A collection of useful art notes taken from books, or copy-pasted from various sources
Still unsorted as of time of posting, will probably do a proper bibliography when I get bothered about it.
Last copy-pasted: 6 Feb 2017
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Drawing. Robert Fawcett
p.50
All drawing is an act of memory.. The more vividly the subject lives in the mind, the more acutely its unique plastic and linear organization is remembered, the more particularized should be the resultant drawing.
p.26
Admittedly the spontaneously economical drawing - the quick study of the child who won't keep still - often has great charm, but the latter is a quality to beware of. After a while you may find yourself striving for it - and in doing so it becomes an obnoxious mannerism. I have never considered charm a very valuable social quality, but I do notice its true presence most often in those totally unconscious of possessing it. The same goes for drawing.
p.84
You may now see why the text of this volume has so strongly emphasized seeing things clearly, recording them honestly. If it had included the tricks and shortcuts, the ways to achieve effects without understanding, it might have gained a quick momentary popularity. But these tricks are child's play to the draftsman. To anyone for whom drawing is a passion, whose eyes are constantly searching and evaluating even when he has no pencil in hand - to that man tricks and techniques have no appeal. He sees them for the superficialities they are, and in doing so rejects them.
Robert Beverly Hale
When one form comes out in front of another, beginners usually darken or blacken the rear form to make the form in front stand out. Beginners do this not only because they see the cast shadow on the rear form, but also because they erroneously believe that the black rear form will push the front form forward. The professional realizes, on the other hand, that the way to bring the front form forward is to intensify the contrast between the planes of the front form. The cast shadow is used at times on the rear forms, but it tends to kill the planes and destroys the illusions of true shape when it is misused.
Robert Beverly Hale, Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1989), 65.
The subject of planes and values is really something difficult for the new student, and even very hard for teachers to explain. The reason is that every individual artist, once he is experienced, should make up his own planes and values. Beginners look at a book and say, "This head or torso is cut up in such a way. It has these exact values, and that must be the final truth." But it never is. Like Michelangelo, you shouldn't just copy exactly what you see or follow or fixed formula for each pose and form on the body. You must learn to invent and supply the planes and values that give the illusions you wish to create in your composition.
Hale, Master Class in Figure Drawing, (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1991), 83.
Harold Speed, painting
P.88
Or take the eyes; if the little dark accent that gives the shape of the eye, had been put in early, ..how difficult it would have been to model the globular form of the mass of the eyes with this little dark accent to be dodged and worked round all the time.
P. 89
The little forms fit into the big forms. The big forms are not to be engineered round the little forms.
The details of modelling must all be subordinated to the large general impression, and carefully considered values will alone give this unity of effect.
P.93
Do far less with your brush, and much more with your head at first.
P.137
And when looking for the colour of a shadow, don't look at it, throw your eye over the whole colour scheme and notice what colour hangs round the particular shadow you are painting. If you peer into a shadow and focus on that particular part only, you will likely enough see very little colour. But if if regarded as part of the vivid colour impression of the whole subject, the shadows will be seen to be affected by the glowing lights (which halate colour over them) and found to be full of colour that is unsuspected when they are individually peered into. Colour seems to disappear as you earnestly focus on each individual part in search of it. (continued on 138) .. Colour must be felt before it can be seen.
Solomon J Solomon
P. 88 Monochrome Study
..it is well to lay in the background first, and then the general tone aspect of the subject, for the one reacts upon the other.
The actual painting stage really only begins when you paint into paint.
Only in this way can your shadows and half-tones met one into the other. ..can you model round your planes, fusing one into the other - that is, when all is wet together, so that the brushing can assert itself and help the sense of undulation.
Let breadth and simplicity be your watchwords.
Michelangelo
'Let this be plain to all: design, or as it is called by another name, drawing, constitutes the fountain-head and substance of painting and sculpture and architecture and every other kind of painting, and is the root of all sciences. Let him who has attained the possession of this be assured that he possesses a great treasure; ...
There is no difficulty in painting detail, the real difficulty lies in getting the general truth of tone and tint. (John Collier)
In painting, as in everything else, there is a fatal tendency to become accustomed to one's faults. (John Collier)
Imagination is not antagonistic to knowledge. On the contrary, the highest imagination is that which can assimilate all kinds of knowledge and make use of it as a vantage ground from which to soar to higher things. (John Collier)
HARVEY DUNN - Technique quotes and other advice
Do not have an important dark and important light in the same picture they will destroy each other. (Harvey Dunn)
When values are contrasting, use subtle color. When values are subtle, use contrasting color. (Harvey Dunn)
To paint a mass simple and big you must keep out all the lights and darks that do not belong to its general value. (Harvey Dunn) ******
Form is expressed in the light tones by dark accents, in the dark tones by light accents. (Harvey Dunn)
The character, position and weight of an object are in the edge. (Harvey Dunn) ****
I believe in discouraging all I can, because if I can discourage them, it will save them from floundering around about ten years of their lives before finding out they are in the wrong profession. The real ones can't be discouraged. (Harvey Dunn)
If your life is full, you will paint full pictures. If it is empty, your pictures will be empty too. (Harvey Dunn)
The most fruitful and worthwhile thing I have ever done has been to teach. (Harvey Dunn)
A man of but mediocre talent who is furiously driven by deep desire will get somewhere. He who doesn't desire deeply isn't hurt much by failure.
Any picture that needs a caption is a weak picture. (Harvey Dunn)
HARVEY DUNN on Composition
When you feel like putting something into your picture or do not know what is the matter with it, take something out. (Harvey Dunn)
Merely having all the objects in your picture that belong there and having them well drawn is not sufficient. A man who is dead is entirely complete in the physical sense, and yet he is not there at all. The same can be true with a picture. (1884-1952)
Merely knowing your craft will never be enough to make a picture. If you ever amount to anything at all, it will be because you were true to that deep desire or ideal which made you seek artistic expression in pictures. (Harvey Dunn)
Nikolai Fechin
"It is always a temptation for a beginner to take the path of least resistance. He usually takes as his model the reproductions of some fashionable painter and copies them, believing by so doing he acquires knowledge. Such a beginning is unsound, because it starts with the end-product of the original work - the finished results of an artist's long and patient toil. Superficially absorbing this final expression of work, the student overlooks the process of attaining these results and does not comprehend at all the work of creating."
On independence from subject “The more consummate his technique, the easier the artist will find it to free himself from all dependence upon a subject. What he uses to fill his canvas with is not so vital. What is vital is how he does it. It is sad if an artist becomes a slave to the object he seeks to portray. The portrayed object must serve as nothing more than an excuse to fill a canvas. Only when the subject passes through the filter of his creative faculty does his work acquire value for an artist...”
“Artists and critics compete with each other in their endeavors to destroy the traditional approach to the fundamental principles required for the careful technical execution of any work. In their mad pursuit of novelty, they do not have enough time for a conscientious development of their ideas and, as a result, they have had to make legitimate that which I would call “illiteracy” in the arts. Such an attitude in the art of our day is harmful not so much in itself, but in that it is used by intellectuals, by means of the written word, to influence the unprepared mind of the student. Youth is infected with a careless and irresponsible attitude toward the execution of work, with a sense of easy attainment, seeking to attract attention by shallow-minded novelties instead of real innovations and discrimination.”
“Concept or rendition: which is more important? That is a basic question in art. In the first case it is frequently said: “Not badly conceived but poorly executed!” Such evaluation is no credit to an artist. On the contrary, fine workmanship makes one forgive even triviality. In such cases it is said: “Stupid, but devilishly well executed!” This is a common rule. A high degree of expertise in technique has always had, and always will have, a predominate place in art. The subject, in itself, has value only according to the mode of the day. Tomorrow it will be superseded by a new fashion or fad. With the passing of time, the subject loses much of its meaning. But the fine execution of that subject retains its value.”
On structure and form "...the construction of form remains fundamental – of any form, be it natural or imaginary. The principle of construction remains the same, whatever the form. So the artist should begin by studying the construction of form.”
“As soon as an original idea is formed – what the artist wants to portray and by what concrete means – he must begin to structure, to organize. A method for learning the creation of "form" lies in the creation process itself. In my opinion, creation of form cannot be based on distribution of light and shadow alone, as light is constantly changing and it is only an impression of form, but not form itself.”
On line “As we begin to draw we become aware of "line." A line is nothing more than a boundary between space and form. It is meaningless by itself, until it brings about the construction of form, which he envisions and seeks to project. Once a form is established, the lines which helped in its gradual building cease to exist or have meaning as "line"; they simply participate in the reality of the form."
On making the canvas an organic whole “The artist must never forget that he is dealing with the entire canvas, and not with any one section of it. Regardless of what he sets out to paint, the problem remains one and the same. With his own creative originality, he must fill in his canvas and make of it an organic whole. There must not be any particularly favored spot in the painting...”
On making each painting special “If conventional shades and colors are used, the ability to see them in reality is lost. It is essential that the artist should regard every new painting as an entirely special world of color, light, form and line.”
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From Hawthorne on Painting, (New York: Dover Publications, 1960)
A mannerism in a man who is a master is charming, but in a student, it is hellish! (p.44)
Here you had not settled in your mind what interested you most- you did the scene instead of working at a problem.
There isn't room in your consciousness for more than one sentiment about a thing. Tell that one. (p.59)
Don't try to make pretty pictures- paint for fun and practice, not for exhibition. We are going to take home ability and knowledge, not finished canvases. (p.62)
Painting is just like making an after-dinner speech. If you want to be remembered, say one thing and stop. (p.77)
Chase used to say: "When you're looking at your canvas and worrying about it, try to think of your canvas as the reality and the model as the painted thing." (p.72)
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