THE SITTER'S TALE

New faces at the National Portrait Gallery: the great pop artist gets his daughters in his hair

Clive just did this portrait; I didn't see it until it was done. I have always collected Clive's work - I am a great enthusiast. If I had sat for Clive there would have been yarns about it - but he just produced it. It's a nice little picture.

It was part of a series - he had completed a series of drawn portraits, then he made a series of portraits of artists using images of things about them. My portrait is from this series; he used daisies for my hair as my daughter is called Daisy, and there are stamps with the Statue of Liberty on them, after my other daughter, Liberty. I'm not sure why he put the flowers in my hair - maybe he thought I was an old hippy or something.

There's a kind of tradition of artists doing portraits of people and incorporating things about them, such as a cricket bat. It's the kind of thing you see in local exhibitions - a person with boxing gloves and a bottle of champagne, for example.

The portrait is a pretty good likeness of me as it's based on a photograph. I am not sure why he peeled back the metal with anchovy-tin keys to reveal my name - you would have to ask Clive about that.

When I'm at the Portrait Gallery with my family we always look at it - my daughters are very pleased to be in the picture as well. I have had my portrait done a number of times, and I have done quite a few self-portraits. One of mine, Self-portrait with Badges, is at the Imperial War Museum at the moment, in "From the Bomb to the Beatles", and I am in the Terence Donovan and David Bailey photography shows in London as well.

It's strange to look at different pictures of yourself - in some pictures done more recently I don't look like I'm going bald; I seem to have more hair than ever.

Peter Blake's 1983 portrait by Clive Barker hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, WC2 (0171 306 0055)