140 Inspirational Drawing Quotes To Speak To The Artist In You

By Stephanie Kirby

Writer, Entrepreneur and Inspirational quote curator

Published October 30, 2023

Whether you need a little creativity or feel it bubbling up inside, you’ll love these drawing quotes.

Let us know your favorite drawing quote in the comment section below!

What Are The Benefits Of Reading These Drawing Quotes?

Too many people in society think that loving and pursuing art means that you need to be a starving artist.

But that’s not true.

Art is a hobby well worth your time pursuing, and drawing is a skill that people have admired all throughout history.

Drawing is a way:

You can save your memories for years to come
To show the world what you see in your head
For you to express yourself clearly without words
To relieve stress

If you’re a fan of the arts, you’ll be a fan of these drawing quotes.

Also, check out these creativity quotes about expressing your real self.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration.

Check out our entire collection of motivational quotes here.

Inspirational Drawing Quotes

1. “Drawing takes time. A line has time in it.” – David Hockney

2. “In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.”- Pablo Picasso

3. “If you can draw well, tracing won’t hurt; and if you can’t draw well, tracing won’t help.” – Bradley Schmehl

4. “We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us. The sooner we get them out the better.” – Walt Stanchfield

5. “To learn to draw is to draw and draw and draw.” – Andrew Loomis

6. “All the visible world is only light on form.” – Andrew Loomis

7. “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams

8. “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” – Emile Zola

9. “Drawing is the root of everything.” – Vincent Van Gogh

10. “I draw like other people bite their nails.” – Pablo Picasso

Drawing Quotes On Why People Love Doing It

11. “An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” – Charles Horton Cooley

12. “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” – Pablo Picasso

13. “Keep a bad drawing until by study you have found out why it is bad.”- Robert Henri

14. “Drawing is a frame of mind, a loving embrace if you will.” – Susan Avishai

15. “Every artist was first an amateur.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

16. “Drawing is not what one sees but what one can make others see.” – Edgar Degas

17. “This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” – Henry David Thoreau

18. “Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

19. “Drawing is an exercise for a restless imagination.” – Tim Burton

Drawing Quotes to inspire your imagination

20. “I love the quality of pencil. It helps me to get to the core of a thing.” – Andrew Wyeth

Drawing Quotes About Learning To Draw

21. “I’m not just drawing clothes, I’m drawing dreams.” – Marta Madison

22. “Drawing is a science, painting is just something for the long winter evenings.” – Quentin Crisp

23. “Drawing isn’t an artistic process; drawing is a thinking process.” – Dan Roam

24. “I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing.” – Vincent Van Gogh

25. “Never become an artist if you can’t learn to draw.” – Sergei Bongart

26. “All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?” – Banksy

27. “In drawing, one must look for or suspect that there is more than is casually seen.” – George Bridgman

28. “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” – Pablo Picasso

29. “The important thing is to keep on drawing when you start to paint. Never graduate from drawing.” – John Sloan

30. “An artist must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye.” – Michelangelo Buonarroti

Inspirational Drawing Quotes and sayings

Drawing Quotes From Artists

31. “It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn to draw it in a few seconds.” – Paula Scher

32. “You can’t do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.” – John Singer Sargent

33. “Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you.” – Uknown

34. “To create one’s world in any of the arts takes courage.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

35. “Drawing is the basis of art. A bad painter cannot draw. But one who draws well can always paint.” – Arshile Gorky

36. “Art begins with resistance – at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.” – Andre Gide

37. “Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see – to see correctly – and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.” – Kimon Nicolaides

38. “It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover, to your surprise, that you have rendered something in its true character.”- Camille Pissarro

39. “It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover, to your surprise, that you have rendered something in its true character.” – Camille Pissarro

40. “Drawing includes three and a half quarters of the content of painting…Drawing contains everything, except the hue.” – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

41. “I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.” – Frederick Franck

42. “Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer, and clearer still. The image is passing through you in a physiological way, into your brain, into your memory – where it stays – it’s transmitted by your hands.” – Martin Gayford

43. “Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.” – Salvador Dali

More Of The Best Drawing Quotes

44. “Drawing is the artist’s most direct and spontaneous expression. A species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.” – Edgar Degas

45. “Drawing is like the first kiss. It carries within it the deepest emotion and the challenge of the first step. It is the first cry after birth.” – Ala Bashir

46. “Sketching is almost everything. It is the painter’s identity, his style, his conviction, and then color is just a gift to the drawing.” – Fernando Botero

47. “Originality depends only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to each artist.” – Georges Seurat

48. “At its essence, art is an alchemical process. Alchemy is a process of transformation.” – Julia Cameron

49. “One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.” – Balthus

50. “Drawing used to be a civilized thing to do, like reading and writing. It was taught in elementary schools. It was democratic. It was a boon to happiness.” – Michael Kimmelman

Drawing Quotes That Soothe The Soul

51. “I wish I could draw you how I see you. I’d draw a boy with the most magnetic smile, and the kindest hands, and eyes that are gloomy but can sometimes be bright.” – Jasmine Warga

52. “I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever.” – Beatrix Potter

53. “I keep drawing the trees, the rocks, the river, I’m still learning how to see them; I’m still discovering how to render their forms. I will spend a lifetime doing that. Maybe someday I’ll get it right.” – Alan Lee

54. “It was amazing what an hour with her sketchpad could do for her mood. She was sure that the lines she drew with her black marker were going to save her years of worry lines in the future.” – Victoria Kahler

55.“After a time, my hand had become as skilled as my eyes. So if I was drawing a very fine tree, it felt as if my hand was moving without me directing it.” – Orhan Pamuk

56. “Drawing is the art of being able to leave an accurate record of the experience of what one isn’t, of what one doesn’t know. A great drawer is either confirming beautifully what is commonplace or probing authoritatively the unknown.” – Brett Whiteley

57. “Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.” – Keith Haring

58. “What do drawings mean to me? I really don’t know. The activity absorbs me. I forget everything else in a way that I don’t think happens with any other activity.” – John Berger

59. “Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.” – David Hockney

60. “Drawing is an illustration of the soul. The better you draw, the stronger your soul gets.” – PS Tavishi

Drawing Quotes On How Art Mimics Life

61. “A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.” – Paul Klee

62. “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” – John W. Gardner

63. “If I try to articulate every little detail in a drawing, it would be like missing the forest for the trees, so it’s just about getting the outline of the forest. – Jeff Koons

64. “Drawing is the only thing I’ve found in which I can lose myself completely. I love it. It started as something that relaxed me, but now it’s a struggle because I’m pushing myself. The day-to-day sketching is fraught.” – Peter Capaldi

65. “In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.” – Vincent Van Gogh

66. “I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster and leaves less room for lies.” – Le Corbusier

67. “Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton

68. “While drawing, I discover what I really want to say.” – Dario Fo

69. “My idea of Heaven is to wake up, have a good breakfast, and spend the rest of the day drawing.” – Peter Falk

70. “Drawing is not following a line on the model, it is drawing your sense of the thing.” – Robert Henri

Drawing Quotes On What Sets Great Artists From The Rest Of The Crowd

71. “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” – Albert Einstein

72. “An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.” – Charles Bukowski

73. “Sketching is almost everything. It is the painter’s identity, his style, his conviction, and then color is just a gift to the drawing.” – Fernando Botero

74. “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” – Oscar Wild

75. “To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.” – Robert Schumann

76. “A work of art is a world in itself reflecting senses and emotions of the artist’s world.” – Hans Hofmann

77. “Drawing a good picture is like telling a really good lie – the key is in the incidental detail.” – Shaun Tan

78. “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” – Leo Tolstoy

79. An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.” – Langston Hughes

80. “Lose your inhibitions about drawing and just do it.” – Chris Riddell

Drawing Quotes To Help You Bring Out Ideas

81. “A good drawing has immense vitality because it is explanatory. In a good drawing even its faults have become virtues.” ― John French Sloan

82. “Drawing … is an innocent & engaging amusement, often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who is to become a mother & an instructor.” ― Thomas Jefferson

83. “When I’m drawing a picture, I feel…quiet inside.” ― Katherine Applegate

84. “Doing fashion drawings was the only way I had to express myself when I was a teenager.” ― Jean Paul Gaultier

85. “I usually use quick sketches that I accumulated from the figure drawing classes I once instructed.” ― Frank Bruno

86. “Even when you paint, you never stop drawing.” ― Igor Babailov

87. “My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.” ― Odilon Redon

88. “I draw all the time. Drawing is my backbone. I don’t think a painter has to be able to draw, I just think that if you draw, you better draw well.” ― LeRoy Neiman

89. “A drawing has never killed anyone.” ― Charb

90. “I find drawing a useful outlet for ideas for which there is not time enough to realize as sculpture… And I sometimes draw just for its own enjoyment.” ― Henry Moore

Drawing Quotes To Help You Focus

91. “Drawing must seek for interest, not for admiration. Because admiration wears quickly.” — John Howe

92. “It is not bright colors but good drawing that makes figures beautiful.” — Titian

93. “Drawing is the most inalienable medium. It is private; it practically doesn’t have an audience in mind, just the artist’s expression.” — Betty Goodwin

94. “For me, drawing is everything, because it informs everything. It even informs my poetry. It’s the way I begin everything.” — Jim Dine

95. “Drawing is a way for me to articulate things inside myself that I can’t otherwise grasp.” — Robert Crumb

96. “I still come closest to success with drawing.” — Paul Klee

97. “I have drawn all my life, I don’t know how to live without drawing.” — Eduardo Chillida

98. “You will never draw the sense of a thing unless you are feeling it at the time you work.” — Robert Henri

99. “If we master a bit of drawing, everything else is possible.” — Alberto Giacometti

100. “Color, even more than drawing, is a means of liberation.” — Henri Matisse

Drawing Quotes By Master Artists

101. “Realize that a drawing is not a copy. It is a construction in very different materials. A drawing is an invention.” ― Robert Henri

102. “Drawing is based upon perspective, which is nothing else than a thorough knowledge of the function of the eye.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

103. “The painter draws with his eyes, not with his hands.” ― Maurice Grosser

104. “Do not fail, as you go on, to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worthwhile, and it will do you a world of good.” ― Cennino Cennini

105. “Drawing is feeling. Color is an act of reason.” ― Pierre Bonnard

106. “To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.” ― Pablo Picasso

107. “The essence of drawing is the line exploring space.” ― Andy Goldsworthy

108. “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

109. “Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.” ― Henri Matisse

110. “Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.” ― Samuel Butler

Drawing Quotes To Inspire Artists

111. “Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you see what you’re looking at more clearly. Did you know that?” ― David Almond

112. “You’ll see: if you acquire a taste for drawing, you won’t be able to do without it, just like me.” ― Françoise Place

113. “On the list of things I cannot draw, wedding dresses are right there next to cars.” ― Stephan Pastis

114. “Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful.” ― Susanna Clarke

115. “There is a rage inside me that I mitigate with my constant drawing.” ― David B

116. “Drawing is a form of probing. And the first generic impulse to draw derives from the human need to search, to plot points, to place things and to place oneself.” ― John Berger

117. “Most people don’t have shit… But paper and pencils are cheap, that’s why I draw.” ― Ida Løkås

118. “Instead of chasing the idea of truth, what we should be doing is embracing the medium of drawing and using it for a purpose that fulfils our needs as an artist or designer.” ― Peter Stanyer

119. “Writing is an abstract art of drawing pictures of the conscious and subconscious mind with words.” ― Debasish Mridha

120. “Draw without mercy.” ― Gabriel Campanario

Drawing Quotes About Creativity

121. “I’m a Baroque person. More than Baroque, I’m a Rococo person. I don’t draw straight lines.” ― Nuno Roque

122. “Anyone can learn how to draw.” ― Liron Yankonsky

123. “Drawing is never reproducing – in order to see, you have to know how to look, and you have to know what you’re looking at.” ― Olga Tokarczuk

124. “I don’t remember her. But she feels special. There’s this hole in my heart every time I draw her; you know, a sick sort of feeling. Like she’s someone I lost.” ― C. Robert Cargill

125. “Looking at her always reminded me of a rose that was dripping blood. I always felt it was drawing all the life from inside. Just to look beautiful on the outside.” ― Akshay Vasu

126. “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” ― Tracy Weinzapfel

127. “It is ten per cent how you draw, and ninety per cent what you draw.” ― Andrew Loomis

128. “Time will do his own drawing upon us but we will do our own drawing upon time as well!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan

129. “Everything is happening according to the ‘drawing’ [past causes], You just have to ‘see’ them. Desires are ‘drawings’ too.” ― Dada Bhagwan

130. “I want to inspire children to read, write, and draw. I want to inspire parents to listen to their children.” ― Trevor Carss

Drawing Quotes For Instagram

131. “Drawing at its best is not what your eyes see but what our mind understands.” ― Millard Sheets

132. “While drawing I discover what I really want to say.” ― Dario Fo

133. “Drawing is giving a performance; an artist is an actor who is not limited by the body, only by his ability and, perhaps, experience.” ― Marc Davis

134. “How you draw is a reflection of how you feel about the world. You’re not capturing it, you’re interpreting it.” ― Juliette Aristides

135. “Drawing is vision on paper.” ― Andrew Loomis

136. “A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

137. “For me drawing is an attempt to understand what I feel about the world I live in.” ― Brian Froud

138. “All these months I’ve been trying to find find a pattern. Trying not so much to draw hands as gestures. Not so much faces as the expressions of people.” — Vincent van Gogh

139. “I just wanted to paint and sketch and tell stories by drawing.” ― Robert Redford

140. “Drawing helps me remember the best experiences of my life so I can relive them over and over.” ― Unknown