One of the main challenges in learning to draw is accepting that simplification of the scene is a lot of what you do. But you can’t simplify without highlighting. You’re changing the relative importance of one picture element versus others. And if you change the importance of A versus B you reduce the importance of A and you’re highlighting B. This all seems pretty straightforward, but we don’t easily recognize that when we’re trying to simplify a scene, we are at the same time deciding what to highlight. So “highlight” is a better word.
If you’ve spent a lot of pencil miles in your sketchbook you’ve had that moment when you say to yourself “why am I drawing this?”. Its surprisingly common to be drawn to a picture but with only a vague sense of what specific element, what pixel let’s say, caught your eye. Then you get halfway through the drawing and the sense of discouragement sets in – most pictures, drawn or painted, pass through a horrible phase in the middle. What pulls you through the middle phase is a crystal clear focus on what you liked an hour ago. Re-focus your eyes on the “why” spot. Focus on that. Highlight it, highlight, highlight. It will pull you through.