15 Quotes by Kimon Nicolaides

The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will beable to correct them.

Technique should be taught, not as an end in itself, but as somethingrelated to individual expression, as a means toward an end. One cannotseparate technique from expression. There is only expression.

All that you need in the way of technique for drawing is bound up in thetechnique of seeing - that is, of understanding, which after all is mainlydependent on feeling. If you attempt to see in the way prescribed by anymechanical system of drawing, old or new, you will lose the understanding ofthe fundamental impulse. Your drawing becomes a meaningless diagramand the time so spent is wasted.

The first function of an art student is to observe, to study nature.

Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see – to see correctly – and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.

The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them.

To understand theory is not enough. Much practice is necessary...

When we use numbers we are using symbols, and it is only when we transfer them to life that they become actualities. The same is true with drawing and painting. They are to be learned, not as rules, but as actualities. Then the rules become appropriate.

Committing oneself to a technique causes stagnation.