writings

on drawing

"Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality."

Edgar Degas (1834 - 1917)

"Drawing is putting a line (a)round an idea."

"!Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence."
Henry Matisse (1869 - 1954)

"Drawing takes time. A line has time in it"
David Hockney (1937 – date)

"I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen"
Frederick Franck (1909 - 2006)

"If I draw it for myself, I understand it. If I try to imagine it, it is too whimsical. Sketching is a tool – an extension of one’s brain."

Eva Jiricna (born 1939)

"Until we can insert a USB into our ear and download our thoughts, drawing remains the best way of getting visual information on to the page."

Grayson Perry (born 1960)

"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."

Auguste Rodin (1840 - 1917)

"It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character."

Camille Pissarro (1831 - 1903)

"Drawing is the probity of art. To draw does not mean simply to reproduce contours; drawing does not consist merely of line: drawing is also expression, the inner form, the plane, the modeling. See what remains after that."