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While sincerity and over-anxiety can spoil a picture, through superfluous elaboration and unnecessary correction, the carelessness that would leave it in an unfinished state is even more reprehensible.

Walter J. Phillips

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Walter J. Phillips
Age: 78 †
Born: 1884
Born: October 25
Died: 1963
Died: July 5
Painter
Wood Carver
Barton-upon-Humber
Lincolnshire
Walter Joseph Phillips
Walter Phillips
Phillips
States
Finishing
Even
Spoil
Elaboration
Would
Sincerity
Reprehensible
Unnecessary
Carelessness
Anxiety
Correction
Picture
Corrections
Leave
Superfluous
State
Unfinished

More quotes by Walter J. Phillips

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Many of the old masters of watercolour painted from notes, with enthusiasm either unabated or renewed. It is hard to assume the same degree of concentration in the studio, but not impossible.
Walter J. Phillips
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It is the sense of unfamiliar envelopment that is impressive, whether in the living grays of hoarfrost, the crimson of the heavens at sunset, or the golden suffusions of autumn.
Walter J. Phillips
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When technique is obtrusive it becomes mere mannerism, a conscious striving for effect. It is only a means to an end - the manner of putting paint to paper. It hardly embraces the expressive side of painting.
Walter J. Phillips
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Take away a painter's vanity, said a famous landscape painter, and he will never touch a pencil again.
Walter J. Phillips
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The syllogism art for art's sake refers to that kind of painting which disregards, or is contrary to, public taste.
Walter J. Phillips
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In most natural scenes there is a prevailing colour, which the landscape painter must learn to identify, and which must prevail also in a slightly exaggerated form, in his painting, for the sake of truth, harmony and unity.
Walter J. Phillips
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The impression of wood-grain... must be considered, not only as regards texture and visibility, but for the occasional possibility of the expression of form. A soft wood, with hard annulations, such as fir, prints very dearly.
Walter J. Phillips
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The most admirable method is that by which each wash of colour, large or small, is never disturbed. It admits of practically no overpainting, sponging or scrubbing. The colour stays where it is put.
Walter J. Phillips
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Not only does a lens distort forms, but the ordinary plate makes an unholy mess of colour in its tone relations. Yellow becomes black, and blue white. Black sunflowers against a white sky - what a travesty!
Walter J. Phillips
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While it is emotion that gives an impulse to the landscape painter, it is his style that inspires the critic's praise, and his subject that inveigles the untutored beholder.
Walter J. Phillips
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The true artist and the sane collector never will tolerate insincerity and impudence.
Walter J. Phillips
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There must be a judicious arrangement of all the parts. Considered conversely, the artist's task is to fill his panel with a design that conforms to its shape and is beautiful in itself.
Walter J. Phillips
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Many rules for the creation of colour schemes have been published in recent years, but, while they are popular in commercial studies, I know of no creative artist who employs them. They are, per se, restrictive their use precludes any chance of adventuring in this interesting field.
Walter J. Phillips
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A landscape painting in which composition is ignored is like a line taken from a poem at random: it lacks context, and may or may not make sense.
Walter J. Phillips
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Beauty, pleasure, and the good things of life are intensified, and perhaps only exist, by reason of contrast.
Walter J. Phillips
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It is remarkable how very individual technique becomes in watercolour. Every man of personality finally arrives at a method peculiarly his own, as unique as his own fingerprint.
Walter J. Phillips
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Drawing is the representation of form - the graphic expression of a visual experience.
Walter J. Phillips
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Let it not be assumed that the artist is so smug as to dislike true criticism. No sincere artist was ever completely satisfied with his labour.
Walter J. Phillips
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It is evident that no derivative laws can teach the young student to see and apprehend colour in nature. His perception needs development as urgently as his muscles.
Walter J. Phillips
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The sincere artist is usually his own best critic, but continuous and prolonged work on one painting will sometimes dull his judgment... The critic is in demand, but he must be competent.
Walter J. Phillips