Art Help! Surfaces and surrondings?

Find a messy desk

Draw a tree from up close, just a patch of the trunk & bark. Now, back up about 200 meters and draw the "surface" of the patch of woods, the trunks forming a rough wall and the branches a hedge. See some of Wolf Kahn's work for some ideas of semi-abstract vision.

Draw surfaces that generally go unnoticed, or noticed only for other attributes.

Draw and empty bulletin board, full of tack holes.

Draw the cheek of a homeless person, roughened from sleeping on the ground.

Draw the bottom of the bathtub, a little hair and a few bubbles still clinging.

Draw the wet bath towel.

Draw your community as seen from satellite; what sort of texture do the clumps of buildings have? The surrounding rural land?

Draw the surfaces of planets and other heavenly bodies (see http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html for a collection of high-quality photos).

Draw throngs of people, a wall of purpose: protest crowds, Christmas shoppers, graduates in their seats, a full sports stadium, ...