The days drag on and reluctance sets in: "I do not want to draw!" And so forth. Yesterday was the second day I did not draw. The second and the last. The line is drawn at two days (or after, rather). Altogether a patchy week, to jump from one to two and thirteenth to sixteenth.

An important exercise which anyone who draws will come across is that of the master study. By copying other people's drawings–hopefully those of masters–one can learn how to perceive. How do experienced artists represent the calf muscle with lines, or certain poses with volumes of shape, for example? Early in this waning year I came to the stopgap conclusion that 'drawing is the depiction of perception,' and trite phrase that it might make, it helps explain the value of the master study...

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When you draw from life or photograph, you are teaching yourself how to perceive by drawing. In a master study, however, the translation from 'life' to drawing has already been done: you are not teaching yourself to perceive. Instead, the master study is teaches you how to depict and perceive for drawing.

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