Quotes & Sayings About Watercolor

I know why there is no glass, in front of the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge. So. — Margaret Atwood

The package contained a collection of envelopes much like the first. They were all blue. They were all made of heavy paper. Good quality. The kind from one of those boutique paper stores. The front of each envelope was either illustrated in pen and ink or watercolor, and they were bundled together with an overstretched rubber band that had been doubled around them. — Maureen Johnson

People don't talk like this, theytalklikethis. Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolor left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response. If what we say is suitably apt and amusing, the listener will show his delight by emitting a series of uncontrolled high-pitched noises, accompanied by sharp intakes of breath of the sort normally associated with a seizure or heart failure. And by these means we converse. Talking, when you think about it, is a very strange business indeed. — Bill Bryson

The effect is captivating as all of the tones mix, like a watercolor with hues swirled together, and lovely carrying notes long after the fingers are lifted from the keys. — Thad Carhart

The watercolor people hadn't moved, hadn't seen us, were still busy being dead and artistic. Good. — Devon Monk

Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence. — Paul Strand

The notion of a country cottage settled in her thoughts as a watercolor, red bricks, climbing roses, the house the most intelligent of the three little pigs built, but with some age on it now; and the place they found in western Massachusetts wasn't far off, solid enough to withstand huffs and puffs, small enough to feel manageable, large enough to hold visiting grandchildren, old enough to inspire optimism about what might, improbably, endure. — Robin Black

Honestly, I'd love to say I live this amazing Hollywood lifestyle, but actually, I'm at home with my same friends and cooking. I crochet, I do watercolor. I think what surprised me the most is that that isn't the lifestyle everyone necessarily lives. — Yael Grobglas

The wall between writing and painting is just good grammar.

Moderation in moderation.

Fun is scary with a happy ending.

Just love. If love doesn't transform that which annoys you, it will be easier to tolerate. — Emily Thornton Calvo

You have this preconceived notion of him [Sly Stallone] as a big, tough guy, but he speaks four languages and he likes to watercolor. — Rachael Leigh Cook

How strange that he had kept this small amateur watercolor. She did not recall giving it to him. Did he not know it was by her hand? Perhaps he had stuck it into the volume to mark some place long ago and had completely forgotten about it, and when he found it later did not remember the artist was the very woman who had spurned him, the woman he despised. Surely he would not have kept it had he remembered. — Julie Klassen

For the patient who remained hospitalized a long time, an insidious metamorphosis took place - the outside world dimmed and faded like a watercolor exposed to the sun, while the hospital became the center and the only real part of the universe. — Marjorie Kellogg

It always seemed somehow less real here ... a really detailed dream, but sort of washed out, like a thin watercolor. Softer, somehow, even with their electric light and engines and everything. I guess it was because there was hardly any magic. — Garth Nix

When you get a watercolor working right, the feeling of illumination is like a deeply spiritual thing. — Robert I. Eaton

What I call innocence is the spirit's unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once a receptiveness and total concentration. One needn't be, shouldn't be, reduced to a puppy. If you wish to tell me that the city offers galleries, I'll pour you a drink and enjoy your company while it lasts; but I'll bear with me to my grave those pure moments at the Tate (was it the Tate?) where I stood planted, open-mouthed, born, before that one particular canvas, that river up to my neck, gasping, lost, receding into watercolor depth and depth to the vanishing point, buoyant, awed, and had to be literally hauled away. These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present. — Annie Dillard

What is it about possessing things? Why do we feel the need to own what we love, and why do we become jerks when we do? We've all been there- you want something, to possess it. By possessing something you lose it. You finally win the girl of your dreams, the first thing you do is change her. The little things she does with her hair, the way she wears her clothes or the way she chews her gum. Pretty soon what you like, what you changed, what you don't like, blends together like a watercolor in the rain. — Jeff Melvoin

For me making a digital photo is like making a watercolor ... It's not a painting, and it's not a photo. It's something altogether new. — Art Wolfe

She suddenly looks different to Olympia, physically different, as though a portrait has been alterred. And Olympia thinks that possibly such adjustments might have to be made for everyone she knows. Upon meeting a person, a sketch is formed, and for the life of the relationship, however intimate or not, a portrait is painted, with oils or pastels or with black ink or with watercolor, and only at a persons's death can the portraits be considered finished. Perhaps not even at the person's death. — Anita Shreve

The night was a runny, watercolor black, rain sighing high in the tree tops, rustling on the pavement. — Lauren Gilley

To me, watercolor is a Western medium, so when I feel like I am using a Western manner I will use English to sign my name. — Liu Dan

Eric Schmidt looks innocent enough, with his watercolor blue eyes and his tiny office full of toys and his Google campus stocked with volleyball courts and unlocked bikes and wheat-grass shots and cereal dispensers and Haribo Gummi Bears and heated toilet seats and herb gardens and parking lots with cords hanging to plug in electric cars. — Maureen Dowd

The old master oil paintings were usually done in transparent oil colors on top of a black-and-white underpainting, which was often painted in egg temperas. My version of this technique was to start with a watercolor underpainting, which is fast drying like tempera, but I have an easier time controlling it. Then I seal the underpainting with a coat of clear, matte acrylic medium. That keeps the oil paints, which come next, from soaking into the paper, where they would turn dull and flat. Instead, thin layers of transparent oil paint can be smoothed into glowing colors and bold, glossy surfaces, with a depth and space that I don't think can be gotten any other way. It isn't easy to do, but when it works, the results can still surprise me. — Paul O. Zelinsky

When I travel, I always take my Winsor & Newton watercolor kit, which is the size of a pack of cigarettes when folded up. I bought my first one in the 1980s. It was handy to bring on trips, and I packed it into a leather pouch along with a couple of brushes, a pencil, an eraser and paper. — Susan Minot

That one was beautiful, though." She flushes. "Thank you. I started taking classes a month ago. I like them, but I dropped out because all the teacher wanted me to paint were ugly, soulless little watercolor landscapes. No feeling! No passion! — Sara Wolf

If I were a pattern, I would be the pattern of paint that a bird would make if you dipped a bird's wings in watercolour and then set the bird loose inside a paper lantern. I'm pretty sure that's it! — C. JoyBell C.

Tea Rose (Perfumer's Workshop) **** green rose $
Composed in 1972, Tea Rose was the first fragrance signed by the great Annie Buzantian (Pleasures), and was in many ways the first niche fragrance: the Perfumer's Workshop did nothing but fragrances, had a small range, was fairly hard to find, and had a devoted following. Tea Rose was and is a rose soliflore that illustrates how complex a composition must be before it can actually claim to smell of rose. The rose it depicts is huge, painted in watercolor, and has the species name written below it in cursive. LT — Luca Turin

I have been doodling with ink and watercolor on paper all my life. It's my way of stirring up my imagination to see what I find hidden in my head. I call the results dream pictures, fantasy sketches, and even brain-sharpenin g exercises. — Maurice Sendak

She was transparent, like a watercolor. As if she were about to dissolve in sound, in tones not yet created. — Peter Hoeg

When I was nine, my great grandfather, a landscape painter, taught me to mix colors. With his strong hand surrounding my small one, he guided the brush until a calla lily appeared as if by magic on a page of textured watercolor paper. — Susan Vreeland

Watercolor is an alchemical medium - colors mixing with water, joining with it, being extended by it - creating new life where none had been before. — Joseph Raffael

Reverence for the natural environment, and experiencing the interconnectedness between all things has long guided me to create watercolor paintings of beauty and spirit. Life's continuing adventure has led me into an exciting exploration into the wisdom and symbolic imagery of Sacred Geometry. These paintings act as a bridge between this reality and a metaphorical world of healing, continuity, and transformation. I use multiple transparent watercolor glazes coupled with image overlapping techniques, and sacred geometry to produce visions of a multi-dimensional reality. It is my intention to create art that embodies the vibration of Universal Love and expresses the joy and gratitude I feel for the honor of being part of this earthwalk."
~Blessings, Francene~ — Francene Hart

Guy between boyfriends #6 and #7
Paul Diaz, Twenty-Something
He was in her watercolor class, so cute and the sweet kind of shy. They obviously clicked, the attraction thrilling between them, inspiring her to relish the infatuation freshman-style and write his name in her notebook in curvy, flowery script. She gave him openings but guessed he was too timid to ask her out. The day after finals, she ran into him at the deli on campus and thought she had nothing to lose.
"My work is having this fancy dinner party next weekend, the food's supposed to be great. Would you like to go with me?"
"Oh, uh, maybe, I'll have to check," he said. Then, "What was your name again?"
There's always something to lose. — Shannon Hale

If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting. — Peter Shaffer

Go ahead into life, full-blooded, courageous and leap for the adventure. But you must do it soon - before the summer of your youth has cooled off into caution. You are magnificently charming - and you come like a torrent. But you will be spent on the futility of little things. You are not a watercolor. You are carved out of life - and there can be no petty hesitancies about you. — Ruth Reichl

He smiled against my cheek and kissed me again. "Talking with you would be much more enjoyable than talking with Talia, Lilly." His eyes scanned the floor by my feet. "She's paint by number; you're watercolor." Things like that, moments like those, how do you explain to other people that no one else in the world can make you feel this way? — Amber L. Johnson

Watercolor is not my way of expression.
[Vincent Van Gogh] — Irving Stone

I've actually felt sad for myself, picturing my slim, naked, pale body, floating just beneath the current, a colony of snails attached to one bare leg, my hair trailing like seaweed until I reach the ocean and drift down down down to the bottom, my waterlogged flesh peeling off in soft streaks, me slowly disappearing into the current like a watercolor until just the bones are left. — Gillian Flynn

But what Andy never understood about him was this: he was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash. He did it when his memories crowded out all other thoughts, when it took real effort, real concentration, to tether himself to his current life, to keep himself from raging with despair and shame. He did it when he was so exhausted of trying, when being awake and alive demanded such energy that he had to lie in bed thinking of reasons to get up and try again, — Hanya Yanagihara

Andrew stares pointedly at her. From the looks of it, thunderstorms and human traffic jams are cluttering his mind. Doors are opening and closing. He's jealous. The realization makes her feel silly and squeamish. She can't decide whether to glower or giggle some more. She feels like . . . a girl. She wants to punch him. In the face. Hard. Cover that watercolor with one of her own. Then she wants to kiss it, softly, until she has no more soft left in her. "Anger — Natalia Jaster

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. — Stanley H. Horowitz

Part of why I like watercolor is that mistakes are visible, and you can't really repair much. It has to look easy. When it comes out, it looks easy, but to get to that point takes a lot of doing. — Chris Raschka

Anti-sabbatical: A job taken with the sole intention of staying only for a limited period of time (often one year). The intention is usually to raise enough funds to partake in another, more personally meaningful activity such as watercolor sketching in Crete or designing computer knit sweaters in Hong Kong. Employers are rarely informed of intentions — Douglas Coupland

You need to get out of your comfort zone, return to the Midwest, see some family, and, as cheesy as it sounds, work the land - plant some trees, maybe take up watercolor. — Lissie

I have always striven to fix beauty in wood, stone, glass or pottery, in oil or watercolor by using whatever seemed fittest for the expression of beauty, that has been my creed. — Louis Comfort Tiffany

Their own life together was like a subtle watercolor sketch, invisible to other people. They gave the world what it required of them and for the rest of the time were content to be forgotten. — Andrei Makine

A photograph to me is always a reminder of how the person was on a certain day in that certain light fixed. When I look at a watercolor of that same person, it seems to me alive, more open than a photograph. — Francesco Clemente

We struggle against easel painting not because it is an aesthetic form of painting, but because it is not modern, for it does not succeed in bringing out the technical side, it is a redundant, exclusive art, and cannot be of any use to the masses. Hence we are struggling not against painting but against photography carried out as if it were an etching, a drawing, a picture in sepia or watercolor. — Alexander Rodchenko

Jennifer now understood the meaning of the cadence: the black and white drawing, the watercolor painting,and the notes. The cadence had at last developed into a concerto for violin, the instrument of gypsies, with a prevailing rhapsodic "leitmotif". The final movement had revealed itself when they were at the gypsy camp. And now it was complete. — Barbara Casey

My father had a healthy disregard for social conventions: he once let me paint the house windows in rainbows with my watercolor set, to my mother's horror, and he'd clap for trees that he thought were doing a good job of exploding into red during the fall. — Jennifer DuBois

Talking with you would be much more enjoyable than talking with Talia, Lilly." His eyes scanned the floor by my feet. "She's paint by number; you're a watercolor. — Amber L. Johnson

I started thinking about how rain is depicted in illustrations. In comics that use gouache or watercolor, they use light blue, so I started using that color. — Lucien Smith

He was an optimist. Every month, every week, he chose to open his eyes, to live another day in the world. He did it when he was feeling so awful that sometimes the pain seemed to transport him to another state, one in which everything, even the past that he worked so hard to forget, seemed to fade into a gray watercolor wash. — Hanya Yanagihara

The idea of mixing pigments and gum arabic together to make watercolor paint is very old. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century the English chemists W. Winsor and H. Newton were the first to add glycerin to the blend to make the paints maintain a semi-moist consistency when stored in paintboxes. — Felix Scheinberger

Watercolor is like life. Better get it right the first time
you don't get a second chance! — Sergei Bongart

According to my figures I've only had 2500 pieces of ass but I've watched 12500 horse races, and if I have any advice to anybody, it's this: take up watercolor painting. — Charles Bukowski

This isn't a watercolor, it's a mural. — Erich Segal

I looked hard out the window and understood suddenly that what I saw was full of color. A watercolor wash of summer light lay on the Catalina Mountains. The end of a depression is that clear: it's as if you have been living underwater, but never realized it until you came up for air. — Barbara Kingsolver

As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off. — Anne Sexton

Her departure was a gradual thing, like a watercolor left in the sun, every day fainter until one day the canvas was bare and you had to rely on memory to recapture the image. — Catherine McKenzie

But it was from him - with his cool, long sideburns and aviator sunglasses, and box of watercolor paints (and artist's paycheck) - from him we learned how to create beauty where none exists, how to be generous beyond our means, how to change a small corner of the world just by making a little dinner for a few friends. — Gabrielle Hamilton

The child's face is close to her own now, but there is still no detail. It is a blur, a watercolor painting left out in the rain, the shades running, blending into one another. Only the eyes remain clear; black and hungry, jealous of life. — John Connolly

If the seasons bleed into each other like a watercolor painting, it means not enough fish and berries to last the winter, not enough wood chopped for the stove, not enough meat in the freezer. One year winter came so fast and so hard, the leaves on the birch trees didn't even have time to turn yellow and fall off; they froze solid green on the branches. They clung there for months on skinny skeleton arms, the color so blindingly wrong it was creepy. Every year it's a race between the seasons, and that year fall lost. — Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

You scan the cheering bleachers for the strange boy's face: handsome, reserved, with the eye patch, a little dramatic, a little scary. You finally find him sitting there in the middle of the sixth row. He is wearing a dark green army jacket and is staring back at you. He looks sad and beautiful, like a watercolor in a hospital room. — Joe Meno

To me, that's one of the things that I love about doing this stuff. One day I can work on this piece in watercolor, and then work on something else on the computer, or work on something else that's a completely different approach. — Bill Sienkiewicz

Being creative is my idea of heaven. I'm just incredibly fortunate that I can do it in artwork. Watercolor is what I started out with. What I love about watercolor is that a lot of happy accidents occur. — Jane Seymour

Unfiltered Camels, and box of watercolor paints (and artist's paycheck) - from him we learned how to create beauty where none exists, how to be generous beyond our means, how to change a small corner of the world just by making a little dinner for a few friends. From him we learned how to make and give luminous parties. — Gabrielle Hamilton

Twitter is a place where you share your thoughts, yourself ... you don't want a plain white backdrop for that. You want the entire page to say something about who you are. Designer or not, if the urge strikes you, go for it. Put up that watercolor you've never shown anyone. Take a photo of that hat you just knitted ... whatever it is, share it. — Nate Berkus

too many suspicions or deeply seated feelings are scattered amongst memories better suited to watercolor paintings abandoned during rainstorms. — Heather Lyons

Because watercolor actually moves on the paper, it is the most active of all mediums, almost a performance art. — Nita Engle

I don't know anything about art so I can't tell you that it's watercolor or acrylic or that it's on canvas or anything art related at all. I can tell you that it's a painting of a hand, my hand, turned up and opened to the world and that it reaches into my body and rips out everything that's left. Because in the palm, right in the center, is the pearl button I never reached. — Katja Millay