Quotes from Richard Schmid

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.

An incomplete sketch superbly executed is power.

The strength and clarity of the picture you envision at the start will tell you when you are done. You are finished when you have said what you wish to say, when nothing added can make it better.

All great art originates from the innocent child within us expressing itself through the wisdom, experience and skill of an adult.

Make your art a gift of inspiration to others to work toward better things.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

When we are bursting with some wordless experience, Art is our voice, the song of the heart.

Your rules should arise out of your passions and your experience with what works for you.