I want to discuss the experience of drawing from imagination exclusively for one month — no reference — as a deliberate practice challenge.

The first week: poor results. My mental image of anatomy, perspective, and materials was inaccurate in ways I hadn't known because reference had been compensating for the gaps.

The second week: rather than feeling frustrated by the inaccuracy, I started noting exactly what I was getting wrong. The specificity of the errors was informative. I was misremembering the proportional relationship between the pelvis and ribcage. I was consistently misrepresenting the foot angle in three-quarter view.

The third and fourth weeks: I focused on correcting the specific errors I'd identified. Because I knew exactly what was wrong, the study was highly targeted.

The result: my imagination drawing quality is now significantly higher than before the month, and more importantly I understand the structure of my mental library — where it's accurate and where it has gaps — far better than I did when reference was always available.