It took me like 3 hours to finish the shading on your upper lip.

This is better than what I did.

The thing about being good at something is that in most cases a certain amount of  practice is needed. Not in all circumstances, my husband is a shining example. He truly is blessed with the gift of art.  Myself, not so much.  I'm not bagging on myself in any way here but I know my limitations.  I love that I am a  wildly creative, crafting machine.  I hand sewed my Halloween costume a few years a ago and had absolutely no idea how to sew.  I'm sure Tim Gunn would of had a few technical issues with my seamstress skills but that's okay.  I love that I get an idea in my head and do it.  I do eat, drink, live, breath art.   I am a cliche and have absolutely no problem with that.
I guess the thing about art is generally at a young age you like it or you don't.  All kids do it. Some do it more than others and some do it better.  Some are told , "You should be an artist." after displaying their innate ability to color within the lines. It's kind of  a weird thing to have that said to you at such a young age.  Nobody says to kids playing with trucks in the dirt, "Hey your really good at moving dirt with those trucks, that's what you should do for a living.  I guess it's always been there in the back of my head, 'yeah, I'll probably be an artist one day.' Whatever that meant.  I actually wanted to study Marine Biology.  Some of the best high school memories I have are watching the old  Jaqcues Cousteau movies. This might explain my love for the movie  'The life Aquatic with Steve Zissou'   But Jaqcues was my first day dream for my life. Scratchy french subtitles and someone so happy to be doing what he loved.  I don't know why I didn't pursue it in college.  I guess I knew I was romanticizing it and perhaps knew that I would not be on a vessel at sea for months at a time but instead, in a lab comparing levels of saline from one test tube to another. No, thanks.
I  studied a lot of different things in college but loved art history the most.  Its through art history I learned about religion, war, government and politics.  Not in history or government classes. What a bore  that had no place in my life.  I think with all people trying to learn new things, if it's proposed to you in a way that you care about you are more apt to understand it.
Now, to the problem at hand, drawing.  I can't even begin to remember how to do that.  It feels to me that drawing always had a certain progression in the art world.  A chronology if you will.  As a kid, crayons. Then maybe some finger paints if you weren't a little jerk and ruin the walls with said crayons.  Then as a young adult the exciting word of graphite, colored pencils, charcoal.  Maybe later, chalk and oil pastels.  Then you start to paint, usually water color first, tempera, acrylic and finally the coup de grac,e oil paint.  Later, Spray paint, stone carving, pottery, glass,  fabric arts, encaustic, etching,  printmaking, metal-smithing,  black-smithing, anything and everything.  The anything and everything was my approach.  I settled on a few things that really make me happy and am confident in the fact that I will always be in school.  Always learning new things.
I tried to draw again yesterday morning.  What A colossal fail that was.  It's a fine line between forcing creativity and practicing to get better.  It felt super forced and contrived.  There I was with my makeshift sill-life. Blah.  and that's what happened. Blah. After taking a day to process what happened, I'm okay with it.  I'm at a point in my life where I don't want to do a rendering of a yellow flower in a vase. Who does? I would rather bend metal with pliers. I would rather felt wool. I would rather feel clay between my fingers.  I would rather sew.

The New Book.

However I do realize drawing needs to be revisited. I just need to make it applicable to my current life.   Then last night in class an opportunity presented itself.  Without even looking for it, a fellow jeweler showed me a book that happened to be for sale at the studio we were working at.  Fate. A book of Jewelry Illustration. I think this just may work.  I can already tell it will suck for the most part as it is all technical and mathy and nerdy.  Isn't it human response to stay in our comfort zone?  This is not my comfort zone but I do realize it is important.  Damn it. Wish me luck.