Quotes & Sayings About Child Artists

'Painting like a child' isn't a negative for me ... it's something only great artists can really achieve. The childlike quality of some of Picasso's drawings is precisely what makes them so masterful and extraordinary; the ability to express complete visions, feelings and portraits through a continuous line. — Damien Hirst

For some young artists, it can take a bit of time to discover which tools (which medium, or genre, or career pathway) will truly suit them best. For me, although many different art forms attract me, the tools that I find most natural and comfortable are language and oil paint; I've also learned that as someone with a limited number of spoons it's best to keep my toolbox clean and simple. My husband, by contrast, thrives with a toolbox absolutely crowded to bursting, working with language, voice, musical instruments, puppets, masks animated on a theater stage, computer and video imagery, and half a dozen other things besides, no one of these tools more important than the others, and all somehow working together. For other artists, the tools at hand might be needles and thread; or a jeweller's torch; or a rack of cooking spices; or the time to shape a young child's day ...
To me, it's all art, inside the studio and out. At least it is if we approach our lives that way. — Terri Windling

As a child growing up among artists I learned to think of a picture not as a finished product exposed for the admiration of the virtuosi, but as the visible record, lying about the house, of an attempt to solve a definite problem in painting. — Robin G. Collingwood

In the inner place where true artists create there exists a pure child. — Lawren Harris

The artists must see all things as if he were seeing them for the first time. All his life he must see as he did when he was a child. — Henri Matisse

If there's anything I'm proud of in my work
it's not that I draw better; there's so many better graphic artists than me
or that I write better, no. It's
and I'm not saying I know the truth, because what the hell is that? But what I got from Ruth and Dave, a kind of fierce honesty, to not let the kid down, to not let the kid get punished, to not suffer the child to be dealt with in a boring, simpering, crushing-of-the-spirit kind of way. — Maurice Sendak

In my early days, I was about 145 pounds. I was really a starving artist; the poster child for starving artists. — Creed Bratton

Until my early teens, I lived with my mother in New York, and I spent a lot of time in the company of her friends, mostly artists and designers, such as Andy Warhol, Ross Bleckner and Francesco Clemente, none of whom had kids, so I was like their shared child. — Jade Jagger

As regards the artists themselves, most of them gave up their freedom quite lightly, placing their art at the service of someone or something. As a rule, their concerns and their ambitions are those of any old careerist. I thus acquired a total distrust of art and artists, whether they were officially recognised or were endeavouring to become so, and I felt that I had nothing in common with this guild. I had a point of reference which held me elsewhere, namely that magic within art which I had encountered as a child. — Rene Magritte

The worst feature of the Common Core is its anti-humanistic, utilitarian approach to education. It mistakes what a child is and what a human being is for. That is why it has no use for poetry, and why it boils the study of literature down to the scrambling up of some marketable "skill" [ ... ] you don't read good books to learn about what literary artists do ... you learn about literary art so that you can read more good books and learn more from them. It is as if Thomas Gradgrind had gotten hold of the humanities and turned them into factory robotics. — Anthony Esolen

Perhaps there is something more than courtesy behind the dissembling reticence of childhood ... Most artists dislike having their incomplete work considered and discussed and this analogy, I think, is valid. The child is incomplete, too, and is constantly experimenting as he seeks his own style of thought and feeling. — Dervla Murphy

The thing you have to remember about artists...is never to trust their immediate response. Whatever the news, their reaction will be self-protective. The mask goes on, and you see only what they let you see. These creatures carry their emotions around in a violin-case, reserving their only honest expression for the public stage. In private, they turn emotion on and off at will. Never believe an artist when he weeps or declares love. It's all a grand performance. Treat their upsets as you would a child's tantrums. Console, then instruct. Show compassion when it's called for, firmness when it runs out. Give them an illusion of your love for them - but never love itself, or they will devour you. — Norman Lebrecht

This guy! I plead the fifth. This guy is nuts."
- Eminem
"Dope questions, man. Very insightful, very thoughtful."
- Guru (Gang Starr)
"You like a Psychiatrist or some shit? This shit is just coming out but go ahead."
- Mary J. Blige
"Definitely a real interview! Digging deep up in there, man. Not afraid to ask questions!"
- K-Ci Hailey (Jodeci)
"The Wizard asked me for a copy of your magazine."
- Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (Daft Punk)
"You didn't wear your glasses and you haven't carried your hearing aid. What else is wrong with you?"
- Bushwick Bill
"Peace and blessing, Brother Harris. Thank you for inspiring my words. Keep 'yo balance."
- Erykah Badu
"Can I see that pen?"
- Bobby Brown
"What else do you want to know? Talk to me."
- Aaliyah — Harris Rosen

I hope I haven't grown up. The cliche for all artists is that you don't want to lose that child inside. I think when you get sedentary and set in your ways, you can lose a lot of that spontaneity and creativity. I hope I'm holding on to that. — Catherine Hardwicke

The thing I like about the band [Dead Child] is that there's no pretense. We aren't even trying to be artists or poets. — David Pajo

Happy children should not try to be artists. You have to be born with a broken heart and a sense of loneliness inside. I never had a happy moment as a child myself. — Stella Adler

Not all of us are painters but we are all artists. Each time we fit things together we are creating - whether it is to make a loaf of bread, a child, a day. — Corita Kent

Artists are people who are subject to irrational convictions of the sacred. Baudelaire said that an artist is a child who has acquired adult capacities and discipline. Art education should help build those capacities and that discipline without messing over the child. — Peter Schjeldahl

It's very important that young artists push boundaries, because sometimes you have this urge to do something - like the impulsive and dangerous urges I had as a child - and if you don't follow through with it you might miss out on a developmental experience. — Marina Abramovic

In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. — Jasper Johns

I suppose I was artistic as a child. Our house was so full of art and artists that it never occurred to me not to be constantly making things. I just assumed that all kids liked to work with their hands as much as I did. I was an only child so I did have a lot of time to be creative by myself and with my parents. — Wendy Froud

I was raised around a lot of artists, musicians, photographers, painters and people that were in theater. Just having the art-communal hippie experience as a child, there wasn't a clear line that was drawn. We celebrated creative experience and creative expression. We didn't try and curtail it and stunt any of that kind of growth. — Jared Leto