In almost every painting video I create, I share an artist quote to inspire my students.

Here are some of my favorites.

“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

“I have been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I have never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” – Vincent van Gogh

“One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well.” – Vincent van Gogh

“I would like to paint as the bird sings.” – Claude Monet

“What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.” Claude Monet

“Light in nature creates the movement of colors.” – Robert Delaunay

“Painting from nature is not copying the object: it is realizing one’s sensations” – Paul Cezanne

“There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.” – Paul Cezanne

“It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.” – Mary Cassatt

“There are two ways for a painter: the broad and easy one or the narrow and hard one.” – Mary Cassatt

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

“Cultivate an ever continuous power of observation. Wherever you are, be always ready to make slight notes of postures, groups and incidents. Store up in the mind…a continuous stream of observations from which to make selections later. Above all things get abroad, see the sunlight and everything that is to be seen.” – John Singer Sargent

“I think one’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes.” – Andrew Wyeth

“I dream a lot. I do more painting when I’m not painting. It’s in the subconscious.” – Andrew Wyeth

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas

“A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy.” – Edgar Degas

“A true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” – Michelangelo

“ I am still learning.” – Michelangelo

“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.” – Leonardo di Vinci

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

“Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artists, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.” – Edward Hopper

“More of me comes out when I improvise” – Edward Hopper

“Painting should never look as if it were done with difficulty, however difficult it may actually have been.” – Robert Henri

“There is no art without contemplation.” – Robert Henri

“Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” – Wassily Kandinsky

“All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.” – Marc Chagall

“Color! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.” – Paul Gauguin

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Pablo Picasso

“Life is a great big canvas; through all the paint you can at it.” – Danny Kay