Technique is only a vehicle.
The artist can know all the technique in the world, but if he feels nothing, it will mean nothing.
Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.
Once you have really 'heard' what the artist has expressed, it is simple - and fascinating - to work back, step by step, through the technique. Thus one may share in the task of creation.
One mustn't let technique be the consciously important thing. It should be at the service of expressing the form.
You canít learn techniques and then try to become a painter. Techniques are a result.
Technique! The very word is like a shriek of outraged Art. It is the idiot name given to effort by those who are too weak, too weary, or too dull to play the game. The mighty have no theory of technique.
I cannot forbear to mention among these precepts a new device for study which, although it may seem but trivial and almost ludicrous, is nevertheless extremely useful in arousing the mind to various inventions. And that is, when you look at a wall spotted with stains, or with a mixture of stones, if you have to devise some scene you may discover a resemblance to various landscapes, beautiful with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains . . .
Technique minus soul equals zero. You might as well paint a broom as a person.
With practice the craft will come almost of itself, in spite of you and all the more easitly if you think of something besides technique.
My method is different. I don't rush into actual work. When I get a new idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination, and make improvements and operate the devise in my mind. When I have gone as far as to embody everything in my invention, every possible improvement I can think of, and when I see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form the final product of my brain.
