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.

It has been difficult to hold onto many paintings but I have retained a few. Possibly the current favorite is titled 'Big Band' completed in 2005. It measures 13 feet x 9 feet. It has 18 nearly life size recognizable portraits of the biggest jazz stars that I knew and saw perform in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s and includes Wynton Marsalis.

I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work.

No, I never had any dreams. The process of art is a dream in itself. The artist just doesn't... you work out something. It's yours. You don't have to go to sleep to do that. You do that on the canvas.

I've got the public. I don't care about the critics. I did at one time. I don't any more. I did when I needed compliments. But if you get a lot of compliments, you don't need a critic to tell you, 'This should be done another way.'

Eating is one of the great beauties in life. One of my favorite recreations... eating with friends, the service, the ambience.

But 'Playboy' was liberating. I was drawn to it and went for it full throttle.