When I was very, very young, seven years old, I heard there was school where you could go to learn to draw. That was my absolute driven passion, to become an artist or a painter. So the romantic realist in me, I studied to be a graphic design artist and an art teacher.

I actually started as a model builder and quickly progressed into production design, which made sense because I could draw and paint. But I kept watching that guy over there who was moving the actors around and setting up the shots.

Leon Theremin's original designs are elegant, ingenious and effective. As electronics goes, the theremin is very simple. But there are so many subtleties hidden in the details of the design. It's like a great sonnet, or a painting, or a speech, that is perfectly done on more than one level.

I like to paint my own helmets. I design my own suit and boots, I like being unique in that way.

While I was at college studying design I decided to paint. I was also greatly inspired by the colours that I had seen on my travels in the Brazilian Rain forest.

I'm a big believer in the emotion of design, and the message that's sent before somebody begins to read, before they get the rest of the information; what is the emotional response they get to the product, to the story, to the painting - whatever it is.

I started painting my nails and started wearing some women's clothing, but that whole side of me always caused problems in my intimate relationships. There was a lot of shame attached to it. I'd talk to people I was dating about it but still feel ashamed.

Last year my boyfriend gave me a painting - a very personal one. I really prefer personal gifts or ones made by someone for me. Except diamonds. That's the exception to the rule.

I thought, 'How cool would it be to paint Donald Trump in Donald Trump's house with Donald Trump there.'

The Minimalists are idealist. They want to minimize themselves in favor of the ideal... But I just can't. You see, my paintings are not cool.

I'm impressed by the way some illustrators develop their images on computers, but it's too late for me to start, and I'm still in love with paper and paint and pencils.

It was a huge challenge to learn digital painting well enough so that computers don't pop into mind when one sees one.

In chess, computers show that what we call 'strategy' is reducible to tactics, ultimately. It only looks creative to us. They are still just glorified cash registers. This should make us feel uncomfortable, whether or not we think computers will ever be good composers of music or artistic painters.

I'm interested in all kinds of pictures, however they are made, with cameras, with paint brushes, with computers, with anything.

I've gotten better at calling out coverages, communication, and being vertical when they're attacking me in the paint.

I try to combine in my paintings cinematic feeling, emotional feeling, and sometimes actually writing on the page to combine all the different elements of communication.

A painting has a lot of advantages over other forms of communication. Unlike a movie, you don't have to put it into a machine and turn it on. It's just there every day. It's not limited by the element of time. It's a constant part of the home.

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

To me, it remains incomprehensible that a people who can design the Porsche 911 and sleek, white ice trains, who created the Bauhaus and speak at least three languages at birth, want to own twee Christmas figurines painted in gaudy colours, dress up in Bavarian lederhosen, and eat Haribo gummy bears.

I couldn't live on the singing at first, so I worked as a cleaner, in a launderette, in a garage, face painting and doing the windows of shops at Christmas, 'cause I had been to art college.

I love Christmas tree bulbs, and I started putting them in my paintings. You've got to plug this painting in, and it's got a rig in the back, so that each one can be replaced if it burns out.

Well, painting is the one thing I do, that is just me. It's me and easels, and the pencils. And as long as I don't drool too much over the canvas, the colors come out pretty good. And it's a chance to express all that I've got inside, that I sometimes keep hidden. And I think that's why I paint big broad, wide open landscapes.

If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.