Henri Rousseau Quotes

A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.

The essence of drawing is the line exploring space.

There is a difference if we see something with a pencil in our hand or without one.

What is drawing? Not once in describing the shape of the mass did I shift my eyes from the model. Why? Because I wanted to be sure that nothing evaded my grasp of it... My objective is to test to what extent my hands already feel what my eyes see.

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

For the artist, drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase; it is quite literally true.

My hand is the extension of the thinking process - the creative process.

When I draw something, the brain and the hands work together.

Sometimes I like to draw.

The drawing is already partly there - it's in the paper. And the paper is talking before you do.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

I love to draw people's faces. I do that all the time.

I'm a believer that you shouldn't really talk about the drawing until you're done with the drawing.

If I was painting a picture, I wouldn't want to take a picture of a single paint stroke. I'd rather show people what it looks like when it's done.

While drawing, I discover what I really want to say.

I love to draw and paint. I did all the illustrations in my books, so I always have my watercolours with me. I was creative as a child and studied art at Central Saint Martins before getting into food.

Lumped in as a hobby, I don't really like drawing pictures all that much, but thinking of it as work, it's the greatest.

My wife will go, 'You know, you're drawing a shoe right now.' I do that all the time.

Life and art are inseparable.

Art brings to life things that can seemingly be dead, and can put a fresh perspective on things that are living. It's so important we keep creating.

I made all sorts of things: drawings, sculptures - I was doing origami before I even knew the word. I was constantly creating.

An artist observes, selects, guesses, and synthesizes.

Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to the horse, the rudder to a ship.

I know I draw without taking my pen off the page. I just keep going, and that my drawings I think of them as scribbles. I don't think they mean anything to anybody except to me, and then at the end of the day, the end of the project, they wheel out these little drawings and they're damn close to what the finished building is and it's the drawing.

Now I really make the little idea from clay, and I hold it in my hand. I can turn it, look at it from underneath, see it from one view, hold it against the sky, imagine it any size I like, and really be in control almost like God creating something.