Television is becoming a collage – there are so many channels that you move through them making a collage yourself. In that sense, everyone sees something a bit different. – David Hockney
As you get older, it gets a bit harder to keep the spontaneity in you, but I work at it. – David Hockney
I draw flowers every day and send them to my friends so they get fresh blooms every morning. – David Hockney
But the moment you use an ordinary camera, you are not seeing the picture, remember, meaning, you had to remember what you’ve taken. Now you could see it of course, with a digital thing, but remember in 1982 you couldn’t. – David Hockney
People tell me they open my e-mails first, because they aren’t demands and you don’t need to reply. They’re simply for pleasure. – David Hockney
It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work. – David Hockney
But, I would always be thinking of how pictures are constructed and colour, how to use it, I mean you’re using it for constructing, makes you think about it, the place did as well. – David Hockney
What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought. – David Hockney
Being able to draw means being able to put things in believable space. People who don’t draw very well can’t do that. – David Hockney
I was aware that the teaching of drawing was being stopped almost 30 years ago. And I always said, ‘The teaching of drawing is the teaching of looking.’ A lot of people don’t look very hard. – David Hockney
I was 18 when I first visited London, I’m very provincial like that, but I must confess the moment I got to America I thought: This is the place. It was more open, with 24-hour cities and pubs and restaurants that didn’t close. – David Hockney
I go and see anything that’s visually new, any technology that’s about picture-making. The technology won’t make the pictures different, but someone using it will. – David Hockney
When you stop doing something, it doesn’t mean you are rejecting the previous work. That’s the mistake; it’s not rejecting it, it’s saying, ‘I have exploited it enough now and I wish to take a look at another corner.’ – David Hockney
I’m a bit claustrophobic, I don’t like crowds, I live by the sea – that’s what I see when I come out of my house in Bridlington. – David Hockney
I stay up nights and fiddle with my opera designs. It’s a bit obsessive. That’s why I can’t do it all the time. – David Hockney
Shadows sometimes people don’t see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny. – David Hockney
And then I went round the corner and there’s a Van Gogh portrait, and you just think, well, this is another level. A higher level, actually. I love the Sargent, but it’s not the level of Van Gogh. – David Hockney