Art Quotes

"I draw with students in class...it's like 'jamming'...working on the craft in class, in the presence of students, for their benefit, but also for mine." -Marshall Vandruff, Instructor, Fullerton College

"Master craft first...perspective has everything in the world to do with the human form, because the human form exists in space. Master these old disciplines (drawing, perspective, form, rendering) that are independent of the computer." -
Marshall Vandruff, Instructor, Fullerton College

"My philosophy is that art is passion-motivated. Without passion, it's just too hard. Passion leads to the desire to spend the hours that are necessary. Passion leads to the work ethic. Passion means you are willing to go under 'studio arrest' for long periods of time." -
James C. Christensen

"You CAN draw. Why not try?" -
Preston Blair, "Animation"

"The course of art history would be changed if one thousand students could be taught Old Master drawing and painting techniques." -
Andy Warhol

"To be good, you have to draw eight days a week." -
Pablo Picasso

"First we draw what we see; then we draw what we know; finally we see what we know." -
Robert Beverly Hale

"In a school of fine arts, it is one's duty to teach only uncontested truths, or at least those that rest upon the finest examples accepted for centuries." -
H. Flandrin

"If people knew how hard I worked, they wouldn't like what I do." -
Michelangelo

"You learn to draw by drawing." -
Famous Artists Course, Lesson 5, Westport, CT, 1954

"Drawing is the necessary beginning of everything [in Art], and not having it, one has nothing." -
Giorgio Vasari

"For the beginner, it is the training of the eye that counts." -
Paul J. Sachs

"It seems that in today's largely subjective world of art, many 'artists' lack the academic skills required to open their work up to limitless possibilities. Oftentimes, frustrated young artists attempt to express themselves early on before they have mastered the craft in which they have chosen to work. In so doing, they create boundaries that, ironically, permanently hinder their freedom of expression."
"My goal is to eliminate these boundaries by building a strong academic foundation through classical training and practice using time-tested methods and techniques, which a student can then apply toward his/her own personal expression." -
Jeff Hein

"Talent is just another name for the love of a thing." -
Daniel Parkhurst

"On whom then can [the artist] rely, or who shall show him the path that leads to excellence? The answer is obvious: those great masters, who have traveled the same road with success, are the most likely to conduct others." -
Sir Joshua Reynolds


“The object of your training in drawing should be to develop to the uttermost the observation of form and all that it signifies, and your powers of accurately portraying this on paper.
Let painstaking accuracy be your aim for a long time. When your eye and hand have acquired the power of seeing and expressing on paper with some degree of accuracy what you see, you will find facility and quickness of execution will come of their own accord.
Unflinching honesty must be observed in all your studies. It is only then that the ‘you’ in you will eventually find expression in your work.”

- Harold Speed, “The Practice & Science of Drawing,” 1917