Two objects that touch stop being two objects. That one fact decides a still life before the pen is anywhere near the paper.
A painter once took every label off his own shelf so the tins would stop being tins. The problem was never the subject.
A steady hand is the wrong thing to want. What reads as engraved is a line that thickens where it turns and thins to nothing at the tail.
The cloth painters of southern India drew their patterns on paper first. One teardrop, turned and resized, is still the entire method.
Dots cannot be counted by the eye, only weighed. That one fact turns a pen and a flat evening into a finished drawing.
Lace is built on a paper pattern that gets thrown away at the end. What survives is thread around holes, and that is the whole trick.
A bouquet looks flat because every flower is facing you. Turn one away and the whole jar gains a room to stand in.
A wall seen from across the road shows you no marks at all. It shows you where it stops. That is the whole of texture, and 47 swatches prove it.
A cut stone looks like the hardest thing on the page. It is ruled lines and flat tones, and the lamp does all the choosing.
Nobody is bad at drawing at 9pm. They are just drawing with the fingers instead of the shoulder, and it shows in the first minute.