When you put a spoon on the table, it isn’t just a spoon. It is a thin stem, a round bowl, a dark shape, and a few small flat edges. You can break up the pot into a cylinder and an oval at its top. The closed book can be reduced into a flat block consisting of three faces. Although it may feel unnatural to think this way, your hands will have an easier time portraying what they see instead of getting bogged down in details.
All of those details can be distracting. Handles, tags, leaves, textures, lines, and glares are all things you can get sidetracked by. You may end up with an overly complex drawing that lacks the right proportion if you start drawing them before the main structure is in place. It may end up looking precise around the edges, but the object will still look crooked, floating, and two-dimensional. The simple forms will help you get started more calmly.
Choose an object nearby you, and take a breath before putting pencil to paper. Don’t ask, “How can I draw this?” Ask, “What overall shape makes up most of this object?” A mug might first be drawn as a tall rectangle before it becomes a cylinder. A shoe might first become a long wedge with a smaller block that is perched a little higher near the back. A jar could first be built out of two ellipses with a bit of curved side. That initial form doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be a vessel.
Sketch it lightly with a pencil in your journal. Note the top, the bottom, the most broad, and the main direction. Look at the space around the object. Look at the space inside the handle on a cup, the space between the legs on a chair, or the form around the edge of a leaf. Negative space can give you a sense of where to fix your object quicker because it allows you to treat the entire object as a group.
After you have sketched it out, break that shape into a smaller group. A table lamp, for example, can be thought of as a cone-shaped shade with a thin tube-shaped stem and an oval-shaped base. Scissors can be broken down into two curved handles with long thin blades and a tiny circle where the blades connect. Make sure the lines are as light as possible while testing the forms. If one form seems too big, change it before you start adding textures, darker edges, and cross-hatching.
This isn’t to suggest that you don’t care about detail. Those details still matter, but they have more potential if you are confident that you have the structure to back it up. Once the main shape, direction, and value groupings are in place, the rim on a cup, a corner on a book, a fold on the fabric, or a highlight on a jar are much easier to see. The overall composition will probably be more unified, even if it is more free.
Next time you are sketching and are halfway through, close all of the details with your hand or squint at your page. Check that your object is still recognizable. Are you sure about the edge of what is in front? Does the shade feel right? Is the object resting in a good position on the paper? Now, that final touch will not need to carry as much weight, once you have answers to those basic concerns. Instead of trying to rescue the drawing, it can simply add to it.