Line Quality Quotes

How will I perform if I don't get good lines?

I like to be able to get swift curves in the plant drawings that are usually drawn in five to ten minutes.

What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist's presence makes itself felt above that of the model... With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul's style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies.

Hell, I ain't paid to make good lines sound good. I'm paid to make bad lines sound good.

I don't labor over my drawings. I want to get freedom in the line.

I work on stretched linen canvas, sized so that the surface already has a sense of tension when I begin. It is a very rich and reactive surface. I begin by drawing on the canvas with a kind of loose line, very simply and freely. I paint very thinly, which allows me to change the drawing if I want to.

When I'm constructing a poem, I'm trying to write one good line after another. One solid line after another. You know a lot of the lines - some hold up better as lines than others. But I'm not thinking of just writing a paragraph and then chopping it up.

Generally, I don't pencil, especially with the autobiographical comics, although I've usually planed out composition in my head during the scripting stage. I like to work directly in ink, to keep the spontaneity and expression conveyed by a less worked over line.

I think there's a mystery to drawing - to the weight of the lines. The sweep of a line around a corner to create an effect that someone is moving.

How does an artist know when the line that he just painted is good or not good? That's the catch. De Kooning was the greatest of my contemporaries in art, and he knew when he'd done a good line. When he didn't, he threw it away. I wish I'd thrown away some of mine.

The actual technique, the process of painting flat color and simple geometric edges, all dates from my time here on Coenties Slip.

Drawing teaches you to look at things properly and to understand form and structure.

In a painting, you can't make out whether the artist painted the left eye before the right eye. In Chinese calligraphy, you can see the progression of the artist's stroke.