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. 

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 in pursuing and drawing is a skill that people have admired all throughout history. 

Drawing is a way that you can save your memories for years to come. Drawing is a way to show the world what you see in your head.

And, drawing is a way for you to express yourself clearly without words. 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.

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. “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

7. “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

8. “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

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

10. “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

11. “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

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

Drawing quotes on why people love doing it

14. “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

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

16. “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

17. “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

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

21. “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

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

23. “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

Also, check out these library quotes and sayings that will make you want to sit down with a good book.

Drawing quotes about learning to draw

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

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

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

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

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

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
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of eyes quotes about the power of sight.

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

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of painting quotes about the power of creating with color.

Drawing quotes from artists

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

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

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

40. “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.” – Anais Nin

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

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

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

Also, check out these inspirational yellow quotes for a happy aesthetic.

More of the best drawing quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t forget to also read these powerful training quotes to inspire you towards personal development.

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 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. “Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be.” – Robert Heinlein

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. “A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.” – Louis Nizer

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. “The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things – but above all we must dare to fail. You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all.” – John Cassavetes

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 that 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? Which of the quotes is your favorite? Let us know in the comment section below.