David Hockney has died at 88 — so let's talk about the artist who taught me you don't paint water, you decide what it is.

His swimming pools look effortless. That famous splash? About a week of tiny brushes to look that instant — the most spontaneous thing in the picture was the most worked. We get into the pools, the trick of painting water, and the grey Yorkshire wool town that made the great painter of California blue (yes, we're explaining Bradford). Plus the part I love most: a man who painted masterpieces, then started drawing on an iPad with his thumb at 71 — because tools don't make pictures, people do.

Art is made, not born. Hockney just happened to make it with a diving board.