A symptom of poor drawing: your mind wanders and you find yourself contemplating quite deeply. With little more mind to spare you draw automatically, noting what is done only in the corner of your mind. The eraser is used liberally, proportions become distended and vague instinct guides you through the process of drawing. You are reassured, nevertheless, that with enough erasing the picture will become perfect.

Amongst the mental stances and states of flow one can enter when drawing, the one described above has consistently let me down. It's easy to access, tempting to use and there's no such thing as a free lunch. Behold below.

The question then, is: is a bad mental flow worse than none at all?

I seek an all-but-mythical state that I call 'total concentration and thinking intelligently.' But in truth, mental states that are neither 'frustration'–which is characterized by a constant struggle to draw anything–nor the aforedescribed 'symptom of poor drawing' are hard to discern. One imagines a person must reflect keenly and try drawing in different scenarios, with different feelings.

30 minutes figure drawing, broken into the usual arrangement of time.