I recognize that most artists (outside of photography) are very good at drawing. I am not. I periodically work to get better at drawing. But I don't have anywhere near my 10,000 hours. I maybe have 100 hours in?
My primary way to get around this limitation is to trace things instead.
Here we have a picture of my daughter at the beach when she was six.
I'll take that picture and print out a low quality black and white version of it.
With that printout I'll put it on my light box, cover with a sheet of tracing paper, and have at it. Between the combination of the low quality printout and the haze of the tracing paper the contrast on the image seems to take a couple steps up. It becomes clear what lines need to be there and what doesn't.
Then with the trace done it's time to transfer it to a linoleum block. The tracing paper does all the work. It has an ability to barely hold on to graphite at all. So, I just lay it on the block and apply pressure with a wooden spoon.
The transfer is never perfect. Some cleanup is always needed but it's never very much.
From that point on it just comes to carving it out of the linoleum.
Ink and print and you get something like this:
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