I started drawing when I was about 2, mostly pictures of my mother and my sister. When I got into school, instead of taking the notes that I should have been taking, I was drawing in all of my notebooks. It was an artwork thing for me at first.
I do covers for CDs and LPs of music that I like, reissues of old-time music, and then I'm inspired to make some kind of drawing based on this love of the music. I don't do album covers or CD covers for groups or musicians I don't like or have no interest in.
I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I'm writing a poem or drawing, I'm not a female; I'm an artist.
If I try to articulate every little detail in a drawing, it would be like missing the forest for the trees, so it's just about getting the outline of the forest.
As a child, I copied Tenniel's illustrations from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' obsessively, particularly his drawing of the white rabbit in waistcoat and frockcoat, umbrella tucked under one arm and a fob watch in paw, a look of suppressed panic in his eye.
My wife was the first art collector in the family, and I didn't become interested until around 1973. The first important artwork we bought was a Van Gogh drawing of two peasant houses in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.
On a purely personal level, it's very strange, because as a kid, Superman informed my personality. Now I've been given the job of forming Superman's personality and, in some ways, drawing on my own background.
There are times to be casual and times to be correct. It's all right to wear a sweater and slacks on a picnic, but they don't belong in the theater or the drawing room.
Telling stories with visuals is an ancient art. We've been drawing pictures on cave walls for centuries. It's like what they say about the perfect picture book. The art and the text stand alone, but together, they create something even better. Kids who need to can grab onto those graphic elements and find their way into the story.
When we were kids, I know when I saw 'Pinocchio' it had a huge impact. I was ten years old, and I went home, and I was drawing the characters.
In the studio, I don't do a lot of work that requires repetitive activity. I spend a lot of time looking and thinking and then try to find the most efficient way to get what I want, whether it's making a drawing or a sculpture, or casting plaster or whatever.
None of us knew what this power plant looked like. We had no schematic drawing.
In pre-school, I was drawing dinosaurs - I was huge into dinosaurs. I wanted to be a paleontologist, not a cartoonist or a filmmaker or anything like that - just a paleontologist. So I would draw dinosaurs.
Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.
The subject of the lesson itself should not become more important that the underlying basis. Drawing thus provides first the written forms of letters and then their printed forms. Based on drawing, we build up to reading.
'The Next Wave' started as a drawing for a new silkscreen fine art print. I ended up doing the prints digitally because the water-based inks were better for the environment than the oil based inks. So, I learned about the Epson digital printers to get the image I wanted.
In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better.
The federal government shouldn't be drawing lines on a map in terms of what transit infrastructure are needed; we should be there to be a partner with the cities, with the provinces, that need that.
The thing is when you're... well-enough known, you get asked to speak places, and they don't really think about whether or not you're qualified. They just want somebody that will be a drawing card for the audience. So it's up to you to decide whether or not it's foolish to get up and speak to these people.
I work on stretched linen canvas, sized so that the surface already has a sense of tension when I begin. It is a very rich and reactive surface. I begin by drawing on the canvas with a kind of loose line, very simply and freely. I paint very thinly, which allows me to change the drawing if I want to.
