Abandoned self portrait

Ok, I really didn't want to post this but since I have to post the failures as well as the successes it's going up. There are 2 problems; 1- it doesn't look like me and 2- it's terrible. In actual fact this started off quite like me and fell off a cliff the more I struggled with it.

I'm told the average drawing time is about 3 hours. Well this took 6, I can't believe it took that long but it did and as I write this I am well and truely shattered and defeated. I went through to see the Glasgow Boys exhibition at the Kelvingrove yesterday and at the moment I couldn't feel more opposite to the enthusiasm I had last night after seeing it.

I know what went wrong, for the life of me I still can't control charcoal. I totally get why it is a great medium but it's erasability is it's achilles heel to me. I put construction lines down and very soon they've disappeared, it's smudgy, it's blunt (even with breaking the sticks) and willow charcoal only goes grey at it's darkest.

And by 6 hours in my eyes just don't want to see anymore and I'm done. I'd come back to it but I want to try and manage these in 1 sitting. Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself. Must repeat and do better.