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" All my work comes from perceiving. I kept seeing things that were brooding in me. I'm not a geometric artist. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Work
Seeing
Things
Related Quotes:
" One of the first drawings I did in Paris - I wasn't thinking of doing drawings, but somehow or other, I kept drawing - I bought a hyacinth flower with a lot of leaves, just to make me feel like spring. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Thinking
Spring
Drawing
" In Boston, I developed my eye from the drawing. In Paris, I was fascinated by what my eye saw in the way that Paris is built, its 'measure.' "
Ellsworth Kelly
Drawing
Boston
Eye
" Geometry is moribund. I want a lilt and joy to art. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Want
Joy
Geometry
" The negative is just as important as the positive. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Negative
Just
Positive
" All my work begins with drawings. "
Ellsworth Kelly
All My Work
Begins
Drawings
" All my paintings are usually done in drawing form, very small. I make notations in drawings first, and then I make a collage for color. But drawing is always my notation. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Drawing
Small
Always
" My earliest drawing is a supposed Carracci. It wasn't very expensive, I guess, because they don't know if it's a real Carracci. But it has all these seals on it of people who've owned it, and one of the great portrait painters of England, Reynolds, had owned it, so that's the earliest. "
Ellsworth Kelly
People
Drawing
Know
" I learned my color in Europe. I've always been a colorist, I think. I started when I was very young, being a bird-watcher, fascinated by the bird colors. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Think
Been
Young
" I have trained my eye over and over ever since I was a kid. I was a bird watcher when I was a little boy. My grandmother gave me a bird book, and I got to like their colors. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Book
Bird
Boy
" I started doing sculpture in 1959. I had no commissions then. They were painted, similar in style to the paintings... At a certain point, I decided I didn't want an edge between two colors, I wanted color differences in literal space. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Differences
Style
Space
" I don't like mixed colors that much, like plum color or deep, deep colors that are hard to define. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Hard
Like
Define
" When I see a white piece of paper, I feel I've got to draw. And drawing, for me, is the beginning of everything. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Feel
Drawing
White
" I've always wanted... I wanted to give people joy. "
Ellsworth Kelly
People
Joy
Give
" The paintings to me are always canvas; sculpture has always been metal, though I have made sculpture in wood, also. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Canvas
Wood
Sculpture
" Shape and color are my two strong things. And by doing this, drawing plants has always led me into my paintings and my sculptures. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Strong
Color
Drawing
" In Paris in the late '40s, I started making my first reliefs. They are separate panels. I wanted to do something coming out of the wall, almost like a collage. I did a lot of white reliefs when I started because I liked antique reliefs, really old stuff. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Like
White
Started
" I only like artists older than myself. Time is so important. It's always been the same way, I guess. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Way
Time
Myself
" I sometimes don't try to invent something. I wait for some kind of a direction - and it happens. I get an angle, for instance, and it just appears, and I say, 'Oh my God - that's it!' "
Ellsworth Kelly
Direction
God
Say
" I was taught to draw very well when I was in school at Boston. And I grew to enjoy drawing so much that I never stopped. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Enjoy
Boston
Never
" I don't like acrylic because you can't get the density of color. And with each coat of oil paint, the surface gets better and richer. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Better
Paint
Oil
" I always felt that a painted edge between two colors was a depiction somehow. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Always
Two
Felt
" I like to be able to get swift curves in the plant drawings that are usually drawn in five to ten minutes. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Five
Get
Like
" Matisse draws what I call the essence of the plants. He leaves a shape open. He'll do a leaf and not close it. Everybody used to say, oh, I got it all from Matisse, and I said, 'Not really.' "
Ellsworth Kelly
Said
Open
Leaf
" Each drawing that I've done, I have found. Meaning, I see a plant I want to draw. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Plant
Meaning
See
" My ideas come, wh-pheww. And I draw. Just recently, when I'm searching for ideas for paintings and sculptures, I wait for ideas, and it's always visual. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Searching
Visual
Wait
" My ideas I can find anywhere. And I draw because I have to note down my ideas or flashes - I call them flashes, because they come to me, like that. Not so much in the plant drawings. I have to see them. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Me
Ideas
I Can
" My drawings have to be quick. If they don't happen in 20 minutes or a half hour, then they're no good. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Half
Then
Quick
" I'm constantly investigating nature - nature, meaning everything. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Constantly
Everything
Meaning
" I did not want windows, only skylights. I chose my painting wall as it has the best morning light. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Painting
Morning
Light
" I like silence. "
Ellsworth Kelly
Silence
Like