Some old trout (my drawing)

[Flummery]

All this just so I can put blodges of colour on page to represent plants hehe

But they'll be artistic blodges!

[SueA]

You look as though you're really concentrating in you portrait Piskie! I think it's a great effort, you just could add a little bit more detail in it, as some of the others have said if you used a softer pencil to smudge in some light & shade, put the 'apples' in your cheeks etc. I like to draw with pencils & generally use softer ones, to stop unwanted smudging I just put a paper tissue over the bits I've done & try not to move it around too much with my hand.

[bobleponge]

But a beautiful resplendent rainbow trout.

As I cant draw a straight line with a ruler, I have no artistic tips to give, but plenty of encouragement.
Well done indeed, lovely eyes, and certainly not far from your photo/avatar.

[HeyWayne]

I've always struggled with "art" being seen as an accurate visual representation of another's view.

One of the most valuable lessons I learnt whilst studying art is that anyone can draw - absolutely anyone.

Trouble is, that lots of people see being able to "draw/paint" as being able to recreate what they see visually on a page/canvas.

If you look a little deeper at your drawing you have concentrated hard on the eyes and hair. I'd suggest that the image is a far better representation of your person than just the pencil lines on the paper. I was always much more impressionist than renaissance.

I always cringe when I hear "arty" types talking about art - it all sounds like bs to me, and its worsened by the fact that I used to do it. I guess I'm akin to an ex-smoker surrounded by smokers.

All that said, I'd say it's a very good drawing - just don't get caught up in trying to re-create an exact replica - some things can't be counterfeited.

[HeyWayne]

As I cant draw a straight line with a ruler, I have no artistic tips to give, but plenty of encouragement.

Straight is the line of duty, Curved is the line of beauty.

Something that I remember someone saying to me once - it stuck.

[piskieinboots]

Thanks so much - it really is appreciated

[Mikey]

Snowdrop bought me a set of charcoals at the weekend - they are still unsharpened ... sooooo new soooo scary!!

All this just so I can put blodges of colour on page to represent plants hehe

Charcoal used to scare me to be honest, I love fine detail and charcoal is so permanent, so little room for error.

Its good to pick a simple subject matter when using charcoal first, something like a bowl of fruit or even just a simple apple. It gets you used to smudging creating depth and tone without worrying so much about form. Its also very quick, so if you make a mistake you can start again without much concern over having spent hours to get to where you were.

I used to take about 4 hours to generate a half decent self portrait with a harder pencil, but a softer 2 or 4b could be achieved in about half the time.

A friend of mine used to create dog portraits with hard pencils and could take anything upto 80 hours. He used to create a basic outline and then concentrate on an area of about a square inch at a time, I couldn't get my head around the concept but who am I to question he used to be a fine artist for wedgewood.

As long as you enjoy what you are doing that is all that matters piskie, and have a go at everything. I used to love life drawing you had a fixed time frame to create a piece and charcoal was a great medium for this. Get yourself a putty rubber they are great at removing fine lines in charcoal, or creating light reflections.

[Two_Sheds]

Get yourself a putty rubber

or use a piece of cheap white bread

We used to, as an exercise, have to cover an A1 piece of paper in charcoal, then draw into it with a rubber (way messy )

One day our evil art teacher set up a still life of 30 black umbrellas - man I hated that day

[HeyWayne]

Have a look at Alberto Giacometti pisk - my favourite artist. A master of reworking - a mistake isn't always a mistake and rubbing it out isn't always necessary...