Hoping for the best

Happy new year steem fam, I'm happy we made it past another 365. I believe on the best awaits everyone of us this year.
I've decided to make amends with myself and my Art. This past year, I didn't create as much artwork as I expected and I hardly checked on my steemit account. This year, I've pledged to do better by creating atleast 2 new artworks each month and posting more often.

With that being said, here's an artwork I finished a week before I waved bye to 2021

Title: Untitled
Size: 16 * 18
Materials: charcoal pencil, blending smudge, brushes, graphite Pencils( hb and 4b), charcoal powder, eraser.

I didn't give it a title because I was trying to learn a few things with this piece like free hand sketching, detailing and shading values. From the look of it, I still have to work on my free hand sketching and detailing.

Started out by creating my sketch with my graphite pencil (hb pencil)

I used the scribbling technique to apply my charcoal on the hair section so I could have that curly hair texture, then used a cut piece of eraser to dab all over the section to give it the realistic texture.

I used my blending smudge to blend the shaded charcoal on the forehead section after I had smoothen the surface with my brush.

Here's a where my brush really came through for me, it smoothened the charcoal strokes for better layering

The little piece of eraser I cut out of my eraser is responsible for the highlight on the eye section.. it's almost as effective as a tumbo monozero

I'm sorry, I skipped some of the progress shots because I got carried away while working on this piece, I'll capture more progress shots on my future pieces.

I was pretty happy with myself based on what I was able to do on the necklace, that's where my graphite pencil (4b) came into action, I used it to shade lightly on the jewel area so it would reflect it.
And that's all I have for y'all today.. don't hesitate to criticize and also interact with me in the comments section.

I wish y'all the best of 2022.
Happy new year once again ✌🏽😊