People who think in the peculiar way that comes while painting (or drawing) might recognize themselves in some of the quotes that I have chosen to place alongside my watercolours. Those taken from the Handke poem suggest a spine-tingling appreciation of duration that I am not fully able to describe… fortunately he is! Anyway, it is something you feel as you paint. Maybe the definitive quote from David Hockney says it all: “I thought, if I want to, I could paint a portrait; this is what I mean by freedom …”.
Peter Handke, To Duration, A Poem
"By remaining faithful to what is dear to me (which is the most important thing), and therefore preventing it from being erased over the years, I might then perhaps quite unexpectedly feel the thrill of duration"
Peter Handke, To Duration, A Poem
"Staying true to what is me". And to what should I remain true? This becomes apparent in the love for the living - for one of them - and in the understanding of a bond shared"
Charles Reid, Portrait Painting in Watercolour
"I have always had problems depicting the members of my family, because I always want to create a real likeness. But I think that the more a painter aims for likeness, the more difficult it becomes”
Hokusai (1760-1849)
"From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature"
David Hockney
"I thought, if I want to, I could paint a portrait; this is what I mean by freedom …"
Betty Edwards, Drawing on the right side of the brain
"Instruct your brain to work on the problem while you sleep or take a walk or do a drawing. As you look at people in your world, imagine that you are drawing them, and then you will see differently"
Charles Reid, Portrait Painting in Watercolour
"In this demonstration we will assume that the light is coming from the left, so the shadow will be on the right side of the face. Get used to working broadly and freely with your brushstrokes and don’t try to fill in the outline carefully. Don’t be stingy, give yourself enough paint to do many practice heads"
Betty Edwards, Drawing on the right side of the brain
"At this point however, it was very difficult to find words, truth be told I didn’t really want to. I came to an interesting conclusion: I could either speak or draw, but I couldn’t do the two things together."
