Thread on drawing in art! If drawing conjures images of line art, pencils, and sketchbooks, try thinking of it in a broader way. When I redefined this term for myself, it gave me a much clearer idea of how to study art and allowed real breakthroughs to happen while practicing. 
Drawing has nothing to do with any particular medium or style, so when we practice our drawing, we are practicing all of the topics that fall under that umbrella: perspective, anatomy, structure, how light falls on a subject, the value of each plane in relation to the light, etc.
Craig Mullins describes drawing as “organization and expression of relationships.” This definition includes composition. By relating the previous concepts with abstract ones like that, It’s clear that they are all related to design, and that when you paint you are designing.
One aspect of drawing is depicting form in space, which leads to the study of perspective, planar structure, and others, but with the new definition we can always relate these back to the higher concepts of design, and when we study it keeps it in the service of artistic ideas.
Here are some more examples of how the thought processes of design are happening outside of the medium and without an arbitrary distinction between line and tone:
The first sketch here contains all of the ideas of the finished painting, just more compressed. The drawing is accurate in a physical sense, but also artistically accurate within the context of the painting and the artist’s intention.
This new way of thinking bridges the gap between drawing and painting. Painting IS drawing, any style or medium can apply to improvement in painting. Working on drawing often has the biggest rewards. We can endlessly improve here, as long as we have new ideas to express clearly.
See my previous thread on exposure in painting for a related topic! Different mediums have different value ranges, and thus require different levels of compression to show a scene. Exposure is how we determine that compression:
If you've enjoyed this thread check out the book I just released! It has all of my previous tutorials greatly expanded upon and with lots of bonuses like a glossary, recommended reading, and all the artists names right there with the examples! gumroad.com/l/YPtf/STAYHOMe
Artist credit: Isaac Levitan, Adolph Menzel, Craig Mullins, Ivan Shishkin, Valentin Serov
