Get inspiration from artists' quotes the whole year round with this free, printable Painting Calendar for 2008. The calendar features quotes by, among others, Cezanne, Leonardo da Vinci, and Renoir. It also gives the topic for the painting project of each month and features a handy tick-box for keeping track of which days in a month you painted (or not).
Use the links below to print the calendar one month at a time or print the full 2008 calendar. (It's in .pdf format, without ads.)
January's quote is from Cezanne: "An art which isn't based on feeling isn't an art at all ... feeling is the principle, the beginning and the end; craft, objective, technique, all these are in the middle."
February's quote is from Lucien Freud: "The painter makes real to others his inner-most feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt."
March's quote is from Leonardo da Vinci: "Shadows which you see with difficulty,
and whose boundaries you cannot define ... these you should not represent as finished
or sharply defined, for the result would be that your work would seem wooden."
April's painting quote is from the Impressionist painter Renoir: "There isn't a single person or landscape or subject which doesn't possess some interest, although it may not be immediately apparent. When a painter discovers this hidden treasure, other people are immediately struck by its beauty."
May's painting quote comes from perhaps the most famous Impressionist painter of them all, Monet: "I've caught this magical landscape and it's the enchantment of it that I'm so keen to render. Of course lots of people will protest that it's quite unreal, but that's just too bad."
June's painting quote comes from the creator of the Dilbert cartoons, Scott Adams: "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."
July's painting quote comes from Pissaro, a painter who was a great friend of the post-Impressionist painter, Cezanne, and who is usually grouped with the Impressionists but doesn't fit there neatly, having too much of his own style: "Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression."
August's painting quote comes from the artist whose most famous painting is The Scream, Edvard Munch: "At different moments you see with different eyes. You see differently in the morning than you do in the evening."
September's painting quote comes from Matisse: "Creation is the artist's true function. But it would be a mistake to ascribe creative power to an inborn talent. Creation begins with vision. The artist has to look at everything as though seeing it for the first time."
October's painting quote is from Cezanne: "Style is not created through servile
imitation of the masters; it proceeds from the artist's own particular way of feeling
and expressing."
November's painting quote is from that master pastel painter, Degas: "A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people."
December's painting quote is from the influential 19th century art critic John Ruskin: "What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination,
and third, their industry."