ART- Drawing, Painting, and Photography. - The Artist's Handbook

As a young child I remember make small storybook, and drawings during class. At the time those pieces of art seemed like masterpieces, as if Van Gogh himself had created them. Looking back from present time I realized first of all how many things I was missing, how much I’ve improved, how much creativity that was put into those drawings, and lastly how as I grew art became my outlet. My relations with art had always been a hate love relationship because the amount of patients it took for it to look presentable, and the amount of patients I actually had, in which was little. It was through art that I had gained and done so many things.

For my IRP I chose “The Artist Handbook.” By Ray Smith, know that I had and objective and something that I wanted to improve on. The book gives off multiple methods and tricks for things like pencil drawings, water coloring, acrylics, and even photography. This book specifically could help improve as an artist, by learning not only methods but the history behind the art. For the first month I started with a basic pencil drawing, using cross hatching “which involves using intact pencil lines running in two or more different directions,” and also working with a hard led pencil to give of a feathery look to the drawing (Smith 72).  As I was creating the base of the face I figured using guideline was the easiest method to get the right proportions to the face, and while adding the details such as the eyes I followed some of the tips given by the book, and some things said by an artist I was talking to a day before. Simple guidelines such as a circle and a few boxes to help get the base turnout to be fairly helpful when creating a piece of art. What I struggled with most when drawing was making the eyes look not symmetrical but also proportional, for them to look the way they should at certain angles. 

-I myself struggle with what to make on a piece of paper or a canvas, so is there any suggestions what you can give me? Or any inspirations? 
-How does the different tones of cross hatching give a drawing depth or form?