I've been practicing drawing on my iPad.

Not having to use stuff like whiteout and having undo is quite nice. Getting layers "for free" is nice. I've given myself permission to even do some digital manipulation like resizing on the fly rather than redrawing some eye.

But watching some pros go at it on paper + pen, I do get this feeling that when you don't have the undo button you really do gotta force yourself to get good at the nitty gritty. Really you need to get good at drawing lines nicely the first time when you're inking to paper.

Also, when going through this stuff slowly and annoyingly, or tracing other people's art, you really start internalizing things like how some visual effect is gotten by just a handful of lines. 6 well placed lines gives you a notion of very voluminous hair for example.

it does feel like touching the lower level parts of a craft can help so much with having good fundamentals at a higher level.

Who hasn't, as a kid, thought "Oh I can draw bubble letters" and then realize that it's actually kinda tough, and then after mastering it have some new appreciation for spacing lines out properly and knowing where the pen goes?

Seems like a useful way to get a feel for things. Everyone "knows" how perspective work, yet a lot of people can't commit it to a page. There's clearly some understanding for how things work hidden in being able to do the thing, isn't there?

The precision and concentration, also forces you to slow down and think about the part once again. Is it correctly dimensioned and size. Is the material the correct one. Can it be machined and assembled that way. How can it be inspected? Etc.

I wonder if AI tools are similar to undo here — great for exploration, but easier to skip actually internalizing things.

Curious how people balance that in practice?