I had always planned to make a large painting of the early spring, when the first leaves are at the bottom of the trees, and they seem to float in space in a wonderful way. But the arrival of spring can't be done in one picture.

Style is something you can use, and you can be like a magpie, just taking what you want. The idea of the rigid style seemed to me then something you needn't concern yourself with, it would trap you.

I've no doubt that those photographs i took will make people look at everything in a more interesting way - the little tear on one piece of paper, the shadow on another. But good painting has always done that - made you see things. And the most ordinary can be the most extraordinary.

Who would have thought that the telephone would bring back drawing?

I think the ambiguity of similarity and difference is very powerful. It's the same scene in different times of year read across the grid, and, of course, different locations reading vertically. But you can get confused and lost in the series. You force the mind, which is always comparing and contrasting, to stumble ... That ambiguity is very powerful. One is getting lost and refinding oneself.

Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.

I'm always excited by the unlikely, never by ordinary things.