Henri Matisse Quotes

I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your creativity - you can feed it with content, with some rational prodding and sleep and things like that, but the mechanisms by which your creativity work are largely unknown.

Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art.

Like all artists, I go through creative spurts.

I really believe that cultivating creativity, as a general principle, is about managing your energy.

The technical process which is interesting in it's own right but I think the creative process is what's more intriguing to me.

The imagination is how things get done. You have to cultivate creativity.

Creativity is a process more often than it is an event.

You make something. You give up expressing and start inventing.

Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with nothing but talent, experience, and inspiration. The fresh piece of paper on the drawing board is as blank as the newly stretched piece of canvas.

I'm dependent on writing for a living, so really it's to my advantage to understand how the creative process works. One of the problems is, when you start to do that, in effect you're going to have to step off the edge of science and rationality.

Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.

For me, drawing is a way of navigating the imagination, and it remains the fundamental vehicle of my practice. Drawing allows me to be at my most inventive.

Part of your job as an artist is to push yourself and make sure your creative juices are flowing.

What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.

Imagination has rules, but we can only guess what they are.

Composing is sort of an intuitive act. You have to put yourself in the right frame of mind.

Possessing a healthy imagination is a necessary ingredient for creativity.

I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.

For most people, creativity is a serious business. They forget the telling phrase 'the play of ideas' and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to play.

Sometimes, if I allow time to be creative, it doesn't show up.

You can't rush inspiration.

I think when you're being creative, you still attach it to reality somehow.

I like to stay in the space of creativity, and I want to go towards that all the time.

I always imagine, and try to be on the lookout, for new things, for references that can inspire me creatively so I can showcase things that people haven't done before or that are new.

I would say any creative person has that: you can't just force a topic. Whether you're a painter, you want to do a cartoon. Anything. Something may come up that's not your style or suited to what you are working on at the moment. So you file it away and hopefully find a place for it.