What are deep drawing defects?

How much do you spend on one drawing?

• As a confused Drawing I art student in college, I have been told many things on how to draw. Depending on what I draw, the amount of time spent on one homework drawing has been around 2 - 8 hours depending on how interesting or motivated I am (I honestly can't become enthusiastic about drawing cow skulls or boxes or whatever is in the center of a cold, empty, dirty, dark studio). My teacher says to draw faster, whenever I produce something that took [at most] 8 hours taking my time to make sure nothing in my drawing is unrealistically out of place; or to expand more on minor (to me it is) details that I can barely see myself when I look at whatever it is (like a self portrait, showing the contours of my face - which is mainly smooth,so...I really can't see any lines on it). My question elaborated more is: Depending on what you are drawing, how much time would you spend showing the [process] (i.e. inter-cross, descending inter-cross, contour, blind contour, rock/outline drawing) of how to draw a still life or setting within a short amount of time? (In class vs. Out of class), and when you're done showing the process, how much more time do you spend completing everything else? Some rules/concepts my teacher tells us: -Take no more than a minute to find top, bottom, left, and right of your drawing -Don't rely heavily on measuring when you draw -Use all your tools in order to show where the picture is in space -He's not looking for a perfect drawing -Make sure not to illustrate what we see (I'm am really burned out at the moment, and I can't think of anything else at the moment) Besides that, we used to mainly draw on 24"x36" Newsprint Pad, and are now transitioning to 22"x30" sheets of arches. Only use charcoal pencils, a red pencil, meter/ yard stick, and a piece of string. To me, I think the point my teacher is trying to get across is the understanding of how to draw, but how would the drawing look if it is not supposed to be clean or precise? I doubt it would be the exact opposite...

• Answer:

  I guess instead of 'clean or precise', you could look for messy and natural. When you're an apprentice to drawing, maybe you should focus more on variation than on getting one drawing right. Your precision would come latter, when you better understand drawing itself, and your subject matter, how to draw it and such. Understanding comes with time. EDIT: hrm... "Depending on what you are drawing, how much time would you spend showing the [process] (i.e. inter-cross, descending inter-cross, contour, blind contour, rock/outline drawing) of how to draw a still life or setting within a short amount of time? (In class vs. Out of class), and when you're done showing the process, how much more time do you spend completing everything else?" Showing the process, meaning, like, the bare bones, the essentials of it, the structure? How much time to get that down... Well, in a drawing class I attended, which wasn't really taught by a Teacher, but a Professional, so it didn't have a curriculum, we were drawing still lifes and I could get the form down in less than an hour. But then I was being mindful of making it like a picture with composition, getting it all within frame. It wasn't so much a study of the object so much as that I guess. So, outside of class, when I'm doing some sort of study, I spend under like a minute getting things down... i mean when I have something new to me, or that I haven't drawn before. Then depending on how much else I'm interested to know, because I don't draw for a class (not enrolled in one), I spend more time getting it caput. As far as making something 'complete'... I gather nothing is ever really complete. Or could be added to, inevitably...? Well for that class I mentioned, I never could really get all completed, refined, within the hour. But then again we never did more than a rough draft in the class. Then the still life model was gathered up and driven home. For my own studies, still, I don't really finish something completely. I stop at some point... somehow. Some projects, even though I was intereseted in them, I just want to leave alone after a certain point. When I am drawing for someone else or for a school project, then is when I am concious of finishing it, because, there are consequences then. :D