Kimon Nicolaides Quotes

• The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Mistake, Able, Firsts

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.3, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Learning, Mean, Eye

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.5, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• You should draw not what the thing looks like, not even what it is, but what it is doing... Gesture has no precise edges, no forms. The forms are in the act of changing. Gesture is movement in space.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Space, Looks, Movement

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• Technique should be taught, not as an end in itself, but as something related to individual expression, as a means toward an end. One cannot separate technique from expression. There is only expression.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Mean, Expression, Technique

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.99, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Man can make only the rules. He cannot make the laws, which are the laws of nature. It is the understanding of these laws that enables a student to draw.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Men, Law, Understanding

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  11 Copy quote

• You cannot govern the creative impulse; all you can do is eliminate obstacles and smooth the way for it.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Creativity, Creative, Way

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.151, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• Art should be concerned more with life than with art.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Art, Should, Concerned

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Merely to see... is not enough. It is necessary to have a fresh, vivid, physical contact with the object you draw through as many of the senses as possible - and especially through the sense of touch.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Vivid, Enough, Contact

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.6, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• Committing oneself to a technique causes stagnation.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Technique, Causes, Stagnation

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.100, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• All that you need in the way of technique for drawing is bound up in the technique of seeing - that is, of understanding, which after all is mainly dependent on feeling. If you attempt to see in the way prescribed by any mechanical system of drawing, old or new, you will lose the understanding of the fundamental impulse. Your drawing becomes a meaningless diagram and the time so spent is wasted.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Drawing, Understanding, Feelings

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.99, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• There is no such thing as starting where Cezanne left off. You have to start where he started... at the beginning.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Cezanne, Starting, Left

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• You are not to think of painting as something separate from drawing.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Thinking, Drawing, Painting

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.213, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There is only one right way to draw... physical contact with all sorts of objects through all the senses.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Drawing, Way, Contact

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• When we use numbers we are using symbols, and it is only when we transfer them to life that they become actualities. The same is true with drawing and painting. They are to be learned, not as rules, but as actualities. Then the rules become appropriate.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Numbers, Drawing, Use

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• To understand theory is not enough. Much practice is necessary.

  Kimon Nicolaides

  Practice, Enough, Theory

  Kimon Nicolaïdes (1990). “The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

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