i am having trouble with "light painting"... help me?

[Laura]

part of my project in photography is "light painting." i finally got a light and it worked earlier... that is in my room with a blanket draping over my top bunk to limit the window light. i managed to get it to work with a 1 second shutter speed. [any longer and i got nothing.] i figured i would wait until it got darker to use a longer shutter speed so that i could 'draw' more things. its almost 8:45 now, definately darker than before, but i cant get it to work! any tips? [and im using a canon SD750]
unfortunately, i dont have a B setting. i tried it with the shutter open longer, and i just get more of the background, with none of my penlight. hmm.