“Why do you make me do this?” I demanded, pacing back and forth in a tight circle before our easels. “You know I’m incompetent at landscapes.”
Will continued to focus on his own efforts, leaning toward his canvas as he applied the paint on his brush to some detail. “Because you have skills yet to learn.”
“But I don’t want to paint landscapes,” I insisted, growing angrier in the face of his calm. “I don’t care if I know how.”
He sat back to study his efforts. “Perhaps. But there are still elements that can be learned from painting a landscape that apply to a portrait or a still life.”
I planted my hands on my hips. “Such as?”
He glanced up at me for the first time since my outburst and I felt my cheeks heat under his regard. “Light and shadow. The tone and depth of your hues. Texture.”
I frowned. “I can learn those just as easily on a portrait.”
He shook his head. “How will you learn the way sunlight affects your subjects? The way it saturates color or distorts texture?” I opened my mouth to protest, but he continued on before I could speak, lifting his eyebrows in silent chastisement. “And don’t tell me that all of your portraits will be composed inside. What if one day you are asked to paint a subject on a terrace or beside a window?” I snapped my mouth shut, angry that I had to concede this point. He turned back toward his canvas. “All of the skills you will study while painting landscapes will translate to your portraits.”
I watched him for a moment, frustration simmering inside me like the water heating in a teakettle. “But I’m not any good at it,” I blurted out.
Will looked up at me again, as calm and unruffled as before. “Do you have to be?”
I watched the way the wind ruffled his too-long hair across his forehead and considered his words. “But it’s not any fun to do something I’m not good at.”
The corners of his handsome mouth quirked upward into a smile. He set aside his paintbrush and rose from his stool. “And, ignoring your previous drawing master’s idiotic comments, you have been good at everything else you’ve tried to paint, haven’t you? Even as a small child, I bet you could draw far better than most adults.”
I hesitated, knowing it was impolite to brag.
His grin widened. “It’s all right. You can speak the truth.”
“Yes,” I admitted.
Humor danced in his eyes. “Well, I’m sorry to tell you, but it was inevitable that you should come up against something that gave you trouble. Even geniuses and prodigies have their weak points. The trick is not to let those bothersome bits stop you. Persevere and you’ll be better all around for the effort.”
I looked up into Will’s soft gray eyes and wondered at what he’d had to persevere. Little as I knew about it, Will had shown me that war was a terrifying, difficult thing. And I knew he had struggled, still struggled every day to leave it behind.
The amusement faded from his eyes and his smile turned sad, as if he understood exactly where my thoughts had taken me. “Now, see here,” he said, pointing to the leaves of my trees. “Your sense of shade and definition have improved significantly in just the past few weeks. I noticed it in the portrait of Mrs. Caldwell you’ve been working on.”
I blinked at the blurs of foliage on my canvas. “Really?”
“Most definitely.”
I gestured to the painting. “But the forest still looks dead. Like a flattened, lifeless slug.”
He chuckled. “Oh, it’s not quite so bad as that. Even your worst efforts are far better than most can ever aspire to. But in any case, you don’t want to paint landscapes. You said so yourself.” He tilted his head and smiled, chiding me gently. “So stop worrying so. Approach them as the exercises they are, and concentrate on your brushstrokes, the play of light.” He gestured to the admittedly lovely panorama around us. “And enjoy the sunshine. You spend far too much time cooped up in your smelly studio.”
I sighed, willing to concede that point. “It is easier to breathe out here.”
He laughed outright and I felt a flush of pleasure at the sound. It was deep and husky, and far too rare.
“I imagine so,” he murmured, bending over to pick up my brush. Blades of grass stuck to the paint-smeared tip. “Now,” he said, handing it to me, “study the way the sunlight glistens off that stream and try to re-create it.”
I glanced at the flat blue-gray strip of water depicted on my canvas and nodded.
Will truly had been an excellent teacher. Patient, understanding, and far better at motivating me to do the things I didn’t want to do than anyone had been since I had outgrown the care of my nursemaid.