90 Creative Painting Quotes To Inspire Your Artwork

Thesebrilliant quotes about painting and art will spark your creativity.

Painters and artists can express themselves through beautiful visuals and bold strokes of color and texture.

Tell us what you love about painting in the comment section below.

According to a study published in the journal Art Therapy, engaging in creative activities such as painting can positively impact our mental health, reducing stress and promoting feelings of well-being.

This highlights the potential therapeutic benefits of painting.

What are the benefits of reading these painting quotes?

Read these painting quotes about art to help you be creative and motivate yourself towards making masterpieces.

These inspiring words will open your mind to fresh perspectives and guide you on your path to artistic success.

These painting quotes will help you express yourself whether you’re using:

• watercolors
• oil paints
• acrylic

Think about these painting quotes the next time you’re looking for artistic inspiration and motivation. 

Since art is all about self-expression, there’s no right or wrong to paint.

The advice and wisdom of successful artists can be invaluable.

These quotes about painting and creativity come from the minds of great creators and innovators.

Their words will help you intimately understand the art industry and the nature of expression.

Check out these inspiring painting quotes below and connect with your inner creativity.

For more inspiration, be sure to read our collection of quotes on the power of art, along with these inspirational blue quotes.

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

Explore our complete collection of motivational quotes here.

Creative Painting Quotes to Inspire Your Artwork

A survey conducted by The Guardian found that over 70% of readers believe that art has the power to inspire and enrich our lives, with painting being one of the most popular art forms.

This underscores the widespread appeal and value of painting as a means of creative expression.

1. “Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.” – Jackson Pollock

2. “All you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction, and a vision in your mind.” – Bob Ross

3. “I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.” – Frida Kahlo

4. “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary” – Pablo Picasso

5. “Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.” – Philip Guston

6. “If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh

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7. “A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image.” – Elaine de Kooning

8. “A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.” – Edgar Degas

9. “Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.” – Balthus

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10. “I love to look at art, I love to look at paintings, and I almost feel like the experience isn’t complete until I’ve made something of my own.” – Cecily Brown

Painting quotes about art and creativity

According to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, engaging in creative activities such as painting can help to improve cognitive function and problem-solving skills.

This highlights the potential cognitive benefits of painting.

11. “Painting is concerned with all the 10 attributes of sight; which are: Darkness, Light, Solidity and Colour, Form and Position, Distance and Propinquity, Motion and Rest.” – Leonardo da Vinci

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12. “The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.” – Leonardo da Vinci

13. “When you want to make the main color pure and bright, don’t just keep adding bright colors on it. Just make the colors around the spot darker and dull. It will give the scene dramatical effects. I think the life is the same.” – Hiroko Sakai

14. “If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.” – Edward Hopper

15. “Every canvas is a journey all its own.” – Helen Frankenthaler

16. “Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” – Pablo Picasso

17. “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol (see more quotes from Andy Warhol)

18. “To create one’s own world takes courage.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

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

20. “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” – Émile Zola

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Painting quotes that will make you connect with your inner creativity

21. “The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.” – Alberto Giacometti

22. “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton

23. “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” – Bob Ross

24. “I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” – Vincent van Gogh

25. “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” – Salvador Dali

26. “In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

27. “Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” – Marc Chagall

28. “There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” – Vincent Van Gogh

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

30. “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way–things I had no words for.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

If you enjoy this article, check out our collection of canvas quotes for your inspiration.

Painting quotes to make you think outside the box

31. “Don’t think about making art, just get it done.  Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it.  While they are deciding, make even more art.” – Andy Warhol

32. “I paint for myself. I don’t know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and occupy myself.” – Francis Bacon

33. “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.” – Lucian Freud

34. “Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye.. it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.” – Edvard Munch

35. “The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.” – Banksy

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

37. “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” – Twyla Tharp

38. “For me, painting is a way to forget life.  It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.” – Georges Rouault

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

40. “It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Painting quotes to spark your imagination

41. “Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.” – Rembrandt

42. “To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” – Kurt Vonnegut

43. “It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.” – Mark Rothko

44. “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.” – Robert Hughes

45. “A painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.” – Paul Gardner

46. “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.” – Michelangelo

47. “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” – Robert Henri

48. “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” – Henry Ward Beecher

49. “Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.” – Neil Gaiman

50. “Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.” – Magdalena Abakanowicz

Other inspirational painting quotes

51. “Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.” – Orhan Pamuk

52. “Create with the heart; build with the mind.” – Criss Jami

53. “Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.” – Pablo Picasso

54. “Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal.” – Banksy

55. “Without atmosphere a painting is nothing.” – Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn

56. “Sometimes painting is just prayerful movement. And that is enough.” – Carrie Schmitt

57. “Painting has as much to do with evolving consciousness as training the eye.” – Glenn Haybittle

58. “Creativity is painting the canvas with colors, doing what you do with what you have, knowing the limits and moving beyond.” – Anand Patwa

59. They paint what they see and we paint what we are watching.” – David Berkowitz Chicago

60. “Life, like a good painting, needs balance, a harmonious arrangement to avoid being chaotic, a mess, a failure.” – Iain Pear

Painting Quotes About Different Visions

61. Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That’s the thing about painting, photography, and cinema.” — David Lynch

62. “My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.” — Agnes Martin

63. “Through a painting we can see the whole world.” — Hans Hofmann

64. “The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.” — Jackson Pollock

65. “Every painting is a voyage into a sacred harbor.” — Giotto di Bondone

66. “If you understand a painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it.” — Salvador Dalí

67. “My business is to paint what I see, not what I know is there.” — J.M.W. Turner

68. “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” — Frida Kahlo

69. “If I paint something, I don’t want to have to explain what it is.” — Bob Ross

70. “Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” — Edgar Degas

Painting Quotes To Encourage Painters and Artists

71. “Painting is the most beautiful of all arts.” ― Paul Gauguin

72. “I believe, I believe every day is a good day when you paint.” ― Bob Ross.

73. “Creativity is contagious, pass it on.” ― Albert Einstein

74. “Don’t be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation.” ― Paul Cézanne

75. “I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.” ― Frida Kahlo

76. “Painting is a different world of emotions.” ― Invajy

77. “Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you.” ― Salvador Dali

78. “Creativity takes courage” ― Henri Matisse

79. “One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters.” ― Frank Stella

80. “A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.” ― Hedy Lamarr

81. “A painting that is well composed is half finished.” ― Pierre Bonnard

82. “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” ― Pablo Picasso

83. “Obviously a drawing of a person is not a real person, but a drawing of a line is a real line.” ― Sol LeWitt

84. “You can’t sit around and wait for somebody to say who you are. You need to write it and paint it and do it.” ― Faith Ringgold

85. “I see paintings everywhere. I look at stuff and it looks like painting to me.” ― Julian Schnabel

86. “A painter paints the appearance of things, not their objective correctness, in fact he creates new appearances of things.” ― Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

87. “Painters who are not colorists produce illumination, not painting.” ― Eugene Delacroix

88. “Painting is very interesting.” ― Sam Waterston

89. “Only my current situation has enabled me to accomplish the expensive task of demonstrating that the preferred sustenance of painting is painting.” ― Asger Jorn

90. “Painting is a visceral experience, one loaded with subtle information. Only Cezanne could get away with a system.” ― Wolf Kahn

Which of these inspiring painting quotes kickstarts your creativity the most?

These proverbs and sayings about painting will help you create masterful works of art.

If you want to freshen up your perspective and boost your natural talent, listen to the advice of these brilliant artists.

The painting quotes above reflect years of experience in the industry and a passion for visual beauty.

Remember these words the next time you raise your paintbrush up to meet the canvas.

The best painting quotes will inspire you to begin a journey of self-expression and creativity.

These words will transform the way you look at art and encourage your artistic processes.

Whether you paint for profit or to share a visual story, these quotes will give you some insight into the mind of an artist.

The next time you’re in a creativity slump, try reading these painting quotes to get the juices flowing.

What are your favorite painting quotes about art and creativity?

Let us know in the comment section below.