The Honeymoon Cabin, pencil on paper, 11×14, $400

If your drawing teacher is me, that is. These are things I would never say to a student:

1. Sorry, you don’t have any talent.
2. Doesn’t matter if your pencil isn’t sharp. Just use any old stub you can find.
3. You don’t need to be able to draw – just go start painting.
4. That pencil drawing would look great in a bright red mat!
5. How boring – don’t you want to add color to that?
6. You don’t need a photograph – just make it up.
7. Doesn’t matter what it is supposed to look like – just express yourself.

I’ve been teaching drawing lessons since 1994 and not a single one of those things has ever come out of my mouth. Okay, maybe I had someone make up grass or dirt a few times without really studying it very well, but then we had to erase it and start over again.