Draw with the brush. Carve the form. Don’t be carried away by subtleties of modeling and nice pigmentation at the expense of losing the form.

Every good picture leaves the painter eager to start again, unsatisfied, inspired by the rich mine in which he is working, hoping for more energy, more vitality, more time – condemned to painting for life.

Since we have to speak well of the dead, let’s knock them while they’re alive.

You can be a giant among artists without ever attaining any great skill. Facility is a dangerous thing. When there is too much technical ease the brain stops criticizing. Don’t let the hand fall into a smart way of putting the mind to sleep.

Don’t be afraid to borrow. The great men, the most original, borrowed from everybody.

Drawing is the cornerstone of the graphic, plastic arts. Drawing is the coordination of line, tone, and color symbols into formations that express the artist’s thought.

Painting is drawing, with the additional means of color. Painting without drawing is just ‘coloriness,’ color excitement. To think of color for color’s sake is like thinking of sound for sound’s sake. Color is like music. The palette is an instrument that can be orchestrated to build form.

The emphasis on original, individual work in the past years has done a great deal to produce a crop of eccentric fakes and has carried art away from the stream of tradition. Tradition is our heritage of knowledge and experience. We can’t get along without it.

A piece of drapery is like a necktie, hot stuff to paint, and one of the easiest things for a painter to kid himself into thinking he can do. Don’t be fooled by the color. Go after the shape and character. Hew the forms together with colored tones.

Don’t think of sea as color. Make it a solid that can support a boat. Think of ‘wetness’ as color-texture.