Kenneth Clark Quotes

Most people draw from the mind, not the eye. They draw the idea of a table or a face, not what's in front of them. We don't actually see the line of the jaw as a line and we don't see an eye as a perfectly outlined almond shape.

Every time I copy something, I can draw it for the rest of my life. But research is so painful - I mean just opening up a magazine looking for a picture of a car or looking out the window looking for a car is just hard!

They [say] everybody's creative. Well, everybody is. But any real creativity has to rest on a basis of an acquired technique and an acquired knowledge; you can't be creative in a void, or you just get a mess.

My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like an apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable.

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 have sketched since a young age, so there's always been an artistic side, a visual side to my personality.

When I was three or four, I was really good at drawing and painting, and everyone used to say, "You're going to go to art college." I didn't really know what that meant.

An amateur may not be an artist, though an artist should be an amateur.

Observe Everything. Communicate Well. Draw, Draw, Draw.

You're only kidding yourself if you put creativity before craft.

Drawing is the root of everything.

Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful.

I sketch the faces upside down because it's like drawing from the left side of the brain or the right side of the brain. I never took an art lesson in my life.

Since childhood, I have been painting, for no special reason, numerous dots and nets, drawing from the hallucinations that seem to appear endlessly. I can't explain why if you ask me.

Almost any fool can paint an academy picture, and any imbecile can shoot off a Kodak.

If you wanna be an artist carry sketch pad with you, and sketch everything you see. Get so you can draw anything and it looks like what it's supposed to be. It's a lot of work, but if you really have it in you, it's not like work. It becomes fun.

Man is driven to create; I know I really love to create things. And while I'm not good at painting, drawing, or music, I can write software.

I just walk around, observing the subject from various angles until the picture elements arrange themselves into a composition that pleases my eye.

The trouble is, we've been taught what to see and how to render what we see. If only we could be in the position of those men who did those wonderful drawings in Lascaux and Altimira!

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.

A man cannot paint portraits till he has seen faces.

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

I'm good at line-drawing, and some of my color stuff is okay. So I just do it for record covers.

Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.

In abandoning the vagueness of the sketch the artist shows more of his personality by revealing the range but also the limitations of his talent.