Ellsworth Kelly Draw Quotations

Shading is more like copying. And certainly I do copy, but I'm making drawings, and I'm not trying to make them with the shading.

My drawings have to be quick. If they don't happen in 20 minutes or a half hour, then they're no good.

All my work begins with drawings.

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

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.

In drawing, I don't erase. I believe the original gesture has to be the best.

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.

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.

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.'

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

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.