40 Art quotes I have submitted to Robert Genn's Painters Key

Andrew Hamilton - From the Acrylics category:

Acrylic is the only painting medium that can be all mediums - it can act like watercolour, it can act like oils, and it has its own innate properties.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Activity category:

Painting is an act, not a conversation.



Andrew Hamilton - From the Artists category:

An artist's job is to show people what was always there but they never noticed.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Colour category:

Take the time to make the correct colour for your painting once - so you paint 7 paintings one time rather than 1 painting 7 times! Andrew Hamilton - From the Communication category:

The heart is the shortest distance between two people.


Andrew Hamilton - From the Critics category:

Those who can't, critique.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Critics category:

One reviewer wrote of Monet's work: "The most absurd daubs in that laughable collection of absurdities" and another stated that "Monet seems to have declared war on beauty." So much for critics.



Andrew Hamilton - From the Discipline category:

Art is the only discipline where saying less means more.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Dissatisfaction category:

Monet was known to visit the Louvre in his old painting smock and, when the guards would look the other way, he would fix his paintings with paint brushes he had hidden. Even the master is never quite satisfied.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Drawing category:

Draw as if the object being drawn has never existed - because it hasn't.
Andrew Hamilton - From the Effort category:

Perspiration can make up the difference between talent and having none.
Andrew Hamilton - From the Exploration category:

An artist's job is to explore and paint the elemental forces of nature.


Andrew Hamilton - From the Expression category:

At the end of your brush is the the tip of your soul.


It's not the light that makes form, it is the shadows. As an artist, one is always trying to be free, especially from oneself.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Gradation category:

Shading is blending the shadow into nothingness.
Andrew Hamilton - From the Interpretation category:

Cameras record, artists interpret.



Andrew Hamilton - From the Knowledge category:

To know that you don't know - that is the most important trait in an artist.


Andrew Hamilton - From the Masters category:

Van Gogh failed as a minister, failed as an art dealer, failed as an art student, failed in love, and failed to sell paintings, but he has never failed to inspire us!



Andrew Hamilton - From the Materials category:

It's not the tool you use, but the Tool using the tool.



Andrew Hamilton - From the Mistakes category:

There is no such thing as a mistake in Acrylic painting. You can wash it out up to 45 seconds after drying or wait and paint over it.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Nature category:

Feeling the wind on your face, and hearing the song of the birds, and watching the sun move across the land is to know there is no greater job than to be free to paint. Andrew Hamilton - From the Obsession category:

Being an artist is not a choice; it is an obsession.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Oils category:

Oil painting is like having a mistress: seductive, endlessly fascinating, but eternally elusive.



Andrew Hamilton - From the Painting category:

Only two things are essential elements to painting: see and do!

Andrew Hamilton - From the Perseverance category:

Being an artist is like being the condemned Sisyphus who ceaselessly rolled a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. The artist must start with a blank canvas, work and finish only to start endlessly anew. (Andrew Hamilton)


Andrew Hamilton - From the Photography category:

Sketching is my camera!


Andrew Hamilton - From the Practice category:

Maxim for the Group of Seven: Never a day without a line. (Andrew Hamilton)



Andrew Hamilton - From the Profession category:

If you see 100 paintings while on the drive to work, then you are doing the wrong work.


Andrew Hamilton - From the Purpose category:

An artist's job is to say the most with the least.


Andrew Hamilton - From the Seeing category:

See like a laser, focus like a laser, but paint like a myopic librarian. Remember, Monet painted his best creative work while he was almost blind.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Senses category:

Art communicates through the senses - a chef through taste and smell, a musician through sound, and a visual artist through sight. But they all have one thing in common - they all lead directly to the heart.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Simplicity category:

Simplify until one brushstroke represents a million pine needles.


Andrew Hamilton - From the Subject category:

It's not what you paint that makes you an artist, but that you paint!

Andrew Hamilton - From the Success category:

Inspiration plus discipline equals success.


Andrew Hamilton - From the Suffering category:

Painting is nothing more than bleeding on the canvas.

Andrew Hamilton - From the Thinking category:

Paint what you see - not what you think you see!
Andrew Hamilton - From the Vision category:

In painting, vision has nothing to do with sight.

They say that the eye is the window to the soul. But it is the soul that is the window. (Andrew Hamilton)



Andrew Hamilton - From the Wonder category:

Look at everything in the world as if you are seeing it for the first time, and paint everything as if you were seeing it for the last time.