Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Yesterday I tried to draw Vladimir Putin with no reference and ended up with an OK caricature of Steve Jobs. I'm not much of an illustrator or cartoonist so if I try to do that kind of thing I just do a shitload of sketches to suss out what works and what doesn't. But that's me when I try to cartoon.
For sure. The course emphasises the same attitude, going as far as to suggest not using an eraser. Instead, it concentrates on starting off drawing basic shapes as light as possible and using any mistakes and less accurate markings as a framework to mould a better representation with increasingly darker lines. I never though of drawing as being done in this way and what's cool is that it's somewhat analogous to my music composition process. Though I must confess that I have used an eraser a few times. Mainly when I commit to a dark line too early on.