My head darts back and forth between my painting and my reference material, a photograph of my grandmother taken more than fifty years ago. She looks like me, a bit, and I hope that the image I have drawn looks like her, too. I swirl my paintbrush vigorously around the water jar, then smash it around in the paint, as I approximate the shade of peach I need for the highlight on her cheeks. I soon pause a moment to hold it up to the light, comparing it to the color I have in mind. After bouncing between dark and light, bright and dull, too orange and too red, I finally get it right. I place my paintbrush in the water again, but this time I apply it straight onto the surface of the paper, creating a little puddle on the white plane. Slowly, hesitantly, I drop paint in, a drip of pink here, a dab of tan there, and watch the pigment blossom out from the contact point. Soon, I work faster, dipping my fingers into the watercolors by mistake and spattering paint on the table in my haste to cover the surface before the paint dries. I swipe my brush across the page, and I splash on more water, spread around more paint. With the addition of color, a beautiful image starts to form out of my mess of pencil scratches, eraser marks, and water spots. I breathe life into the figure through the paintbrush, and what was once plain paper becomes flesh, and lips, and two bright eyes. They look out at me, as the familiar face I have created anew animates this formerly blank page.