Welcome to the woods! Your art is really good already! You have a lot of potential to be a great artist and i mean it! Try some more materials like watercolours or acrylics and you could really make some outstanding works!

Trish Beverly replies: "I'm taking a couple of art classes this year. Maybe I'll fall in love with some other medium."

Hiya neighbor! You have a beautiful gallery- I love the mermaid. Hope to see more of your work in the future ^_^

Trish Beverly replies: "Dito. I still can't get over how cute your pegasus was. I want 'im! "

Trish, you have a gorgeous gallery here. I think you use pencils so well - you really know how to control them brilliantly. I look forward to seeing more of your work!

Trish Beverly replies: "You're such a sweetheart! Thanks for all your comments and for taking the time to reply to mine.Hey, do you post on deviantart? Because it's so much easier there to keep track of artist and when they post new stuff. "

welcome to the woods! heheh, i heard that Barbie would actually have to walk on all fours, lol. ^_^ looking at pictures while you shade really helps, and like, try to really think about where the light is comming from, and (this will probably annoy you) practice! O, yeah if you're afraid to do really drastic shading at, just shade a little bit, and shade a little more 'till you like it. And theres always the eraser ~_* heheh. ^_^ any-how nice gallery and keep up the art making!!

Trish Beverly replies: "Thanks so much for the advice! I really do appreciate it at least as much as compliments."

Photoshop can be difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's the greatest thing ever...to me at least. If you can't make heads or tails after a while, you could try getting a book, you may see something on a bargain table that will tell you what you want to know. As for the shading, one thing you could try is reversing...take white paper, cover it entirely with charcoal to make it grey or black and erase the white/lighter areas; or even a grey paper with white and black charcoal. Even if it doesn't look 3-D, it could still have a very interesting look.

Trish Beverly replies: "Thanks for the tips! I'll have to try the reverse shading. As for the photoshop, I'm thinking of taking a class on it. However, the version I have about 3 versions behind the one I'd be learning on. Do you know of any good books on the subject?"

Commenting on previous comment: It depends on what it is that you want to do with PS. Just grabbing a couple off my shelf: Glitterguru on Photoshop by Suzette Troche-Stapp talks about how to manipulate existing images, mostly for advertising, but some interesting ideas. Photoshop 7 Image Effects by Kim, Baek and Jang is pretty cool. Again, mostly image manipulation, but it's pretty cool too. I've been scoping out Digital Fantasy Art at the bookstore, very cool stuff, but not just PS, also includes Bryce, Corel draw, 3D Studio Max, etc $45(?). There are some beginning books you may be able to find, but I don't have any specific titles for you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I may be able to answer.

Trish Beverly replies: "Thanks! I'll look into it."

What's really weird is I know someone by the name Trish, and she may have the same name as you... Good artist too

you wouldn't happen to go to brownsburg high would you?