Proportion Practice

I've been reading Robert Fawcett's On the Art of Drawing again and came to the section about drawing naturally. Fawcett believes the problem of getting the correct proportions can be solved by simply drawing things at the size that you see them. This makes a lot of sense but is very easily said than done. He says the problem with sighting and measuring is you're trying to figure out how to resize your subject and will fail once your eye becomes tired of calculating and you start to truly draw what you see. Your calculations wont be the same as the results of simply drawing what you see, and the resulting figure will be out of proportion. I really like this idea and would like to use his method. Here's a drawing I just did to practice.

Its difficult to draw something the same size as I see it when I have to look up at my monitor and down at my sketchbook. I'm going to do all that I can to make it to the model sessions this week and use this approach there. Hopefully the results will be better since I can place my board visually right the model. Fawcett says this method takes time to learn but once you've got it, you wont have issues with proportion anymore. In fact, the whole book is basically like that. It's debunking everything I've learned/read about life drawing with his own sound logic. It seems like Fawcett's main message is once you're able to truly draw what you see, you'll be able to draw any and everything. I think thats what Glen is trying to get me to see with this assignment and from recommending that I read Fawcett's book.

Fawcett also says that lots of students have learned various short cuts to drawing. He doesn't approve of such and says that true draftsmanship can only be attained once the artist has learned how to see and how to record that which he/she see's on paper in a particular (instead of a general) way. This can only be reached with hard study and constant practice. I really want to work in 2d as well as 3d and if this is what I have to do to get my drawing abilities to the level that they need to be then I'm all for it, regardless of how painfull the process can be.