limitation
Limitations are really good for you. They are a stimulant. If you were told to make a drawing of a tulip using five lines, or one using a hundred, you’d have to be more inventive with the five. After all, drawing in itself is always a limitation. It’s black and white, or line or not line, charcoal, pencil, pen. You might have a bit of color—but if you can use only three colors, you’ve got to make them look whatever color you want. What did Picasso say? “If you haven’t got any red, use blue.” Make blue look like red.
A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney, by Martin Gayford (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2011), 100.
The worst walls are the ones you put there—you build yourself. Those are the high ones, the thick ones, the ones with no doors…
The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York: Putnam, 1979), 227.