"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - unam.

so I could do it myself. It was a very ambitious undertaking, and I kept the idea entirely
to myself, because the odds were I would never be able to do it.
Early on in the process of learning to draw, some lady I knew saw my attempts
and said, "You should go down to the Pasadena Art Museum. They have drawing classes
there, with models ­­ nude models."
"No," I said; "I can't draw well enough: I'd feel very embarrassed."
"You're good enough; you should see some of the others!"
So I worked up enough courage to go down there. In the first lesson they told us
about newsprint ­­ very large sheets of low­grade paper, the size of a newspaper ­­ and
the various kinds of pencils and charcoal to get. For the second class a model came, and
she started off with a ten­minute pose.
I started to draw the model, and by the time I'd done one leg, the ten minutes were
up. I looked around and saw that everyone else had already drawn a complete picture,
with shading in the back ­­ the whole business.
I realized I was way out of my depth. But finally, at the end, the model was going
to pose for thirty minutes. I worked very hard, and with great effort I was able to draw
her whole outline. This time there was half a hope. So this time I didn't cover up my
drawing, as I had done with all the previous ones.
We went around to look at what the others had done, and I discovered what they
could really do: they draw the model, with details and shadows, the pocketbook that's on
the bench she's sitting on, the platform, everything! They've all gone zip, zip, zip, zip, zip
with the charcoal, all over, and I figure it's hopeless ­­ utterly hopeless.
I go back to cover up my drawing, which consists of a few lines crowded into the
upper left­hand corner of the newsprint ­­ I had, until then, only been drawing on 8 1/2 x
11 paper ­­ but some others in the class are standing nearby: "Oh, look at this one," one of
them says. "Every line counts!"
I didn't know what that meant, exactly, but I felt encouraged enough to come to
the next class. In the meantime, Jerry kept telling me that drawings that are too full
aren't any good. His job was to teach me not to worry about the others, so he'd tell me
they weren't so hot.
I noticed that the teacher didn't tell people much (the only thing he told me was
my picture was too small on the page). Instead, he tried to inspire us to experiment with
new approaches. I thought of how we teach physics: We have so many techniques ­­ so
many mathematical methods ­­ that we never stop telling the students how to do things.
On the other hand, the drawing teacher is afraid to tell you anything. If your lines are
very heavy, the teacher can't say, "Your lines are too heavy," because some artist has
figured out a way of making great pictures using heavy lines. The teacher doesn't want to
push you in some particular direction. So the drawing teacher has this problem of
communicating how to draw by osmosis and not by instruction, while the physics teacher
has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about
solving physical problems.
They were always telling me to "loosen up," to become more relaxed about
drawing. I figured that made no more sense than telling someone who's just learning to
drive to "loosen up" at the wheel. It isn't going to work. Only after you know how to do it
carefully can you begin to loosen up. So I resisted this perennial loosen­up stuff.
One exercise they had invented for loosening us up was to draw without looking