waste time"
Michelangelo
"[What makes a good portrait?] The first thing that it looks like. And then there has to be a good paint job. Have a nobility, having wealth as language. That it be done with talent."
Antonio Garcia Lopez, 2017
"...the noblest and most equivocal theme of painting, the nude..."
Musee d'Orsay, re Courbet "la Source"
"Painting does not mean slavishly copying an object. The artist must perceive and capture harmony from among many relationships."
Cezanne
"Delacroix used to talk about finding the form from the inside, so the form swirls from the inside, it doesn't cut into from the outside"
Christopher leBrun, 2017
"Don't be too calvinistic with your paints"
Francis Giacco, 2011
"An artist who was painting TS Eliot once told him, 'I'm going to get your soul". Eliot replied, 'Never mind my soul, just get my tie right.'"
Paula Rego, 2018
"Cold exactitude is not art.....Without boldness, and extreme boldness, there is no beauty.”
Delacroix, 1850
”A portrait shouldn’t just be a likeness...you should wonder about it, be intrigued by it”
Wendy Sharpe, 2017
”I like finding ways of making marks which mirror natural events, like the marks made by pebbles on a beach as they are sucked back by the force of a wave.”
William Tillyer, 2013
" To me character will forever be above likeness."
Nicolas Uribe, 2018
« Perfectly straight contours will completely destroy the fullness of forms.. »
Ted Seth Jacob
»Rothko’s work opened up lots of interesting associations for me. It was so different from the insipid realism of the European school. »
Syed Haider Raza
"Likeness in a way isn't the point, because whether or not a painting is a good likeness has nothing to do with its quality as a picture. For example, Rembrandt's people all look alike in that they all have spiritual grandeur. "
Lucien Freud
»Allow the land to make its own marks »
Guy Warren, 2019
»I have to become enamored with my models. Smitten. That’s what happened when i saw Helga »
Andrew Wyeth
»There are many ways of making love, you know. »
Helga, 2019
"Drawing is whatever the artist says it is, not mowing the lawn though"
George Gittoes, 2019
»Look with your own eyes, not photographic, robot eyes »
Odd Nerdrum, 2019
"The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist"
William Blake
»A portrait by Courbet is much truer, free...finer than ...whomever..who has imitated the colour of the face with horrible punctilious precision »
Van Gogh, 1885
" I knew [Modigliani] as a beggar...Of the Venus of Milo he said that the beautifully built women who are worth being sculpted and painted always look awkward in dresses"
Anna Akhmatova, 1975
"To paint a good portrait you have to understand what makes a person unique. If you don't engage with that person at a deep level, you're going to end up with a very shallow painting."
Bill Leak, 2015
“All I have ever wanted to do is paint what is in my heart”
Antonio Lopez Garcia, 2008 via Dean Fisher
"Stay with your dream and learn to play"
John Olsen
Colour like “April faded pansies on the sands at night”
Gwen John, via Museum Wales
"Painting is difficult in general, and painting that is made easy voluntarily so that everyone likes it...is not exemplary. We must aspire to a high art, always....the bad is bad, and it is poisonous, and you have to try not to resort to it as a solution, it is never the solution."
Antonio Lopez Garcia, 2021
"Let the paint talk...if it is too much about a story, it loses its intensity, its lustre"
Francis Bacon via Martin Campos
"What makes painting interesting is the struggle, colour versus light versus form"
Alice Munkford
"Colour is one of the surest ways of expressing joy...colour is unruly...colour is as much a need for man as freedom"
Winifred Nicholson
”Minimise irrelevance”
Tom Carment, via LCAS
”The harder the fight, the more you learn...it takes years and years of learning”
Jaime Valero, 2021
»Drawing and painting are in no way separate; as one paints, one draws; the more the colour harmonises, the more precise the drawing becomes. The form is at its fullest when the colour is at its richest. »
Cezanne
»Be curious »
Edwige Fouvry, 2021
»Don’t go into slap-dash mode »
Alice Munkford, 2021
"What do I ask of a painting? i ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince"
Lucien Freud
"The world is full of unresolved paintings"
Idris Murphy, 2023
"Great work only arises from truth, heart and skill"
Cressida Campbell, 2022
"There's so much more I want to paint. Glory be to God for dappled things"
John Olsen, 2023 (GM Hopkins, 1878)
"Feel the shape under the pencil"
Oleg Anatolyevich Shekhurdin via Ruzanna Teterina
"Laura Knight wrote of climbing along the cliff edge and over the slippery rocks every day carrying six-foot canvases on my head"
"To work with sincerity...It is very easy to betray oneself by following trends"
Antonio Lopez Garcia, 2023
"The subject of my art is paint"
Frank Bowling
"The spirit of this country is delicate and at the same time tough as..."
John R Walker, 2024
"The painter pursues line and colour, but his end is poetry"
Rembrandt via Macarena Ruiz
Anon
"Liberty is not a countess from the noble St Germain district. She is a strong woman with powerful breasts"
Delacroix
"You have to fall a little in love with your models. They don't have to feel the same about you!"
Paul Delprat
"I'm very aware of the face as a kind of landscape...with bits of rock sticking out..."
Colin Davidson
"I just know how hard it is to make a decent painting..Over the years, it hasn't become any easier."
Peter Doig, 2017
"Can you pull it [your painting] out of the fire?" Joshua Smith, via Yve Close
"Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio- draw and don't waste time"
Michelangelo
"[What makes a good portrait?] The first thing that it looks like. And then there has to be a good paint job. Have a nobility, having wealth as language. That it be done with talent."
Antonio Garcia Lopez, 2017
"...the noblest and most equivocal theme of painting, the nude..."
Musee d'Orsay, re Courbet "la Source"
"Painting does not mean slavishly copying an object. The artist must perceive and capture harmony from among many relationships."
Cezanne
"Delacroix used to talk about finding the form from the inside, so the form swirls from the inside, it doesn't cut into from the outside"
Christopher leBrun, 2017
"Don't be too calvinistic with your paints"
Francis Giacco, 2011
"An artist who was painting TS Eliot once told him, 'I'm going to get your soul". Eliot replied, 'Never mind my soul, just get my tie right.'"
Paula Rego, 2018
"Cold exactitude is not art.....Without boldness, and extreme boldness, there is no beauty.”
Delacroix, 1850
”A portrait shouldn’t just be a likeness...you should wonder about it, be intrigued by it”
Wendy Sharpe, 2017
”I like finding ways of making marks which mirror natural events, like the marks made by pebbles on a beach as they are sucked back by the force of a wave.”
William Tillyer, 2013
" To me character will forever be above likeness."
Nicolas Uribe, 2018
« Perfectly straight contours will completely destroy the fullness of forms.. »
Ted Seth Jacob
»Rothko’s work opened up lots of interesting associations for me. It was so different from the insipid realism of the European school. »
Syed Haider Raza
"Likeness in a way isn't the point, because whether or not a painting is a good likeness has nothing to do with its quality as a picture. For example, Rembrandt's people all look alike in that they all have spiritual grandeur. "
Lucien Freud
»Allow the land to make its own marks »
Guy Warren, 2019
»I have to become enamored with my models. Smitten. That’s what happened when i saw Helga »
Andrew Wyeth
»There are many ways of making love, you know. »
Helga, 2019
"Drawing is whatever the artist says it is, not mowing the lawn though"
George Gittoes, 2019
»Look with your own eyes, not photographic, robot eyes »
Odd Nerdrum, 2019
"The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist"
William Blake
»A portrait by Courbet is much truer, free...finer than ...whomever..who has imitated the colour of the face with horrible punctilious precision »
Van Gogh, 1885
" I knew [Modigliani] as a beggar...Of the Venus of Milo he said that the beautifully built women who are worth being sculpted and painted always look awkward in dresses"
Anna Akhmatova, 1975
"To paint a good portrait you have to understand what makes a person unique. If you don't engage with that person at a deep level, you're going to end up with a very shallow painting."
Bill Leak, 2015
“All I have ever wanted to do is paint what is in my heart”
Antonio Lopez Garcia, 2008 via Dean Fisher
"Stay with your dream and learn to play"
John Olsen
Colour like “April faded pansies on the sands at night”
Gwen John, via Museum Wales
"Painting is difficult in general, and painting that is made easy voluntarily so that everyone likes it...is not exemplary. We must aspire to a high art, always....the bad is bad, and it is poisonous, and you have to try not to resort to it as a solution, it is never the solution."
Antonio Lopez Garcia, 2021
"Let the paint talk...if it is too much about a story, it loses its intensity, its lustre"
Francis Bacon via Martin Campos
"What makes painting interesting is the struggle, colour versus light versus form"
Alice Munkford
"Colour is one of the surest ways of expressing joy...colour is unruly...colour is as much a need for man as freedom"
Winifred Nicholson
”Minimise irrelevance”
Tom Carment, via LCAS
”The harder the fight, the more you learn...it takes years and years of learning”
Jaime Valero, 2021
»Drawing and painting are in no way separate; as one paints, one draws; the more the colour harmonises, the more precise the drawing becomes. The form is at its fullest when the colour is at its richest. »
Cezanne
»Be curious »
Edwige Fouvry, 2021
»Don’t go into slap-dash mode »
Alice Munkford, 2021
"What do I ask of a painting? i ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince"
Lucien Freud
"The world is full of unresolved paintings"
Idris Murphy, 2023
"Great work only arises from truth, heart and skill"
Cressida Campbell, 2022
"There's so much more I want to paint. Glory be to God for dappled things"
John Olsen, 2023 (GM Hopkins, 1878)
"Feel the shape under the pencil"
Oleg Anatolyevich Shekhurdin via Ruzanna Teterina
"Laura Knight wrote of climbing along the cliff edge and over the slippery rocks every day carrying six-foot canvases on my head"
"To work with sincerity...It is very easy to betray oneself by following trends"
Antonio Lopez Garcia, 2023
"The subject of my art is paint"
Frank Bowling
"The spirit of this country is delicate and at the same time tough as..."
John R Walker, 2024
"The painter pursues line and colour, but his end is poetry"
Rembrandt via Macarena Ruiz