Lucian Freud

I never think about my style but just try and make the pictures look believable.

Whether it will convince or not, depends entirely on what it is in itself, what is there to be seen.

The picture is all he feels about it, all he thinks worth preserving of it, all he invests it with. If all the qualities which a painter took from the model for his picture were really taken, no person could be painted twice.

The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement.

Since the model he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture... it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model.

Painting is sometimes like those recipes where you do all manner of elaborate things to a duck, and then end up putting it on one side and only using the skin.