Sketching is the hardest thing for me to do

So as I continue my journey into the world of painting (what a deep, vivid, unpredictable place it is!) I find that I have a problem with sketching and drawing what I see. I always think something is easy when I look at it but bringing it out of my head onto the page is absolute murder. I did take a couple of art classes in my time, one in New York (I forgot the name of the place, I think it was up on the Upper West Side but it is going back decades and I am an old gal now) and the other in Paris at a museum in the Latin Quarter that houses Medieval art. I had the same issue at both places. I felt unwelcomed, as if the other people thought I did not belong there. It could all have been in my head. But it was the feeling I got, a cold shaft. So I quit both times before I really learned how to draw. The only thing I remember is the idea that shading is important. But how to do it?

So these are  my sketches of a nude I want to paint. It took me forever to get something that resembles a nose on this thing (the first one). I am actually quite proud of it because it looks  something like a person. Which, to my eyes, is a little bit of a miraculous thing. This one here is still evolving.

Oh, by the way yesterday I called my stuff a word and I want to take it back. I don't believe in myself enough. I am very self-deprecating, which is better than being full of myself, I guess. But I do take it to another level of unhealthy self-dissing and this needs to stop. I have been to many museums and galleries in my day and I think my stuff is as good as a lot of the things I have seen and not as good as a lot of things I have seen. But that does not make it "shit." At least, I should leave these put downs to the viewer and I should believe in my own stuff so I want to take back what I said yesterday about my stuff, but not what I said about God disdaining women. Because I really believe that he does on a very, very real level.