The idea of painting a landscape across several panels came from Hampton Court, where Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar run as nine separate canvases along the walls. You can’t take them in all at once. You move along them a section at a time, and the picture builds as you go. I wanted a landscape that

Most of my paintings start the same way: I go out with a sketchbook and a camera, find a spot, and draw. Mortimer Lake at Dusk began this way too, with a series of drawings of the old viaduct — standing there, working directly from what was in front of me. Back in the studio,