G r e a t   A r t   T e a c h i n g s
Home     About the Gallery     The Artists     Great Art Teachings     Gatherings     Red Step Links     Contact Us
Text Box: TM
 


...in celebration of art and the art process

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The best you can do is make art you care about--and lots of it!"

--Bayles and Orland

 

    "Be always looking for the thing you like and not afraid of overstating it."

--Robert Henri

 

   

 

 

"The object is not to make art, but to be in the wonderful state which makes art inevitable."

--Robert Henri

 
"There's no such thing as good art or bad art.  There's only art--and damn little of it!"

--James Thurber

 

"Judging a Manet from the point of view of Bouguereau the Manet has not been finished.  Judging a Bouguereau from the point of view of Manet the Bouguereau has not been begun."

--Robert Henri

 

    "While you may feel you're just pretending that you're an artist, there's no way to pretend you're making art."

--Bayles and Orland

 

    "Men of the world think that pictures are made simply by moving the brush; they do not understand that painting is no easy matter."

--from Osvald Siren

 

    "How long does it take to do a single painting?  Ten minutes, perhaps, and eighty years."

--Zen master Hakuin

    "As blocked creatives, we focus not on our responsibilities to ourselves, but on our responsibilities to others.  We tend to think such behavior makes us good people.  It doesn't.  It makes us frustrated people."

--Julia Cameron

 

    "You will discover the joy of practicing your creativity.  The process, not the product, will become your focus."

--Julia Cameron

 

    "If you look into the past of a successful painter, you will find square miles of canvas."

--Charles Hawthorne

    "It will not do to have your fine thought yesterday, and paint your picture today."

--Robert Henri

 

    "The difference between a student and a professional is that a professional knows how to give themselves their own assignments."

--From an art instructor of Don Haggerty's long ago

 

    "I want you to see things from the realization that your drawing does not need to be a house.  The view that you must take is that this is a piece of God's outdoors, that this is shadow and this is light.  You ought to tremble before it, and not sit down like a magician and try to make windows."

--Charles Hawthorne

 

    "What we need is more sense of the wonder of life and less of this business of making a picture."

--Robert Henri

 

    "At some level, all art is autobiographical."

--Bayles and Orland

 

    "Creativity lives in paradox: serious art is born from serious play."

--Julia Cameron

 

    "Don't look up at nature and consider an inch at a time.  See what one big spot is in relation to the other big spots."

--Charles Hawthorne

 

    "Your style is the way you talk in paint."

--Robert Henri

 

    "If one discusses painting with a view to its faculty to render distance, one must admit that it does not equal real landscape, but if one considers the wonders of brushwork, it becomes evident that real landscapes do not equal painting."

--from Osvald Siren

 

    "The hardest thing about art making is living your life in such a way that your work gets done, over and over."

--Bayles and Orland

 

    "Until the painting is done, it's all underpainting."

--Don Haggerty

 

    "Remember it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do the work."

--Julia Cameron

 

    "Simply put, artists learn to proceed, or they don't."

--Bayles and Orland

 

    "The lawyer and the doctor practice their callings.  The plumber and the carpenter know what they will be called upon to do.  They do not have to spin the work out of themselves, discover its laws, and then present themselves turned inside out to the public gaze"

--Bayles and Orland

 

    "A great painter will know a great deal about how he did it, but still he will say, 'How did I do it?'."

--Robert Henri

 

    "We need lots more clothes!"

--Kathy Deraitus, model

 

  Home "When it happens once, witness inspiration.  When it happens twice, call it experimentation.  But three times or more...I'm afraid it's become a formula."

--Don Haggerty

     Copyright © 2014 Red Step Gallery


 

 

Bibliography of Great Art Teachings...

The Art Spirit, by Robert Henri, Westview Press, 1951

Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, Capra Press, 1993

The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, Putnam Books, 1992

Hawthorne on Painting, Collected by Mrs. Charles W. Hawthorne, Dover Publications, 1960

The Chinese on the Art of Painting, by Osvald Siren, Schocken Books, Inc., 1963

 

     Home     About the Gallery     The Artists     Great Art Teachings     Gatherings     Red Step Links     Contact Us