"How long have you painted?"

It wasn't the question.  It was the looks on their faces when I answered, "Since the first class", the surprise they voiced, my realization that they thought I'd been doing this difficult frustrating thing for years.

It didn't take away the impatient irritation I felt with myself today after muddling a white oak into a form the teacher and I agreed was best described as a melted tree.  It certainly doesn't clear up the confusing graphite maze that is supposed to become a photorealistic rendering of a place I loved--I still look at the crazy mixed up scribblings on the watercolor sheet stretched on the board as if I wasn't the one who drew every molecule onto its surface.  No, that question can't perform magic.

Well, in fact, maybe it did.  The question was spoken and confidence bloomed where discouragment and impatience with myself had been.

Photorealism class is tomorrow.