John French Sloan Drawing Quotations

Line is the most powerful device of drawing.

The important thing is to keep on drawing when you start to paint. Never graduate from drawing.

A good drawing has immense vitality because it is explanatory. In a good drawing even its faults have become virtues.

Drawing is the cornerstone of the graphic, plastic arts. Drawing is the coordination of line, tone, and color symbols into formations that express the artist's thought.

Think of drawing as a way of talking about the things that interest you. Think of those wonderful documents, drawings made on scraps of paper by the lesser Dutch masters while they were wandering around market places and sitting in saloons.

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.

Painting is drawing, with the additional means of color.

There is a better chance of getting an exciting painting from a laboured study with texture than from a fine drawing without it.

Always think of drawing, getting the forms realized, emphasizing the design.

Drawing and composition are the same thing.