Moving Forward

I want my art to move forward and in my head I know where I want that to be....but telling my hand is not so easy! I know I want to draw and paint much smaller but to still capture expression seems difficult. I've only been drawing for a few years and only began painting in 2004 so believe me this art thing doesn't come naturally to me! Having said that I absolutely love being able to create and I can recognise my progress. When I was at school you had to be gifted artistically in order for the teachers to want to guide you...if you had no artistic talent they weren't interested. I can remember an art field trip where we all went into town and had to draw architecture, my friend was busy with her pencil and very soon had an exact drawing of the building in front of her.....I had a blank page. In art classes we were never shown how to draw a face, objects were never broken down into shapes in order to grasp the basics of drawing a subject, I yearned to be able to pick up a pencil and produce a picture. So fast forward 30 odd years and I decided to fulfill my dream and I found a wonderful teacher. I began with decorative painting...no drawing skills required as you used patterns but it did teach you brush skills. Within 3 months and 3 or 4 lessons later my teacher had put me forward for a years training with Decoart a large US paint company, they were teaching a group of people in the UK to become Helping Artists in the hope of promoting decorative painting and their products in this country. The following year I had another opportunity to train with Chroma using Jo Sonja paints and a dry brushing technique programme called Creative Possibilities. So my journey began and since then I have continued to learn by taking online classes and lots of practise. I can see so many faults with the painting above.... but I can also see where I am moving forward.