Hello all, I'm an individual in his sophmore year of college, aspiring to move onto Graphic Arts, however lately I've been a bit depressed at some of my artwork. Some I like, and other times when I attempt to draw faster than normal I get very angry at myself and scrap it. I know patience is key, I need to stop rushing.

I've been having trouble shading/rendering. I've experimented with a variety of pencils, but I just don't know which one has the perfect balance for the potential to have strong light/dark tones for good contrast. Everytime I try to use a high # B pencil, I feel it ruins the picture completely. If I use a low # H/B, I feel it just looks so amateurish... It's hard to explain.

Here is something I drew a few months ago before this school year began.

http://th79.deviantart.com/fs32/300W/i/2008/232/b/b/Shia_Labeouf_by_highgear56.jpg

I try to experiment in Photoshop because I really would like to paint profesionaly in it one day... I just feel I have a rendering problem. It could also be my observation.

I think once I find a key highlight in an object, I focus on it but then start to add my own tones and I eventually look back and see I have overwritten other key highlights that are in the actual object... I wish I could be somewhat skilled in realism, but it's hard for me. I only hope practice helps... I was planning on honing my drawing skills everyday from this week and on in hopes to rapidly increase my drawing ability before my second semester where I may take more art associated courses.

I'm in a drawing class right now, but our prof. doesn't really teach us any technique, she just emphasizes on contrast and highlighting. She doesn't teach us any rendering techniques, she just makes us draw terribly boring still lives every week, and to make it worse, no matter how unfirnished it seems, she just says to keep going and work on contrasts.

My bottom line and request, does anyone know where I may find good rendering techniques? And which pencils everyone prefers? I would really like to start a career in the arts but I'm a little anxious and nervous about my ability compared to others. I know we have our own styles, but for some reason lately I really try to compare my work with realism, and I haven't developed good enough skills for realism I feel yet.

Sorry for the long walls of text! My main question was my last paragraph. Thanks!

Techniques,  like  'painting/drawing style'  is something that we usually have to discover on our own and is normally found by studying , practice and most important patience .
As for which pencils to use , that varies with what you are trying to achieve,. No one pencil usually works for all aspects of a drawing . Experiment with  a variety and then just use what ever works for what you are wanting to do and you like the looks of.

 Patience and practice and experimenting is  the key and very important . Patience for getting  through the learning process , and practice , practice until you find what works . Experiment with different pencils and degrees of shading  , Plus , use a photo or model with the lighting/shadows that you want to portray so that you can see the depth of each shadow and the degree of  light .

Pearl