I've been playing bass long enough to recognize that just playing is not practicing. You can plunk around all day and still not get a tiny bit better. Actual practice may be a bit unpleasant but it will make you better. It's been said before that if you don't sound bad, you aren't practicing. I feel that this kind of lesson will apply to many areas. Regarding drawing, an important first step is to learn to draw with the right side of the brain. Once you learn to draw what you see and not what you think you should see, then you can make some progress. Drawing from life and photos is important to begin with. However, you'll hit a wall if all you do is that. You'll eventually want to start drawing using other art as reference; it will make you break your habits of how to draw something. You'll learn to draw things and achieve effects the way someone else does it, imitate their techniques, learn how to bridge stylistic approaches with realism, etc.