How Long Does it Take to Make a Picture?

A frequently asked questions at art shows is, "How long does it take for you to make a picture?" I hardly have any idea. People have encouraged me to time my pictures. But it seemed so hard to time when I sit down and work for a half hour, leave, come back for five minutes, leave, come back and work on it for the rest of the day. How do I remember to always look at the clock when I sit down and get up and then record it?

Here's my solution: I almost always listen to a CD while I work. I listen to books on CDs, which are produced by Focus on the Family Radio Theater and are done with sound effects and different voices. They have everything from biographies, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Squanto and Corrie Ten Boom to fiction such as Anne of Green Gables, A Christmas Carol, Billy Budd, Sailor and much more. So what I do is every time I sit down to work push play and every time I get up push pause. Then I make a list of everything I've listened to during a picture, look at the approximate running times on the back and add them up. So If I've listened to Les Miserables, Silas Marner and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I just add all of there times together. And that gives me a good estimate as to how long a picture took. If I don't want to listen to anything but still want to be timed I can just turn the volume all the way down.