If a picture wasn't going very well, I'd put a puppy in it.

Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed. My fundamental purpose is to interpret the typical American. I am a story teller.

I used to sit in the studio with a copy of the (Saturday Evening) Post laid across my knees ... And then I'd conjure up a picture of myself as a famous illustrator and gloat over it, putting myself in various happy situations, surrounded by admiring females, deferred to by office flunkies at the magazines, wined and dined by the editor.

No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all his talent and feeling into them!

Travel is like a tonic to me. It's more than just getting away from the studio for a brief rest. I need it to recharge my batteries.

I talk as I sketch, too, in order to keep their minds off what I'm doing so I'll get the most natural expression I can from them. Also, the talking helps to size up the subject's personality, so I can figure out better how to portray him.

The story is the first thing and the last thing.