Charles Webster Hawthorne quotes:

Get into the habit of doing what you see, not what you know. Human reason cannot foresee the accidents of out-of-doors.

By having the big lines of the composition going out of the canvas, your imagination can wander beyond the edge. It will make it seem part of a large composition.

Each day has its own individuality of color.

Swing a bigger brush - you don't know what you're missing.

Realize the value of putting down your first impression quickly.

Paint what you see, not what you know.

The ring, the call, the surprise, the shock that you have out-of-doors - be always looking for the unexpected in nature, do not settle to a formula.

If you look into the past of the successful painter you will find square miles of canvas behind him.

Study continuously, developing yourself into a better person, more sensitive to things in nature. Spend years in getting ready.

Chase used to say, 'When you're looking at your canvas and worrying about it, try to think of your canvas as the reality and the model as the painted thing.'

There is an aesthetic excitement about painting which is one of the most beautiful experiences that can be. Put things down while you feel that joy.

To see things simply is the hardest thing in the world.

Spend a lifetime in hard work with a humble mind.

See what you can do with your daring with color and your ignorance mixed with it.

Paint with freedom. It gives you more mastery of the nature of paint.

Do studies, not pictures. Know when you are licked - start another. Be alive, stop when your interest is lost.

Put off finish as it takes a lifetime - wait until later to try to finish things - make a lot of starts.

Do not let it look as if you reasoned too much. Painting must be impulsive to be worth while.

In his attempt to develop the beauty he sees, the artist develops himself.

Painting is just like making an after-dinner speech. If you want to be remembered, say one thing and stop.

The successful painter is continually painting still life.

It is so much better to make a big thing out of a little subject than to make a little thing out of a big one.

The world is waiting for men with vision - it is not interested in mere pictures.

Keep this little canvas, it is a promise for the future. When I say 'keep this canvas,' I mean for the influence on yourself. When one does a good thing, it's well to keep it to show how foolish we are at other times.

Have as much fun as you can and don't feel that the edge of your canvas confines you - let your vision go right on.

The value of a canvas depends almost entirely on your mental attitude, not on your moral attitude; depends on what kind of a man you are, the way you observe.

Anything under the sun is beautiful if you have the vision it is the seeing of the thing that makes it so.

Try to do ugly things so that you make them beautiful... The more delicate the thing is in nature the more one must look for the solemn note. Color in nature is never pretty, it's beautiful.

If you are not going to get a thrill, how can you give someone else one? You must feel the beauty of the thing before you start.

A sketch has charm because of its truth - not because it is unfinished.

Man-made things, buildings, boats, etc., we see more decidedly than the other things in a landscape.

It is so hard and long before a student comes to a realization that these [first] few large simple spots in right relations are the most important things in the study of painting. They are the fundamentals of all painting.

Put variety in white.

The mechanics of putting one spot of color next to another, that is the fundamental thing.

Avoid distant views, paint objects close up. If the foreground is well done the distance will take care of itself.

We must all teach ourselves to be fine, to be poets.

Be humble about it. Paint the color tones as they come against each other, and make them sing, vibrate. Don't ask me to look at those self-satisfied, pretty things.