Richard Schmid (October 5, 1934) is an American realist artist.
It often takes two to do a good painting - one to paint it, and another to rap the painter smartly with a hammer before he or she can ruin it.
When we are bursting with some wordless experience, Art is our voice, the song of the heart.
There are times when I have started a work with an end in mind, but then, for one reason or another, as my picture unfolded, it emphatically suggested another direction. . . I always accept the risk and go for it. I'm convinced that at such times my painting is wiser than I am.
All great art originates from the innocent child within us expressing itself through the wisdom, experience and skill of an adult.
I honestly believe students of painting in the next century will laugh at the abstract art movement. They will marvel at such a drawn-out regression in the plastic arts.
I alone must solve my problem. I have to clear my mind of everything else, think hard, analyze, explore my options, plan a strategy for the immediate situation, and then do whatever it takes. Sometimes it means scraping off what I have done and starting over again and again.
The grandest and simplest things contain worlds within worlds. Seeing them is a matter of the right point of view, and your painter's eye is the special portal to such sights.
As painters. . . we must always remember that our precious poetic visions and spiritual insights will remain forever locked within us until we can boil them down to a complex arrangement of a few hundred or possibly even thousands of brushstrokes.
Be flexible - the order in which you introduce the elements of a painting should not be a rigid system. What worked last time may not work this time.
Don't go overboard with exotic or complex ways to paint. Stick to simple solutions, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise.
My idealism is clearly one reason I'm an artist. I see art as one of mankind's more sublime acts, as a vital counterbalance to our base impulses.
An incomplete sketch superbly executed is power.
Somewhere within all of us is a wordless center, a part of us that hopes to be immortal in some way, a part that has remained unchanged since we were children, the source of our strength and compassion. This faint confluence of the tangible and the spiritual is where Art comes from. It has no known limits, and once you tap into it you will realize what truly rich choices you have. May each painting you do from that sacred place include an expression of gratitude for the extraordinary privilege of being an artist.
Whenever I can, I paint the powerful and obvious things in my subject first.
What sets you apart from the rest of humanity is your ability to give visual form to an idea - the skill to transform it into something more than merely the insight or perception alone.
Talent, don't bother about wether or not you have it. Just assume that you do, and forget about it. Talent is a word we use after someone has become accomplished.
If we only thought of our feet as we walk, we'd miss everything else.
Don't wish for "secrets" of the masters, either. There are none worth fooling with. They had no special mediums or paints, nor special brushes that made their work great.
You can stick with a few clear-cut values, which are stronger than a multitude of values and will obviously yield a stronger painting. But not all subjects or light conditions appear that way. . . be sensible and paint with values that are appropriate and faithful to your subject.
Your rules should arise out of your passions and your experience with what works for you.