Artsy fartsy

I took a couple of hours of charcoal painting class early this week and I think I did ok. On the second and last day before we went ahead to do our "final project", the instructor drew samples on the upright sketch-pad-board-thingee, mostly vases and apples and grapes. When he gave the signal for us to start, he also put on some latin music. Good thing I had some mp3's in my phone and earphones with me to drown out what was to me distracting. When it was time to leave and I was able to look at what my classmates had drawn, I saw a gray sea of vases and apples. I slid my board inside my bag and left the class, the instructor was surrounded by a handful of people asking some more questions about technique.
I had a hard time with the cheese- I drew that first on the board. Does it look like cheese? The "craters" were hard to shade and make appear to be depressions on the surface. And then I worked on the mouse and lastly the cord. Here's a caricature I drew of my sister way back in 1994. I used to really like drawing, besides writing; and when I dropped out of Ateneo College, I tried to go to U.P. College of Fine Arts. I took the talent test and on the day of the test, I was late and sat at the back of maybe more than a hundred people. I could barely see the statue we were supposed to draw, being near-sighted, so I did a sort of an abstract impression. Of course I didn't pass.