Let’s imagine I just rented a huge and beautiful loft. The movers didn’t arrive yet with my stuff, so I’m walking around in my new space in any direction I please. I dance. Right in the middle of a particularly free gesture I hear the door bell: it’s the movers. My furniture is being brought up piece by piece. It begins to occupy space in a way that makes it impossible for my movements to obey my whims. This is what it means to live in physical space in a physical way. And if I wish to draw (after the movers leave, of course), let’s say, a table, which I’ll perceive at that moment as something blocking my free movement, I’ll try to draw the physicality of it. All the shadows, all the shading, all the dimensions I’ll try to follow precisely, trying to present it as close as possible to me sensing it as a physical object.
Or I can draw MY impression of IT (the table).
There is a science-fiction story describing a planet populated by characters from books. They live as described by their author. E.g., if the author describes a man with a white tie, that is all the poor fellow gets to wear. This story is a witty description of the way our consciousness works. Perceiving objects moment by moment, we focus on one detail, miss another. There is something generously sloppy about the process. My focus often tumbles like a sunspot cast by a child playing with a mirror, but this takes place only if the focus of my attention is not too heavily enslaved by my desire to depict the reality of an object.