140 Inspirational Drawing Quotes To Speak To The Artist In You
Whether you need a little creativity or feel it bubbling up inside, you’ll love these drawing quotes.
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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
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
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
Did You Enjoy These Drawing Quotes And Sayings?
If you’ve never tried your hand at drawing, it’s something that you should explore.
It’s a great way to tap into your creativity and express yourself.
If you’re not a great artist at the moment, that’s OK.
Drawing is a skill and hobby you can study and perfect over time.
And, as many of the quotes indicated above, once you fall in love with the arts, it’s something that will never leave you.
You’ll want to spend your time on it, and even when you can’t be drawing, you can capture it in your mind to draw at a later time.
Did you enjoy these drawing quotes and sayings?
If so, you will like these Doodle Quotes too!
Which of the quotes is your favorite?
Let us know in the comment section below.
Portrails Maker
November 13, 2021 at 8:21 AM
Nice Post!
Read about the best Sketch artist in Delhi