A Quote by Charles Webster Hawthorne

Paint what you see, not what you know.

Charles Webster Hawthorne

Quote Topics

Know Paint See

Quote Author

Charles Webster Hawthorne
American - Artist
January 8, 1872 - November 29, 1930

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

Frida Kahlo

Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither. At every point in nature there is something to see. My work contains similar possibilities for the changing focus of the eye.

Jasper Johns

There comes a point when the paint doesn't feel like paint. I don't know why. Some mysterious thing happens. I think you have all experienced it... What counts is that the paint should really disappear, otherwise it's craft.

Philip Guston

Paint what you feel. Paint what you see. Paint what is real to you.

Robert Henri

So I said to myself-I'll paint what I see-what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it-I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

Georgia O'Keeffe

It's more impressive," I said out loud. "From a distance, I mean. You can't see the wear on things, you know? You can't see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it.

John Green

A student of James McNeill Whistler tells the great artist, 'I tend to paint what I see.' Whistler replies, 'Ah! The shock will come when you see what you paint!

James Whistler

Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.

Jasper Johns

You paint what you know best; what you went through as a teenager and child. My world is the one I got to know in Medellin; I never paint anything else other than that.

Fernando Botero

Someone has asked me to paint Biblical pictures, and I say no, I'll not paint something that we know nothing about, might just as well paint something that will happen two thousand years hence.

Grandma Moses

Painters paint outdoors, or in rooms full of people; they paint their lovers, alone, naked; they paint and eat; they paint and listen to the radio. It is a soothing way of doing your job.

Paul Theroux

I think we're in an age where artists really have an incredible range of materials at their command now. They can use almost anything from household items - Jackson Pollock used house paint - to, you know, advanced computer systems, to good old oil paint and acrylic paint.

Bill Viola

If only someone else could paint what I see, it would be marvellous, because then I wouldn't have to paint at all.

Alberto Giacometti

I see less and less... I need to avoid lateral light, which darkens my colors. Nevertheless, I always paint at the times of day most propitious for me, as long as my paint tubes and brushes are not mixed up... I will paint almost blind, as Beethoven composed completely deaf.