I have many ways of working. One is working directly from a model or from using a still life. This I don’t arrange and then paint it immediately; I always have a very definite idea what I want to do. Sometimes it doesn’t come off immediately, sometimes it does, and this is a very satisfying thing. Other times I paint say for a whole day, and then leave it for several weeks; it might go on for months or even six weeks, taking out something, repainting again.
I very rarely make a detailed sketch of what I intend to do. I might make little thumbnail notes but never very detailed, because I feel you kill the painting you want to do.
Painting to me is like drawing; you draw with your brush or your palette knife, so whether one is using a paintbrush or watercolour or a pen, it’s all creative, and I never mind which medium I’m using.
The paintings I do are naturally things I – I’m inspired whether it’s the colour, the shape; it might be the colour of the skin of a native woman, it doesn’t matter.
I can hear myself saying things that are so trite, and they’re not really how I want to say them. This is a dreadful thing for a painter. We say it in paint, otherwise we’d be a writer or perhaps a musician, who knows?
