When basketball players practice to increase their skills, they don't "play the game" to get better. They do drills like shooting free throws or layups to get the individual pieces of games down, and they work on weight training to better their conditioning.
Practice is about the fundamentals. Skills are built on foundations.
Similarly, when artists practice, it's important to work on the fundamentals, rather than just hack up the final piece. You might be able to "finish" the pice so to speak, but it will be nowhere as strong as if you have a good solid foundation to start from.
Do you set aside time to draw? You might have little time to
All -
:Emarazzla: is running an artist-featuring journal - spread the words to be featured - http://emarazzla.deviantart.com/journal/Featuring-Artists-388271786 ;)