I usually start by doing one or more color studies of the subject on a piece of canvas taped to cardboard.

Most beginners are too anxious for results. Real progress takes place over a long period of time.

I always work directly from life, partly because I really enjoy having an interaction with the person in front of me but also because I love having a direct response to shape and color.

Leaving some areas less finished in a painting, or more out of focus than others, allows the imagination to finish them and gives more importance to the detailed parts.

Nothing is more beautiful than a line that brings out a form.

You have to evolve as an artist, and this is really a lifelong process.

A painting has its own existence and reality, and I make changes freely to meet the painting's needs. This sometimes takes me in another direction.

Cats sleep in a state of total abandon, and I find that state very interesting in people as well.

Sometimes working on one painting will help solve a problem in another painting.

Everything in painting is about relationship, so I judge each area by its relationship to the surrounding areas.

Artists make things so much easier for themselves when they learn to trust their eyes.

feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal

If you open your heart and become like a child, you will always be blissful, always content.

A heart full of courage and cheerfulness needs a little danger from time to time, or the world gets unbearable.

The Jewish part of me is superstitious.

I dont meet many people who are talking about shows on Showtime.

Nothing is lasting but change; nothing perpetual but death.

The thing is, 75 percent of design today is absolutely outdated. It all has to be redesigned with the materials and knowledge that we now have. We know so much more than what we are doing.

Buying cheap to save money is like stopping the clock to save time. Neither works.

[Al] Franken is left-wing and funny. He's a pretty good political humorist.

I say not one penny more to countries that are burning our flag.