I started doing cartoons when I was about 21. I never thought I would be a cartoonist. It happened behind my back. I was always a painter and drawer.
The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn.
Why do writers write? Why do actors act? Why do painters paint? It doesn't pay much, unless you're very successful. It's who we are.
The term 'renaissance man' is always bandied about. I don't think that applies to me. You think about Leonardo da Vinci, and he was a painter and a physicist and an architect, and that is a true renaissance man.
I think there are a lot of pictures to make. I sometimes question whether I'm even an artist or just a painter. To me, the making of the pictures is the most important thing.
But I was in awe of the painters; I mean I was new in New York, and I thought the painting that was going on here was just unbelievable.
Thanks to a hacker known as Guccifer who wormed into the computer of the 43rd president's sister, the world has learned that George W. Bush is an amateur - I would say serious amateur - painter.
When I was in high school, I was going to be a painter because I had a facility for painting. I could do it, but I didn't have anything to say in that medium.
Painters have always needed a sort of veil upon which they can focus their attention. It's as though the more fully the consciousness is absorbed, the greater the freedom of the spirit behind.
You've got a movie where the pro-choice family gives their daughter no choice. The pro-life family murders. What seems to be the good mother, the kind of hippie painter, sweet and cute mother has no love for her daughter really.
When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich.
I am just doing photo shoots. It's not something that extraordinary. I'm not a great artist, I'm not writing books, I'm not a painter, and people in the streets ask me for a picture or a note, and I say, 'Why?'
It's a marvellous life, a gregarious life that we've had. We're very lucky in that way. Unlike writers or painters, we don't sit down in front of a blank canvas and say, 'How do I start? Where do I start?'
I wanted to be a painter when I was a kid. And then, I had to make a living. I had a child when I was in high school, so I kind of had that work phase in my life.
I think it's really the job of the composer, the artist, the painter, the writer to present people with options. I'm just really reflecting the thoughts and actions around me.
I'm a much better filmmaker than painter. But studying it did make me visually acute and taught me lessons like being economic: Say something once and you don't have to say it again.
The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.
San Francisco has long been a leader in the arts, nurturing generations of painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, playwrights, film-makers, and performing artists and innovators of every kind.
If the world would only build temples to Machinery in the abstract then everything would be perfect. The painter and sculptor would have plenty to do, and could, in complete peace and suitably honored, pursue their trade without further trouble.
Because I'm so busy and because I think of myself as a painter, I desperately guard the time that I have to paint. And sometimes I'm irresponsible to my career in order to paint. Because painting is obsessive. I forget to eat. I forget to sleep.
I draw all the time. Drawing is my backbone. I don't think a painter has to be able to draw, I just think that if you draw, you better draw well.
