Richard MacDonald Quotes

At that point it certainly would be called abstract. That is to say, you had a model and there'd be one or two or three people there drawing the model but otherwise you had abstractions all around the room, even though the model was in front of you.

I was a fine arts major in college, and a painter for many years. And I found that, like writing, art is very similar.

I love creating images, of course, because I'm an artist.

I often avoid using the terms 'figuration' and 'abstraction' because I've always tried to have it both ways. I want the experience of looking at one of my paintings to be similar to the process of making the painting - you go from the big picture to something very intense and detailed, and then back again.

My mum is an artist and very into creative expression and freedom.

In the visual arts, particularly painting, I distrust all those abstractions, those artificial constructions. I have a very simple way of judging them: if I can do them, they are not art.

When I was younger I thought I was an artist, and inspiration would just come to me.

From an early age, I had always loved drawing. Laying on the floor, in front of the fire, drawing from my imagination, marching soldiers, dive bombers, spaceships and monsters. Now, suddenly, I was drawing from real life!

No one purposefully paints a bad painting. It's someone who's trying to do a good painting, but it's terrible. I have one with a matador, and the bull is going through the blanket. You can tell the painter didn't know how to paint it.

I had no intentions of going into sculpture but found that sculpture was just an extension of drawing.

Our family is very art driven. We all love to create.

Why do you think my name is Artist? I'm an artist.

... a canvas that I have covered is worth more than a blank canvas. My pretensions go no further; that is my right to paint, my reason for painting.

I always knew would be some sort of artist, but didn't know what.

I'm not knocking conceptual art; it's another department, but it doesn't move me like painting.

I start a picture and I finish it.

I've just begun to dare to think I perhaps am a bit of an artist.

I also had a tremendous passion for art and read a lot.

I think of a piece, and then people who are competent fabricate it. But lately I've started finger painting, which probably should be a joke but isn't!

What do young, budding artists do, but go to law school? I had creative periods now and again, but it wasn't until I was practicing law that I really needed a creative outlet. I'd come home from long days at the office and draw, paint, and sculpt from clay, wire - even candy.

I want to be an artist, not... a celluloid aphrodisiac.

Art-making was part of my daily life from a very young age, and I still love that kind of everyday art-making.

I've been working in sculpture and painting since 1920.

The only thing in life that really gives me any peace is just being lost in the process of creating something, whether it's the film or painting and drawing, which has been a big part of my life, for a long time.

I tell my workshop students, 'I want you to think of yourselves as artists. Then, when you're writing, you're painting, you're crafting, you're making a design, you're sculpting, you're creating choreography, sound, a sound script.'