Professional Artist Quotes

I went through a phase where people would introduce me at parties as a cartoonist, and everybody felt sorry for me. 'Oh, Matt's a cartoonist.' Then people further feeling sorry for me would ask me to draw Garfield. Because I'm a cartoonist, draw Snoopy or Garfield or something.

At art college, I started to do music and then painting and drawing - and that would have been my ideal life, to be an artist and be paid for it, to be able to create stuff. I realized it was difficult, but I don't know if I had the application for it.

Cartoonists are untrained artists, while illustrators are more trained.

I used to draw and illustrate, but I don't do that anymore because I just like to write. I like to leave the illustrations to actual professional illustrators.

In my youth I dreamed of being an illustrator.

My father came from a Quaker family. His father was a professional artist who did portraits - very traditional, a lot of religious subjects.

I'm still awaiting the idea of drawing comics for a living being a reality. I feel like I've been dodging work for 20 years, and at some point, I'll have to get a real job.

I had two major activities as a child. I was trying to put on shows with kids in my street, or I was drawing. Actually, what I'm doing now is exactly what I was doing then. Either I'm drawing, or I'm gathering people for a common project. The only difference is that now they are paying me for that.

I am a commercial artist because I paint to earn a living. We who earn money from what we produce are all commercial artists.

My older sister achieved her dream of being an artist. She's an illustrator living in Manhattan.

I was delivering papers when I was, like, 10 or 11, and I'd always daydream about being an artist as a full-time thing.

If I could have drawn a cat yelling for lasagna every day for 15 years and have them pay me $30 million to do so, I would have.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I'll share the formula I learned while forging my way forward as a full-time painter for forty-four years. The steps all break down to one simple sentence: Make art that connects with enough folks for you to earn a splendid living.

I've always wanted to make a career in the arts, and I think that my only hope at doing that is to make it more about the work.

The oldest of the arts and the youngest of the professions.

I always wanted to be an artist, but I didn't really know how someone could make a life out it.

For most of my career I did one comic a day, every day, including weekends and holidays.

As soon as I got into music, I tried to be a working, real artist who gets paid for what he does, who doesn't have a day job.

And the part about being a professional artist is that you can tell, and you can do it over again, even if you can't say how you got there exactly.

I was really serious about painting, so I could never be a Sunday painter. You can't just switch it on and off.

I feel like, to have a career as an artist, you don't need to meet the same criteria as you do to win a singing competition. They're two very different animals.

I don't think you have to earn your income as an artist to be an artist. But if you are an artist, then art is what you do, whether or not you're paid for doing it; it is what you do, not what you are. I regard artist not as a description of temperament but as a category of profession, of vocation.

As an undergraduate I held many small jobs as an illustrator.

In 1984, I was contacted by Michael Taylor, who had won a commission from a sponsor and decided he would like to paint a picture of me. I agreed to do it, because I'm not unused to sitting for portraits: my father was a commercial artist and I used to model for him.

I'm an entertainer, and I'm paid as an entertainer.