Peter spent 17 minutes finding paper and pencils for his art project. He worked on his dragon picture for 1 hour and 23 minutes. It was 5:49 p.m. when he quit drawing. What time was it when he started?
Peter spent a total of 17 minutes + 1 hour and 23 minutes = <<17+83=100>>100 minutes on his art project.
60 minutes are in 1 hour, so Peter spent 100 minutes รท 60 minutes/hour = <<100/60=1.6666666666666667>>1.67 hours on his project.
The current time is 5:49 p.m., so Peter started drawing at 5:49 p.m. - 1.67 hours = 4:36 p.m. Answer: \boxed{4:36}.
To find out what time Peter started drawing, we can subtract the total amount of time he spent on finding paper and pencils (17 minutes) and working on his dragon picture (1 hour and 23 minutes) from the time he quit drawing (5:49 p.m.).
First, let's convert the time Peter spent working on his dragon picture to minutes:
1 hour = 60 minutes
So, 1 hour and 23 minutes = 60 + 23 = 83 minutes.
Next, let's calculate the total time Peter spent on finding paper and pencils and working on his dragon picture:
17 minutes + 83 minutes = 100 minutes.
Now, let's subtract the total time from the time he quit drawing:
5:49 p.m. - 100 minutes = 4:09 p.m.
Therefore, Peter started drawing at 4:09 p.m.