I find it so much easier to be creatively free at night. Daytime is for sleeping. Nighttime is the best time for making art. The later at night it gets the further into another world you go.
Mark RydenThe vast amount of time it takes to make my paintings is very challenging. I have so many exciting ideas I would love to bring to a final painting, but my time-consuming technique limits the number of ideas that get to become a painting.
Mark RydenBlood is very powerful. While meat is the substance that keeps our living souls in this physical reality, blood keeps our meat alive. Blood is liquid life. When blood escapes our bodies we are alarmed to the very core of our brains. It is life leaking out of us. It is frightening and makes red a profoundly intense color.
Mark RydenI liked painting, very early on, even more than drawing. I used poster paint on posterboard. I would copy images that I liked from magazines and books and combine them to make a "collage" kind of painting. In some ways, this is similar to how I work today.
Mark RydenInspiration is the most valuable commodity for an artist; it is for me anyway. I can't move forward in any way if I don't feel a strong spark of excitement or creativity. Sometimes it is very difficult to get things flowing. It's important to be in a peaceful state of mind, and then I invite the spirits to come into the studio. I don't stare into a blank canvas or paper. I look through my various collections of books, toys, statues, photographs and other things, and something will trigger an idea. My studio is packed full of things that inspire me.
Mark Ryden