The three horizontal bands at the top [ in his collage: landscape with paintings 1954] correspond to sea, sand and sky, while the yellow/white and re… - Ellsworth Kelly

Instead of making a picture that was an interpretation of a thing seen, or a picture of invented content, I found an object and 'presented' it as itself alone. My first object was 'Window' [Museum of Modern Art, Paris], done in 1949. After constructed 'Window' with two canvases and a wood frame I realized that from then on painting as I had known it was finished for me. The new works were to be objects, unsigned, anonymous.

I made it from just three lines in less than a minute. It was the first of the series [Water lily drawings, Kelly made in 1968; he admired the Waterlilies paintings of Monet that got the weight right. My eye followed my hand. Then I did all the others, but this was the best.

Soon after completing the 'La Combe' series [circa 1950] I had a dream in which I was assisted by many children on a scaffold, painting a huge mural made up of square panels fitted together. Each panel was being painted by a child very quickly in long black strokes with huge brushes. The work was done in seconds. Upon waking I immediately made a reminder sketch of the mural. Later I made a drawing of many ink strokes, which I cut up into twenty squares and placed at random in a four-by-five grid..