Russian Drawing Approach vs Other Ateliers

Hi All,

I have recently started with the Russian Academic course by Ilya and its fabulous. I had some questions and thoughts that I wanted to throw out there. So I was trying to understand the differences in the techniques of the Russian way and the other ateliers. When you look at the drawings of artists of Watts Atelier, and see the drawings of anyone from the Repin institute, one thing clearly comes across is the handling of the variations in planes in Russian drawings. They kind of look more structural. In one blog, an artist says the Russian way is ‘what it is’ rather than ‘what it looks like’. My questions are,

If the approach is ‘what it is’ then wouldnt that make the process boring rather than keeping it representational and open to variations of what you see?

How does Russian drawing approach look at shape design?

Also, in terms of the time consumed, I am guessing the Russian drawing approach takes longer to learn compared to other ateliers?

Looking forward to discuss all of this. Lot of stuff going on in my head.

Thanks,

Kavish