John French Sloan
John French Sloan
John French Sloanwas a twentieth-century painter and etcher and one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known for his urban genre scenes and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often observed through his Chelsea studio window. Sloan has been called "the premier artist of the Ashcan School who painted the inexhaustible energy and life of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth2 August 1871
CountryUnited States of America
Every good picture leaves the painter eager to start again, unsatisfied, inspired by the rich mine in which he is working, hoping for more energy, more vitality, more time - condemned to painting for life.
Don't be stingy with your paint, it isn't worth it.
Be sensitive to your mistakes. Put it on the wall for a couple of weeks. It may be that you can learn more from the study of your own work than from others.
Study the great brush drawings of the Chinese and Japanese... When we try to imitate their conventions for perspective, form and texture we lose the content, because those artists were part of an ancient tradition. Our tradition changes rapidly, our schools of thought come to fruition quickly and decay again. We see differently.
There is a better chance of getting an exciting painting from a laboured study with texture than from a fine drawing without it.
The great black and white draftsman, the sculptor, and the blind man know that form and color are separate. The form itself is what the blind man knows...Color is surface skin that fits over the form.
Find your own technique.
When painting a landscape it is desirable to walk through the clumps and around the bushes, around the trees, the houses and the rocks. Familiarizing yourself in this way with the subject, you will get a better concept of the thing and not a visual and false snapshot.
The artist does not see both eyes alike. There is always 'the eye' and the other eye... It adds life and plasticity to the drawing if the eye in the light is darker than the one in the shadow. It gives the head vividness.
Line is the most powerful device of drawing.
Drawing and composition are the same thing.
To play your colors by eye is worse than playing the piano by ear.
A good drawing has immense vitality because it is explanatory. In a good drawing even its faults have become virtues.
You can be a giant among artists without ever attaining any great skill. Facility is a dangerous thing. When there is too much technical ease the brain stops criticizing. Don't let the hand fall into a smart way of putting the mind to sleep.