So I got a graphics tablet! It's an old, old, OLD one that I found second hand on Ebay, and it took a lot of googling and arguing with the drivers before I could get it to talk to Windows 7, but it's working! And it's HUGE - it must have cost a small fortune new, but that was like 1998 and now I have an A4-sized drawing surface that I got for £60 GBP (about $95). Happy me :)

I've also found # which gives a bunch of sketching exercises to improve your control of the medium and get your hand-eye co-ordination working when you're looking at a screen inste4ad of the surface you're drawing on. I can also practise with retouching photos and things, or colouring in blanks I find on here... I'm really looking forward to being able to draw properly - I had loads of art lessons at school and I wasn't bad ad it, but I never really got to the point where I was really confident and my hands knew what they were doing independently of my head :)