Paper Canvas Quotes & Sayings

Some of us are fated to live in a box from which there is only temporary release. We of the damned-up spirits, of the thwarted feelings, of the blocked hearts, and the pent-up thoughts, we who long to blast out, flood forth in a torrent of rage or joy or even madness, but there is nowhere for us to go, nowhere in the world because no one will have us as we are, and there is nothing to do except to embrace the secret pleasures of our sublimations, the arc of a sentence, the kiss of a rhyme, the image that forms on paper or canvas, the inner cantata, the cloistered embroidery, the dark and dreaming needlepoint from hell or heaven or purgatory or none of those three, but there must be some sound and fury from us, some clashing cymbals in the void. — Siri Hustvedt

You can only generate ideas when you put pencil to paper, brush to canvas ... when you actually do something physical. — Twyla Tharp

Artists," he said, "are people who say, 'I can't fix my country or my state or my city, or even my marriage. But by golly, I can make this square of canvas, or this eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper, or this lump of clay, or these twelve bars of music, exactly what they ought to be! — Kurt Vonnegut

Writers and painters have a medium that can foster self-effacements. Actors haven't. An actor can't hide himself behind paper or canvas. If you're not there your art's not there. That's why we actors are often such self-centered objects. — Elizabeth Goudge

If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces. Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete" - Violet

" 'Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.' Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it's all you need. We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a black piece of paper. We'll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone - it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too" -Finch — Jennifer Niven

Never, never do I set to work on a canvas in the state it comes in from the shop. I provoke accidents - a form, a splotch of color. Any accident is good enough. I let the matiere decide. Then I prepare a ground by, for example, wiping my brushes on the canvas. Letting fall some drops of turpentine on it would do just as well. If I want to make a drawing I crumple the sheet of paper or I wet it; the flowing water traces a line and this line may suggest what is to come next. — Joan Miro

Walking purposefully, in the knowledge that no one with their sleeves rolled up who walks purposefully with a piece of paper held conspicuously in their hand is ever challenged, he set off across the wood and canvas wonderland of Interesting and Instructive Kinematography. — Terry Pratchett

The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few sounds — Alfred De Vigny

... the cylinder itself has only just begun its revolutions ... as it gathers speed the objects grouped around its fulcrum assume, collectively ... no ... as it gathers speed the whole intricate system of cords, weights, metal spikes and rods, brass plates engraved with labyrinthine patterns, bricks, scraps of fabric, paper, canvas, unmarked sheets ... the entire elaborate network of components begins to shudder into wild spasmodic motion, rattling almost farcically within the framework of the machine. — Martin Vaughn-James

There is joy in feeling the bristles of a quality brush, seeing the richness and lush color of truly good pigment flowing onto the paper or canvas. The cheap stuff just makes for harder work and lesser results. — Gene Black

Monochromatic color schemes are lacking in contrast, which is why I start many of my canvas or paper pieces in this way. I can add layers of contrasting elements later on if desired. Adding tints and shades will give you a larger range of colors with which to create a richness of hues in your projects. — Roxanne Padgett

Writing is like painting with words, the paper is the canvas, the pen is the brush, the words are the colors and the verbs, nouns and adjectives are the blending of the hues that add depth to the picture you are creating.
-Reed Abbitt Moore- — Reed Abbitt Moore

Every other artist begins with a blank canvas, a piece of paper the photographer begins with the finished product. — Edward Steichen

If they keep exposing you to education, you might even realize some day that man becomes immortal only in what he writes on paper, or hacks into rock, or slabbers onto a canvas, or pulls out of a piano. — Robert Ruark

When he was very excited, [John Singer] Sargent would rush at his canvas with his brush poised for attack, yelling, 'Demons, demons, demons!' When he was particularly angry or frustrated, he expressed these feelings with 'Damn,' the only curse he allowed himself. He once had the expletive inscribed on a rubber stamp so he could have the satisfaction of pounding it on a piece of paper. — Deborah Davis

Was it possible this one would be a son too? She hoped so, but not because she favored men. Her husband modeled the seriousness, the stoicism, that she hoped her sons would inherit, but she had nothing to teach a daughter. She could teach her to dream - say, to be a painter, as she herself had been trained - and then teach her to let it go. Teach her to cloister herself in dark hallways, admiring how the light fell through the rice-paper doors while knowing that there was no point in putting it on canvas. — Shawna Yang Ryan

The painter puts brush to canvas, and the poet puts pen to paper. The poet has the easier task, for his pen does not alter his rhyme. — Robert Breault

The bounds of creativity extend far beyond the limits of a canvas or a sheet of paper and do not require a brush, a pen, or the keys of a piano. Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before - colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I have always been jealous of artists. The smell of the studio, the names of the various tools, the look of a half-finished canvas all shout of creation. What do writers have in comparison? Only the flat paper, the clacketing of the typewriter or the scrape of a pen across a yellow page. And then, when the finished piece is presented, there is a small wonder on one hand, a manuscript smudged with erasures or crossed out lines on the other. The impact of the painting is immediate, the manuscript must unfold slowly through time. — Jane Yolen

I've got a vendetta to destroy the Net, to make everyone go to the library. I love the organic thing of pen and paper, ink on canvas. I love going down to the library, the feel and smell of books. — Joseph Fiennes

...It's not something shared with society, but rather its a personal possession. I've never thought that I wanted to share morality with someone. I feel it's like a white canvas on which nothing is yet drawn, a silent room which accepts any sounds of music and nature, a litmus paper that has not yet been dipped into a solution. In future, it will be a white canvas on which anyone should be allowed to draw anything. — Ayako Sono

The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper, ... in the poet's life. It is what hehas become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince's gallery. — Henry David Thoreau

What is it artists do?" And I mumbled something. "They do two things," he said. "First, they admit they can't straighten out the whole universe. And then second, they make at least one little part of it exactly as it should be. A blob of clay, a square of canvas, a piece of paper, or whatever. — Kurt Vonnegut

Start with a blank surface. It doesn't have to be paper or canvas, but I feel it should be white. We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of can't remember. — Stephen King

Trying what?" cried Maury fiercely. "Trying to pierce the darkness of political idealism with some wild, despairing urge toward truth? Sitting day after day supine in a rigid chair and infinitely removed from life staring at the tip of a steeple through the trees, trying to separate, definitely and for all time, the knowable from the unknowable? Trying to take a piece of actuality and give it glamour from your own soul to make for that inexpressible quality it possessed in life and lost in transit to paper or canvas? — F Scott Fitzgerald

I do not possess the ability to draw or paint.
I can't sing or dance.
I can't knit or sew.
But I am an artist.
I have the ability to put onto paper, words that tell an intriguing story.
I am a writer.
A writer is someone who, with just words, can paint a beautiful picture.
A writer can open up a world of imagination you didn't realize was possible.
When you open up a book and become so consumed in the story, you feel like you're a part of it ... you're standing next to that character and feeling the same way that character feels,
That's the art of a writer.
I am an artist.
My inspiration is the world around me.
My paintbrush is my words.
My easel is my computer.
My canvas is the mind of my reader. — Bri Justine

Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with nothing but talent, experience, and inspiration. The fresh piece of paper on the drawing board is as blank as the newly stretched piece of canvas. — Henry Petroski

The ink line drawing flowed the cursive journey,
created on paper canvas that brought the story to life. — Jazz Feylynn

Actually, the eloquence of the wilderness is not a pattern for human eloquence. There is no hardier fool than whoever shouts, "The scene inspired me to set pen to paper," or brush to canvas, or thumb to lyre. The wilderness inspires nothing but itself. Our babblings and scratchings resume in den and studio, whenever things resume their comfortable and incorrect proportions. — Renny Russell

Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas? — Mark Vonnegut

He was increasingly aware these days of how much he owned, of the ongoing effort his life required. The thousands of trips to the grocery store he had made, all the heaping bags of food, first paper, then plastic, now canvas sacks brought from home, unloaded from the trunk of the car and unpacked and stored in cupboards, all to sustain a single body. — Jhumpa Lahiri

The paper is your canvas. The pen is your brush. Create your masterpiece. — Julian Vaughan Hampton

I always told my team, "You have to believe that you are not in front of a computer, but that your canvas is a piece of paper. You have to believe this even if you have a computer in front of you." — Alex Abreu

Few books today are forgivable. Black on canvas, silence on the screen, an empty white sheet of paper are perhaps feasible. — R.D. Laing

The creative act of the artist lifts him above himself by demanding full surrender. No one puts words on paper or paint on canvas, doubting. If one doubts, one does so five minutes later ... — Czeslaw Milosz

A painter's got a canvas. The writer's got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence. — Keith Richards

The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation you can make of it what you will — Lewis H. Lapham