January 8, 2024 • 39 mins
Who here has absentmindedly drawn or doodled while they are on the phone, in a meeting or elsewhere?
If that was you, you are going to find today’s chat really interesting. Because all of that doodling was not in vain.
In this episode, Ashton Rodenhiser, a professional doodler, joins me to discuss using drawing as a thinking and learning tool.
Ashton shares why doodling is a non-threatening art form that anyone can do, and benefit from.
Happy listening!
xo Abi
P.S. For more information about this episode and our guest, head to: www.crispcomms.co/podcast-episodes/yes-you-should-start-doodling-again
Creativity: Uncovered is lovingly edited by the team at Crisp Communications.
Creativity: Uncovered is a registered Australian Trade Mark.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Okay listeners, I want you to self identify who here has absent-mindedly drawn or doodled
(00:15):
whether on the phone in a meeting or elsewhere. Well, if you raise your hand to them, then
you're going to find today's chat really interesting because all of that doodling was not in vain.
Hello and welcome to Creativity (00:26):
Uncovered. My name is Abi Gatling and I am on a journey to
uncover how everyday people find inspiration, get inventive and open their imagination.
Basically, I want to know how people use creative solutions at home, work, play and everything in
(00:47):
between. And my goal for this podcast is that by the end of it, you'll be after the whole suite of
tried and tested ways to something creativity the next time that you need it.
Today, I'm very excited to be speaking with Ashton Rodenhiser, who is a professional doodler, and
(01:09):
she believes that drawing can actually be used as a thinking and a learning tool. So keen to find
out more. So welcome Ashton.
Hey, Abi, I'm so happy to be here. I'm so looking forward to our chat
today. Yes. And thanks so much for joining me all the way from Canada. It is your night time.
That's commitment to the cause. Thank you. That's commitment to all things creative. Yes.
(01:37):
That's what we love. That's what we love. So I am so intrigued. You are professional doodler. What
is that? Where did this come from?
I think it's so fun when you get to work for yourself and you can just like make up titles like
someone commented on my LinkedIn the other day and I was like, I don't even remember. What do I
(02:01):
call myself recently? So it's fun that you can be creative in creating your own job titles too. And
professional doodler, I just thought was fun. And definitely one of those things you're like,
what the heck is that all about? Yeah, so I use doodling and drawing and sketch noting and live
(02:21):
illustration to help communicate ideas. So I love being in situations where, you know, information
is really dense. It's really complicated and how I can use words and images and drawings to help
gain, help people gain clarity in a session or a meeting or create that consensus and allow people
(02:44):
to see, to feel seen, valued and heard, right? So it's really about fighting myself in situations
where that the complexity of the information is so high and how we can use something as simple as
a doodle to help explain those ideas even in so many different ways, which I'm sure we'll talk
(03:05):
about. Yeah. Yes. I mean, this is so interesting to me because I'm such a visual person. I find
myself doing diagrams when I'm explaining things. And even the other day, I was doing some business
planning. And we were saying, we're going to repeat this thing. And I had drawn like the copy
(03:27):
symbol. And there was like, everyone else in the group was like, what are you doing? Like, that's a
copy symbol. Don't you know the copy? So this is so interesting to me. But like, how did this come
about that? I mean, I, we all know about infographics and things like that. But actually doodling
it, like, how does that work? Yeah, so I actually learned that this thing existed as a way of working
(03:53):
as a facilitator. So as a facilitator, you find yourself in meetings and sessions, and you're
helping people move through complexity, very similar. And, but you're doing it by asking
questions, you know, sometimes you have to call out the elephant in the room, right? Sometimes
(04:15):
you're in conversations that people are unhappy to be there, right? Like, you're not necessarily a
mediator, though you can find yourself in sometimes those situations. But it's about helping people
move through to get to a goal or a decision. And, and being the person at the front of the room
where you're not the teacher, but you're helping manage everybody, making sure everybody feels
(04:36):
heard, and reflecting back what you're hearing people say and helping make connections. But you're
doing that all in words, right? So a few years into it, a friend of mine had introduced me into
just a one day local workshop about graphic facilitation. I had never seen it in my life, but
I think secretly I'd always wanted to be an artist, but I didn't think that was ever a logical
(05:03):
path for me. There was just such a negative rhetoric in my family and my community about
those quote unquote kids who go to art school and have no jobs, but they leave, can't make money
making an artist like this isn't new probably to one of your listeners, right? So I didn't even
follow that path. But when I heard this graphic facilitation, I thought, oh, this is so interesting
(05:27):
because I really love helping people come to their own ideas and facilitate things. And like I
said, you're not a teacher, so you're not imparting wisdom, you're hearing wisdom and feeding it
back to people in a way that they can kind of learn from themselves. So this graphic, this sort of
visual was like, oh, this is kind of intriguing in the facilitation world. And I took that one day
(05:51):
workshop and I was totally hooked. I was like, this is so fascinating. So you can work with groups
of people to help them get to a goal by not just doing it in words, but now you can do it in pictures.
And I was actually facilitating a group at the time with young adults talking about pluralism
and about how we can kind of go beyond tolerating people and really like genuinely authentically
(06:16):
like get to know people and respect people, even when they have a different background from us.
The focus was more of a religious context, which was a really cool because we got to like go and
visit all these like different religious places of worship and talk to the leaders. It was like
such an amazing eye-opening experience. Anyways, I was facilitating that at the time with someone else
(06:41):
and I had just taken this workshop, I threw some paper on the wall, I did it, it was horrible.
I did some drawings, I did some words, it was awful. And I put it away for a little while,
I brought it back out like, I don't know, a few weeks or months later, I can't remember.
And I was like, whoa, I can remember where people sat. I can remember things that weren't even
(07:02):
captured on the page. Like I was blown away by the power that like this isn't just like this
cute drawing thing that you do in a meeting. I was like, whoa, this is actually a lot more
powerful than I thought it was. And it was kind of from that point that I was like, you know what,
I really want to learn how to do this very well. Like I want to do this. So I started,
(07:29):
you know, collaborating with other facilitators and doing some things. And then, and this was 10
years ago. So it was like, I'm actually like at my 10-year anniversary because it was the fall of
2013. And a few years in, me just sort of playing around and trying to figure it out,
I went to a conference in Austin, Texas. I was seven months pregnant at the time with my second
(07:51):
child. And it was July and it was so hot, it was awful. And but I went there with a mission. I was
like, I'm going to like see who created business doing this, like who is making money doing this?
Like how did they figure this out? So I sat in and all the best business sessions that they had.
And I was like, man, these people figured it out. I'm sure I could figure it out too. So I left that
(08:15):
conference being like, okay, I'm going to actually try to build a business. Because at that point,
it was kind of like, how has happened half out was like, I tell people now that like I had a secret
business those first few years because I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell anybody. It's like my
secret business. You have side hustle. It's like that you can't run a business if it's a secret.
(08:37):
So anyways, that's sort of my kind of journey of how I kind of got to this place. And yeah,
that was, I started 10 years ago and I started really building a business about seven, even though
I say like the number is fluid because of the secret business thing. But it was about, I've
(08:59):
been doing it really full time for seven years. That's so cool. So you sort of started in small
group facilitation, but now you've moved on to big conferences. Is that right?
Yeah. So I really, I really fell, I really fell in love with when I first was introduced to it,
(09:20):
to it as like the facilitation support, like being there on the facilitation team.
And then from a business perspective, conferences was an easier sell, the facilitation,
because I could go to a conference, they would have three, four, five, 10 speakers. I could create
(09:43):
these visuals based on the presentations. And there was a really quick immediate feedback.
Right? Like if I was there for the day, or sometimes I'd be there for multiple days,
and when you're in person, I do with paper markers mostly. Right? So it's very like in your face,
like their life size are gigantic. Right? So from a business perspective, the conferences
(10:07):
have actually been like an easier sales process. Whereas the facilitation, unless somebody
understands the power of facilitation, it's like a little bit of a, like there's still like a lot
of teaching in what I have to do, because of what it is, is like an experience good, you have to
experience to understand it. But adding the facilitation piece is like now you have to also
(10:30):
teach them on the value of facilitation sometimes. So I still do facilitation, but I more so
collaborate with others. So sometimes people will find me and I'll bring in a facilitator,
because it's impossible to do both roles. You can't like be managing a room and talking to them,
and also be drawing, having your back half turn to them drawing a picture about what they're saying.
(10:55):
Right? So yeah, but I find myself in mainly those two situations more of a facilitation
type style where I'm a little bit more engaged. It's really about the voices collectively in a
room. Whereas at a conference, it might be like a panel or a speaker. So there are like
more moments in time of like a present, like a fully formed presentation. But then in the
(11:19):
facilitation, it's like, who knows what's going to happen? Who knows what people are going to talk
about a little bit more free form in that way. Yeah. Yeah. So in this smaller group, I suppose
you can ask people questions and get clarifications. And that would help you with your drawing.
You can't do that in a big conference, I imagine.
No. Hopefully, if the conference speakers are decent, I shouldn't have to ask a lot of questions.
(11:47):
If they talk really, really fast, sometimes I'll like have my camera
app on my phone ready to go. So I can just like take some pictures of some slides or something.
But most of the time, I'm just so tuned to listen and draw so quickly that it's usually fine. But
(12:09):
being in a room with people that it's a different level of engagement, which is really beautiful.
And when I get to introduce myself at the beginning, I get to sort of lay the foundation of why I'm
there and how I'm supposed to help them. And I invite them like, "Hey, tell me if I spelled something
wrong." That's always like a joke, right? Because there's always people who like to correct people's
(12:33):
spelling. But beyond that, I'm like, "Hey, come in. Tell me if I didn't capture something,
please let me know." Right? Like if you feel like I missed something, please tell me. And I will,
you know, this should be a collaborative. It's not like I'm the artist over here doing it. It's
like, "No, no. Talk to me. Engage with me." And then, yeah, I get to ask those clarifying questions.
(12:57):
And then I'm also basically like a professional listener at the same time. So then I sometimes
can pipe in and ask a question. I find because I almost am like holding the... I'm like holding all
of it. Whereas when people are in the room and they're talking, a lot of times they come with
(13:21):
their own judgments and bias and all their own baggage around that topic. And when I get to
go in there as a third party, I'm like, "I have no idea what Sally from HR did yesterday and why
you're mad to be here." Right? Like I don't have any of that. So I can listen as a holistic kind of
(13:45):
perspective and ask questions sometimes or help the facilitator out by kind of stepping in and
saying a few things here and there as like my role as like the holder of all of the information.
So I find I'm almost one of those people that play a role in the room sometimes of like, "All right,
(14:07):
let's take... I know we're on this path. Let's just take five steps back. Let's review what we just
talked about. Okay, how do we want to take this conversation forward?" Because sometimes when
you're in those rooms and emotions are high and people have their own agenda of what they want
to get out and what they want to talk about, sometimes I just like... I'm the person there that
(14:28):
also is like, "All right, let's just take a breather here, people. Let's take a step back. Reflect on
what we just heard. Where we see in the themes are arising. Where do we want to take this conversation
next?" Right? So yeah. That's so cool. I can only imagine how fast your hands are moving,
drawing these things. I always jump that. Like, I actually did look on the Guinness World Records
(14:53):
website, but I cannot find anything about like the fastest handwriting because I would love to try to
apply for it. I'm sure I wouldn't win, but you know... It's not too easy. It would be interesting,
but I don't see it on there. So if there's any Guinness World Record people out there,
that would be really fun. But yeah, I do definitely. I actually just did a little Instagram thing the
(15:14):
other day. I was like, "This is how fast I write." Yes, this is actually how fast I'm... I'm not
speeding it up. Yeah, so you have to capture very, very quickly, that's for sure. Especially when
you're doing conferences and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Fast and legible. That's a killer
combination. Yeah. Yeah, it's this weird space where you're not just trans... It's not just straight
(15:37):
translation, right? Whereas you can think of it as like a visual language, but it's not just
straight translation because what happens in traditional note-taking is a lot of it is you're
listen and you write down, but you miss the most important part, which is the thinking part, right?
So when I'm doing this, I'm listening, but I'm not just writing stuff down. I'm thinking,
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"Okay, what did I just hear five minutes ago? How does that connect with what I'm listening to now?
Does this warrant me writing it down? Should I wait a minute?" You know what I mean? So
I love that. I think that's almost like the unsung hero is the stuff that you don't see
because you see that what I'm drawing, but what you're not seeing is the thinking and all of the...
(16:22):
I call it making sense. The making sense that's happening in your brain of like,
"How do these ideas connect together? What makes sense here?" Right? So that's what you don't see,
but what people do see is the drawing part, right? So it's not... It kind of goes beyond just like...
Some people use the word scribe to say like, "Oh, I'm a visual scribe." And I've never really
(16:48):
referred to myself as that because when I think of a scribe, I feel like it's missing that thinking
part. So yeah, it... Terms and things are so funny. What we end up calling ourselves, but
it's sort of like this... It's less about being a wonderful artist and more about
(17:11):
listening in the thinking part because you can create a graphic that is very messy,
but more meaningful than one that's beautiful. You know what I mean? So if you're like a professional
artist or you're a trained artist, but you don't have any of them listening in the thinking down,
then yeah, it's a pretty picture, but it might not mean anything to the people in the room or...
(17:33):
When you're doing this for yourself, you know what I mean?
Yeah. I was wondering before when you said... I might take photos of the slides if they're
talking too quickly and things like that. I was wondering, why would you have...
You creating a visual on the side as well as their slides, but that's you kind of being the conduit
(17:56):
between the speaker and the audience, I suppose. You're kind of interpreting what they're saying
and putting in an extra context. Is that right? Yeah. The way that I like to describe it is
like especially at a conference, right? You're going to a conference and you're listening to all
this information and it's so much and it's so overwhelming. And I should really know the stats
(18:20):
off the top of my head, but whatever it is, you'll lose a significant amount of what you remember
is gone within a week or two. So I like in those two situations to try to be the conjoint of the
long lasting learning. So there's this beautiful opportunity to have this cool, engaging thing
(18:41):
in the moment that can help visual learners or people who learn differently, especially...
I feel like I'm really seeking out working with clients who care about the learning of the people
in their room and also care about how people just are humans in a room. I was at an event
(19:05):
about two months ago and it was so overwhelming. There was no quiet area. There was no place where
I could just go and just sit in silence for a minute. There was no where for me to go.
And I think about that as someone who is being a professional in that space, let alone anybody
(19:27):
who might need a quiet space just to think. So if you cannot physically or mentally be there
during a presentation because the world is overwhelming to you for whatever reason,
I also like that this can also be supporting people like that.
So there's the learning, there's the engagement. And then back to what I was saying about the
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long lastingness is now you have this visual snapshot that you can quickly look at and go
"Right, right. Top three things. Oh, right. That cat joke was funny. Boom, boom, boom." Yeah,
okay. I remember what he said. This is what I took from it, what I have used. So
and then what I would hope speakers and conferences want you to do is to take that learning and do
(20:16):
something with it. But if you can't remember it, you're not going to do anything with it.
So you go back to your workplace a week later or two days later, you don't remember what anybody
said. So you can't actually implement any of the changes. And sometimes I'm working in very
technical spaces and it's pretty important for you to know the latest cybersecurity,
(20:37):
like something, something, threat actor who's going to do something bad or whatever. Like,
might want to remember those things, right? So there's sort of like beauty of value of like
in the room supporting people and the sort of aftercare of your conference attendees too of like,
"Now here's all the graphics and you can refer to them. Well, if you weren't there,
(21:00):
you didn't miss out. Here's what you missed. Or if you were there, now you can go, "Oh, right.
That's what I remember when they said that." Yeah, like a memory jogger almost. Yeah,
that's interesting. I will need to introduce you to someone else who I have on the podcast.
I've had a preach out with them. They're coming up soon. And she is a professional
(21:22):
map maker. But she is so similar to what you're doing. But it's about,
she makes maps of people's memories and special times and things like that. And it
could be a physical map, but it's like, you might have, "This is where I met my best friend.
And this is where this happened." And so you can remember a place so much more clearly when you
(21:46):
attach like emotion or a memory to it, rather than just a physical map of it was the corner of this
street and that street. Sounds the same. Sounds the same, a different context. I feel
such a, like visuals are such good things for jogging people's memory and
like recalling information. And I think that's why I love the doodling so much. And I feel like
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doodling for me, when I say more professional doodle, it's kind of playful. But it's really
kind of taking the core value system of doodling and just amplifying it. But I love doodling as
an art form because it's so low barrier to entry. It doesn't have to mean anything. You don't have to
(22:39):
be an artist. If you haven't picked up a pen in 20 years, you can still make a doodle. I really love
doodling as just a thing that exists in the world that you can play with. It doesn't have to mean
anything. You don't ever have to show anybody. And doodling is doing what people, like people think
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it's doing the opposite of what they think. So we've been told that doodling is a distraction.
You're doing it because you are bored in a meeting. But the science show says actually doing the
opposite is helping you stay focused. Whereas a lot of us are actually very tactile learners.
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But if you're sitting in a meeting, where can you be tactile? Where can you, I guess,
kinesthetic learners too? You need to be moving. I think that's why the fidget spinners,
I believe, my opinion, it's why those fidget spinners and those little toys have been so popular
over the last number of years because it's a very non-threatening. You can just spin a thing,
(23:44):
it's not hurting anybody. But it gives something for kids and people to do with their hands while
they're also listening to something. Doodling can help you remember up to 29% more information,
just doodling in a meeting. So the way that I like to look at my work is just a step above that.
(24:08):
If you're doodling anyways, just make those doodles work for you a little bit. Include the
information in them or doodle something of what you're hearing. They told a funny cat story,
so you drew a little cat. And when you look at that doodle later, you might remember part of
their story. So I like to, when I'm teaching people how to do this too, it's not about being an artist.
(24:34):
It's not even really knowing how to draw anything in the beginning. Just getting yourself
used to and going back to the doodling that you used to do and just small little tweaks,
small, like the first thing that I teach people to draw is a line, just a line. And then turn
that line into an arrow, then turn that line into a square, and then turn the line into a circle.
(24:55):
And then all the different use cases for those little drawing elements. So it's not like we're
necessarily looking in the beginning when you're learning it too, is creating all these wonderful
pieces of artwork. So, and I've really been trying to show people some of my early stuff from like
10 years ago when I didn't really draw a whole lot. I was very creative, but in draw a whole lot.
(25:20):
So my drawings weren't great. We were pretty awful. So I like when I can show that progression of my
sort of 10-year journey, it's like, people can't compare, oh, what I can create 10 years in as
like, oh, well, if I can't draw that, I might as well not even try. And that's not the case. So
(25:42):
it's really about this little building box and those little stepping stones and using the doodling
as this beautiful, non-threatening, low barrier to entry, pretty safe space to jump off of.
Yeah, I love that. It's a non-threatening art form that I mean, I definitely remember getting
(26:04):
in trouble at school for doodling. And perhaps it was part of me trying to recall and understand
what was actually happening in the cast. So do you think that anyone should be able to doodle and
this might enhance their understanding or at work? Or how do you think that people could apply this
(26:24):
in their everyday life? Yeah, well, I actually like to describe it, it's very useful when complexity
is so high. Like I started this conversation off talking about a lot of complexity. So
often we'll find ourselves and you might not even think that about it and you might brush it off as
(26:46):
you're at a restaurant and you grab an napkin, you ask someone for a pen, you make a little
scratch, scratch scratch, trying to explain a concept to somebody. Like that is the power of
a doodle. And so I find doodling just as something to kind of help keep your hands busy while you're
(27:06):
learning something is fine. But also can be leveraged in situations where that complexity is
higher and you're trying to understand something for yourself. And sometimes words aren't always
going to do it. And you don't need a fancy visual program to create something to try to get those
(27:29):
ideas out of your head. And sometimes you just need a few little scratch scratches on a piece of
paper and a few words and you're trying to gain clarity for yourself or explain something to
somebody else. So that could be something that you're trying to figure out for yourself or
in a situation in like a workplace where you're faced with a situation where you're trying to
(27:53):
gain understanding or clarity or explain something to somebody. So the situations are kind of endless
and how you could use it. It's just kind of adding it into sort of something that you can do as like,
"Hey, I need to explain something. I'm going to doodle this out. And this is going to help me
(28:18):
explain it to you or me be able to understand for myself." So. Yeah. Yeah. I think even just
like capturing the moment, you're talking about complexity in my mind instantly went to,
"My gosh, we've got so many things going on in our lives. There's an Australia interest rates
rising and there's just so much going on politically and everything like that." Even just kind of doodling
(28:42):
down what is on your mind. You don't necessarily have to write a list like, "This is worrying me.
This is worrying me." You just draw things and just get it off your brain. I can imagine that
would be something useful for me to do just as a release. Yeah. Yeah. Like when we do this, when we
do, we take words and we, words and pictures the way that I do it professionally. When we do it
(29:07):
for ourselves, the common term is sketch noting or visual note taking. You call it either thing.
But I know people in the sketch noting community that that's their primary use as like a self-care
meditative thing for themselves. So, there's so many different ways to be able to kind of use
(29:30):
this for yourself to, "I love how it can help people learn." And that's sort of like my,
the hill I'll die on is about like the learning because I feel like we've just done people such
a great disservice by taking something as simple as a drawing out of the hands of students as they
(29:51):
get older and then that we, and then we get into adulthood into the workplace and we don't leverage
something that could really help us learn and engage with information. So, I still really,
really love that aspect of it. But it can be used in so many different ways, like the self-care,
for example. Yeah. I mean, we see a lot of the mindfulness, coloring books and things like that.
(30:16):
It's kind of like that, but you don't even need the book. You just need a pen and paper.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I love that part about it too, like doodling being such a
non-threading art form, but then you don't need anything fancy. Like everyone's got
something to draw with and a piece of paper lying around, right? Yeah. It doesn't require anything
(30:41):
fancy. And I always find one of the first questions people always tend to ask me when
they're learning how to sketch note or do visual note taking are the materials. And I'm like,
"Don't worry about the materials. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about what digital program I use.
Don't worry about it. Just pick up whatever you have because I find we think, I think sometimes
(31:04):
we think, "Oh, well, we need to have the good pens or we need to have the goods that..." And I'm like,
"No, no. No, I started with office supplies store $10 pack of markers and that lasted me like a
year or more." And I was doing it for other people, right? I started off with real like
cheapy basic things and it didn't matter. People weren't asking me, "Oh, are those the fancy markers
(31:29):
or the $10 markers?" And nobody asked, right? Nobody cared. They were just like impressed that I could
kind of do it on the fly, right? So I always think like, you know, it's nice to have fun materials
that we love to play with, but you know, it's definitely not necessary. You're first starting
out for sure. Yeah, I love that. It's very accessible to get into it. And I just had just had a thought,
(31:55):
"Man, you must be awesome at Pictionary." You know what? I haven't played Pictionary in years and I
think it's because no one suggests it. I actually own it. I actually own it. Yeah, I'm like, nobody
wants to play Pictionary with me. I actually mentioned it. It's my first page of my book.
I like the book that I wrote about Pictionary and it's actually in the first page of my
(32:20):
introduction. I was like, "Are you always picked last for Pictionary?"
Oh, so tell me about your book. So is this an instructional book on how to get into it?
Yeah, so it's called The Beginner's Guide to Pictionary. So it's everything that you
need to know from the beginning as a beginner. So emphasis on the beginner's guide. I really felt
(32:48):
like there's so many amazing, wonderfully talented people who do this professionally.
But the problem is that's all we see are these beautiful sketch notes, these beautiful graphics
from these conferences. They're so incredible. And I felt like there was this huge gap in the
(33:11):
world space, whatever, of beginner-beginner content, just putting pen to paper.
Because if we're trying to talk to people who, just getting them back to putting pen to paper,
but they're looking at all these beautiful illustrations, you're like, "I can't do that."
(33:31):
It starts with lettering. And like I said, it goes into the line, an arrow. And it talks about
how you can use a line, like the purpose of using a line. You can use a line to connect information
on a page. You can use it to separate. You can use it to highlight. A square as a container,
and then you can change it up, make all different kinds of shapes of containers, but
(33:53):
start with something as a square. You can group information. You can emphasize. You can use them
as subheadings. So how to use these really basic drawing elements to integrate them into the words
that you're capturing. Because the content is still always going to be really, really important.
We're not looking at taking information and turning it into 100% drawings. So for people that are
(34:23):
familiar with infographics, you could lean on that for inspiration, where infographics usually have
an icon and words. But it goes a little bit beyond an infographic because oftentimes,
as you get more experience with it, that information weaves in and around drawings and
(34:44):
things. So it's not necessarily like where a lot of infographics are like, "Here's a pie chart
that describes this data point, and here's the information with it." Which a lot of people
start their sketchnoting journey off doing that, but it can go way, way beyond that.
But yeah, I don't even teach icons and drawing icons until at the very end of the book,
(35:09):
because really trying to build the foundation, some of the drawing skills, introducing drawing
little people, and then talking about the process of listening and thinking and then making sense
part, and then introducing more about the visual vocabulary, I call it, whereas you can start to
learn how to draw really basic icons and they can have meaning. So learning an icon that can
(35:37):
have multiple meanings, starting off with those instead of something that's just like, "I keep
going back to a cat." Like a little cat face. That's great to learn how to draw, but you might not
use that all the time. But a little magnifying glass or a little light bulb or a little book
or a little clipboard or a little pencil or a little something have multiple meanings to them.
(36:01):
Like a pencil could be like, "You're writing something. You're drawing something. You're
explaining something." So it can describe many ideas. So I like to teach when we start to get
into more drawings, which I find people just want to jump right to learning how to draw.
But if they don't get some of those foundational elements of the lines and things like that,
(36:23):
then I find people just burn out and then like, "Oh, they give up too quickly." But you could create
a really beautiful sketch note with just using some lines or just using line and arrow and
a container or two. It could look very nice, but at the end of the day, it should be about the
process and not the product. So even though I do teach aesthetics in the book and the visual
(36:49):
appeal of how it might look, still the content is always going to be really important.
And the process of your thinking and learning while you are creating. Yeah.
You've just hit on a major theme that runs through this podcast, which is
it's about the process. It's not necessarily about the end result, especially as you are
(37:12):
learning. So that's wonderful. I definitely am going to have to look up your book because it
sounds so interesting. And I want to say thanks so much for joining me today. It's been a really
great conversation. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I could have talked to you forever. I know. I feel like I have
(37:33):
so many more questions, but I'll just have to invite you back, I think. There you go.
And I also want to say thank you to everyone who's tuned in today to Creativity (37:37):
Uncovered.
I really hope this episode has inspired you to pick up a pen and start doodling.
And as always, I hope that this topic helps you summon creativity the next time that you
need it.
(38:07):
So
if you've made it this far, a huge thank you for your support and tuning into today's episode.
Creativity (38:32):
Uncovered has been lovingly recorded on the land of the Kabi Kabi people,
and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. This podcast has been produced by my
amazing team here at Crisp Communications, and the music you just heard was composed by James
Gatling. If you liked this episode, please do share it around and help us on our mission to
(38:58):
unlock more creativity in this world. You can also hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any new
episode releases.
Okay listeners, I want you to self identify who here has absent-mindedly drawn or doodled
(00:15):
whether on the phone in a meeting or elsewhere. Well, if you raise your hand to them, then
you're going to find today's chat really interesting because all of that doodling was not in vain.
Hello and welcome to Creativity (00:26):
Uncovered. My name is Abi Gatling and I am on a journey to
uncover how everyday people find inspiration, get inventive and open their imagination.
Basically, I want to know how people use creative solutions at home, work, play and everything in
(00:47):
between. And my goal for this podcast is that by the end of it, you'll be after the whole suite of
tried and tested ways to something creativity the next time that you need it.
Today, I'm very excited to be speaking with Ashton Rodenhiser, who is a professional doodler, and
(01:09):
she believes that drawing can actually be used as a thinking and a learning tool. So keen to find
out more. So welcome Ashton.
Hey, Abi, I'm so happy to be here. I'm so looking forward to our chat
today. Yes. And thanks so much for joining me all the way from Canada. It is your night time.
That's commitment to the cause. Thank you. That's commitment to all things creative. Yes.
(01:37):
That's what we love. That's what we love. So I am so intrigued. You are professional doodler. What
is that? Where did this come from?
I think it's so fun when you get to work for yourself and you can just like make up titles like
someone commented on my LinkedIn the other day and I was like, I don't even remember. What do I
(02:01):
call myself recently? So it's fun that you can be creative in creating your own job titles too. And
professional doodler, I just thought was fun. And definitely one of those things you're like,
what the heck is that all about? Yeah, so I use doodling and drawing and sketch noting and live
(02:21):
illustration to help communicate ideas. So I love being in situations where, you know, information
is really dense. It's really complicated and how I can use words and images and drawings to help
gain, help people gain clarity in a session or a meeting or create that consensus and allow people
(02:44):
to see, to feel seen, valued and heard, right? So it's really about fighting myself in situations
where that the complexity of the information is so high and how we can use something as simple as
a doodle to help explain those ideas even in so many different ways, which I'm sure we'll talk
(03:05):
about. Yeah. Yes. I mean, this is so interesting to me because I'm such a visual person. I find
myself doing diagrams when I'm explaining things. And even the other day, I was doing some business
planning. And we were saying, we're going to repeat this thing. And I had drawn like the copy
(03:27):
symbol. And there was like, everyone else in the group was like, what are you doing? Like, that's a
copy symbol. Don't you know the copy? So this is so interesting to me. But like, how did this come
about that? I mean, I, we all know about infographics and things like that. But actually doodling
it, like, how does that work? Yeah, so I actually learned that this thing existed as a way of working
(03:53):
as a facilitator. So as a facilitator, you find yourself in meetings and sessions, and you're
helping people move through complexity, very similar. And, but you're doing it by asking
questions, you know, sometimes you have to call out the elephant in the room, right? Sometimes
(04:15):
you're in conversations that people are unhappy to be there, right? Like, you're not necessarily a
mediator, though you can find yourself in sometimes those situations. But it's about helping people
move through to get to a goal or a decision. And, and being the person at the front of the room
where you're not the teacher, but you're helping manage everybody, making sure everybody feels
(04:36):
heard, and reflecting back what you're hearing people say and helping make connections. But you're
doing that all in words, right? So a few years into it, a friend of mine had introduced me into
just a one day local workshop about graphic facilitation. I had never seen it in my life, but
I think secretly I'd always wanted to be an artist, but I didn't think that was ever a logical
(05:03):
path for me. There was just such a negative rhetoric in my family and my community about
those quote unquote kids who go to art school and have no jobs, but they leave, can't make money
making an artist like this isn't new probably to one of your listeners, right? So I didn't even
follow that path. But when I heard this graphic facilitation, I thought, oh, this is so interesting
(05:27):
because I really love helping people come to their own ideas and facilitate things. And like I
said, you're not a teacher, so you're not imparting wisdom, you're hearing wisdom and feeding it
back to people in a way that they can kind of learn from themselves. So this graphic, this sort of
visual was like, oh, this is kind of intriguing in the facilitation world. And I took that one day
(05:51):
workshop and I was totally hooked. I was like, this is so fascinating. So you can work with groups
of people to help them get to a goal by not just doing it in words, but now you can do it in pictures.
And I was actually facilitating a group at the time with young adults talking about pluralism
and about how we can kind of go beyond tolerating people and really like genuinely authentically
(06:16):
like get to know people and respect people, even when they have a different background from us.
The focus was more of a religious context, which was a really cool because we got to like go and
visit all these like different religious places of worship and talk to the leaders. It was like
such an amazing eye-opening experience. Anyways, I was facilitating that at the time with someone else
(06:41):
and I had just taken this workshop, I threw some paper on the wall, I did it, it was horrible.
I did some drawings, I did some words, it was awful. And I put it away for a little while,
I brought it back out like, I don't know, a few weeks or months later, I can't remember.
And I was like, whoa, I can remember where people sat. I can remember things that weren't even
(07:02):
captured on the page. Like I was blown away by the power that like this isn't just like this
cute drawing thing that you do in a meeting. I was like, whoa, this is actually a lot more
powerful than I thought it was. And it was kind of from that point that I was like, you know what,
I really want to learn how to do this very well. Like I want to do this. So I started,
(07:29):
you know, collaborating with other facilitators and doing some things. And then, and this was 10
years ago. So it was like, I'm actually like at my 10-year anniversary because it was the fall of
2013. And a few years in, me just sort of playing around and trying to figure it out,
I went to a conference in Austin, Texas. I was seven months pregnant at the time with my second
(07:51):
child. And it was July and it was so hot, it was awful. And but I went there with a mission. I was
like, I'm going to like see who created business doing this, like who is making money doing this?
Like how did they figure this out? So I sat in and all the best business sessions that they had.
And I was like, man, these people figured it out. I'm sure I could figure it out too. So I left that
(08:15):
conference being like, okay, I'm going to actually try to build a business. Because at that point,
it was kind of like, how has happened half out was like, I tell people now that like I had a secret
business those first few years because I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell anybody. It's like my
secret business. You have side hustle. It's like that you can't run a business if it's a secret.
(08:37):
So anyways, that's sort of my kind of journey of how I kind of got to this place. And yeah,
that was, I started 10 years ago and I started really building a business about seven, even though
I say like the number is fluid because of the secret business thing. But it was about, I've
(08:59):
been doing it really full time for seven years. That's so cool. So you sort of started in small
group facilitation, but now you've moved on to big conferences. Is that right?
Yeah. So I really, I really fell, I really fell in love with when I first was introduced to it,
(09:20):
to it as like the facilitation support, like being there on the facilitation team.
And then from a business perspective, conferences was an easier sell, the facilitation,
because I could go to a conference, they would have three, four, five, 10 speakers. I could create
(09:43):
these visuals based on the presentations. And there was a really quick immediate feedback.
Right? Like if I was there for the day, or sometimes I'd be there for multiple days,
and when you're in person, I do with paper markers mostly. Right? So it's very like in your face,
like their life size are gigantic. Right? So from a business perspective, the conferences
(10:07):
have actually been like an easier sales process. Whereas the facilitation, unless somebody
understands the power of facilitation, it's like a little bit of a, like there's still like a lot
of teaching in what I have to do, because of what it is, is like an experience good, you have to
experience to understand it. But adding the facilitation piece is like now you have to also
(10:30):
teach them on the value of facilitation sometimes. So I still do facilitation, but I more so
collaborate with others. So sometimes people will find me and I'll bring in a facilitator,
because it's impossible to do both roles. You can't like be managing a room and talking to them,
and also be drawing, having your back half turn to them drawing a picture about what they're saying.
(10:55):
Right? So yeah, but I find myself in mainly those two situations more of a facilitation
type style where I'm a little bit more engaged. It's really about the voices collectively in a
room. Whereas at a conference, it might be like a panel or a speaker. So there are like
more moments in time of like a present, like a fully formed presentation. But then in the
(11:19):
facilitation, it's like, who knows what's going to happen? Who knows what people are going to talk
about a little bit more free form in that way. Yeah. Yeah. So in this smaller group, I suppose
you can ask people questions and get clarifications. And that would help you with your drawing.
You can't do that in a big conference, I imagine.
No. Hopefully, if the conference speakers are decent, I shouldn't have to ask a lot of questions.
(11:47):
If they talk really, really fast, sometimes I'll like have my camera
app on my phone ready to go. So I can just like take some pictures of some slides or something.
But most of the time, I'm just so tuned to listen and draw so quickly that it's usually fine. But
(12:09):
being in a room with people that it's a different level of engagement, which is really beautiful.
And when I get to introduce myself at the beginning, I get to sort of lay the foundation of why I'm
there and how I'm supposed to help them. And I invite them like, "Hey, tell me if I spelled something
wrong." That's always like a joke, right? Because there's always people who like to correct people's
(12:33):
spelling. But beyond that, I'm like, "Hey, come in. Tell me if I didn't capture something,
please let me know." Right? Like if you feel like I missed something, please tell me. And I will,
you know, this should be a collaborative. It's not like I'm the artist over here doing it. It's
like, "No, no. Talk to me. Engage with me." And then, yeah, I get to ask those clarifying questions.
(12:57):
And then I'm also basically like a professional listener at the same time. So then I sometimes
can pipe in and ask a question. I find because I almost am like holding the... I'm like holding all
of it. Whereas when people are in the room and they're talking, a lot of times they come with
(13:21):
their own judgments and bias and all their own baggage around that topic. And when I get to
go in there as a third party, I'm like, "I have no idea what Sally from HR did yesterday and why
you're mad to be here." Right? Like I don't have any of that. So I can listen as a holistic kind of
(13:45):
perspective and ask questions sometimes or help the facilitator out by kind of stepping in and
saying a few things here and there as like my role as like the holder of all of the information.
So I find I'm almost one of those people that play a role in the room sometimes of like, "All right,
(14:07):
let's take... I know we're on this path. Let's just take five steps back. Let's review what we just
talked about. Okay, how do we want to take this conversation forward?" Because sometimes when
you're in those rooms and emotions are high and people have their own agenda of what they want
to get out and what they want to talk about, sometimes I just like... I'm the person there that
(14:28):
also is like, "All right, let's just take a breather here, people. Let's take a step back. Reflect on
what we just heard. Where we see in the themes are arising. Where do we want to take this conversation
next?" Right? So yeah. That's so cool. I can only imagine how fast your hands are moving,
drawing these things. I always jump that. Like, I actually did look on the Guinness World Records
(14:53):
website, but I cannot find anything about like the fastest handwriting because I would love to try to
apply for it. I'm sure I wouldn't win, but you know... It's not too easy. It would be interesting,
but I don't see it on there. So if there's any Guinness World Record people out there,
that would be really fun. But yeah, I do definitely. I actually just did a little Instagram thing the
(15:14):
other day. I was like, "This is how fast I write." Yes, this is actually how fast I'm... I'm not
speeding it up. Yeah, so you have to capture very, very quickly, that's for sure. Especially when
you're doing conferences and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Fast and legible. That's a killer
combination. Yeah. Yeah, it's this weird space where you're not just trans... It's not just straight
(15:37):
translation, right? Whereas you can think of it as like a visual language, but it's not just
straight translation because what happens in traditional note-taking is a lot of it is you're
listen and you write down, but you miss the most important part, which is the thinking part, right?
So when I'm doing this, I'm listening, but I'm not just writing stuff down. I'm thinking,
(15:59):
"Okay, what did I just hear five minutes ago? How does that connect with what I'm listening to now?
Does this warrant me writing it down? Should I wait a minute?" You know what I mean? So
I love that. I think that's almost like the unsung hero is the stuff that you don't see
because you see that what I'm drawing, but what you're not seeing is the thinking and all of the...
(16:22):
I call it making sense. The making sense that's happening in your brain of like,
"How do these ideas connect together? What makes sense here?" Right? So that's what you don't see,
but what people do see is the drawing part, right? So it's not... It kind of goes beyond just like...
Some people use the word scribe to say like, "Oh, I'm a visual scribe." And I've never really
(16:48):
referred to myself as that because when I think of a scribe, I feel like it's missing that thinking
part. So yeah, it... Terms and things are so funny. What we end up calling ourselves, but
it's sort of like this... It's less about being a wonderful artist and more about
(17:11):
listening in the thinking part because you can create a graphic that is very messy,
but more meaningful than one that's beautiful. You know what I mean? So if you're like a professional
artist or you're a trained artist, but you don't have any of them listening in the thinking down,
then yeah, it's a pretty picture, but it might not mean anything to the people in the room or...
(17:33):
When you're doing this for yourself, you know what I mean?
Yeah. I was wondering before when you said... I might take photos of the slides if they're
talking too quickly and things like that. I was wondering, why would you have...
You creating a visual on the side as well as their slides, but that's you kind of being the conduit
(17:56):
between the speaker and the audience, I suppose. You're kind of interpreting what they're saying
and putting in an extra context. Is that right? Yeah. The way that I like to describe it is
like especially at a conference, right? You're going to a conference and you're listening to all
this information and it's so much and it's so overwhelming. And I should really know the stats
(18:20):
off the top of my head, but whatever it is, you'll lose a significant amount of what you remember
is gone within a week or two. So I like in those two situations to try to be the conjoint of the
long lasting learning. So there's this beautiful opportunity to have this cool, engaging thing
(18:41):
in the moment that can help visual learners or people who learn differently, especially...
I feel like I'm really seeking out working with clients who care about the learning of the people
in their room and also care about how people just are humans in a room. I was at an event
(19:05):
about two months ago and it was so overwhelming. There was no quiet area. There was no place where
I could just go and just sit in silence for a minute. There was no where for me to go.
And I think about that as someone who is being a professional in that space, let alone anybody
(19:27):
who might need a quiet space just to think. So if you cannot physically or mentally be there
during a presentation because the world is overwhelming to you for whatever reason,
I also like that this can also be supporting people like that.
So there's the learning, there's the engagement. And then back to what I was saying about the
(19:51):
long lastingness is now you have this visual snapshot that you can quickly look at and go
"Right, right. Top three things. Oh, right. That cat joke was funny. Boom, boom, boom." Yeah,
okay. I remember what he said. This is what I took from it, what I have used. So
and then what I would hope speakers and conferences want you to do is to take that learning and do
(20:16):
something with it. But if you can't remember it, you're not going to do anything with it.
So you go back to your workplace a week later or two days later, you don't remember what anybody
said. So you can't actually implement any of the changes. And sometimes I'm working in very
technical spaces and it's pretty important for you to know the latest cybersecurity,
(20:37):
like something, something, threat actor who's going to do something bad or whatever. Like,
might want to remember those things, right? So there's sort of like beauty of value of like
in the room supporting people and the sort of aftercare of your conference attendees too of like,
"Now here's all the graphics and you can refer to them. Well, if you weren't there,
(21:00):
you didn't miss out. Here's what you missed. Or if you were there, now you can go, "Oh, right.
That's what I remember when they said that." Yeah, like a memory jogger almost. Yeah,
that's interesting. I will need to introduce you to someone else who I have on the podcast.
I've had a preach out with them. They're coming up soon. And she is a professional
(21:22):
map maker. But she is so similar to what you're doing. But it's about,
she makes maps of people's memories and special times and things like that. And it
could be a physical map, but it's like, you might have, "This is where I met my best friend.
And this is where this happened." And so you can remember a place so much more clearly when you
(21:46):
attach like emotion or a memory to it, rather than just a physical map of it was the corner of this
street and that street. Sounds the same. Sounds the same, a different context. I feel
such a, like visuals are such good things for jogging people's memory and
like recalling information. And I think that's why I love the doodling so much. And I feel like
(22:14):
doodling for me, when I say more professional doodle, it's kind of playful. But it's really
kind of taking the core value system of doodling and just amplifying it. But I love doodling as
an art form because it's so low barrier to entry. It doesn't have to mean anything. You don't have to
(22:39):
be an artist. If you haven't picked up a pen in 20 years, you can still make a doodle. I really love
doodling as just a thing that exists in the world that you can play with. It doesn't have to mean
anything. You don't ever have to show anybody. And doodling is doing what people, like people think
(23:00):
it's doing the opposite of what they think. So we've been told that doodling is a distraction.
You're doing it because you are bored in a meeting. But the science show says actually doing the
opposite is helping you stay focused. Whereas a lot of us are actually very tactile learners.
(23:21):
But if you're sitting in a meeting, where can you be tactile? Where can you, I guess,
kinesthetic learners too? You need to be moving. I think that's why the fidget spinners,
I believe, my opinion, it's why those fidget spinners and those little toys have been so popular
over the last number of years because it's a very non-threatening. You can just spin a thing,
(23:44):
it's not hurting anybody. But it gives something for kids and people to do with their hands while
they're also listening to something. Doodling can help you remember up to 29% more information,
just doodling in a meeting. So the way that I like to look at my work is just a step above that.
(24:08):
If you're doodling anyways, just make those doodles work for you a little bit. Include the
information in them or doodle something of what you're hearing. They told a funny cat story,
so you drew a little cat. And when you look at that doodle later, you might remember part of
their story. So I like to, when I'm teaching people how to do this too, it's not about being an artist.
(24:34):
It's not even really knowing how to draw anything in the beginning. Just getting yourself
used to and going back to the doodling that you used to do and just small little tweaks,
small, like the first thing that I teach people to draw is a line, just a line. And then turn
that line into an arrow, then turn that line into a square, and then turn the line into a circle.
(24:55):
And then all the different use cases for those little drawing elements. So it's not like we're
necessarily looking in the beginning when you're learning it too, is creating all these wonderful
pieces of artwork. So, and I've really been trying to show people some of my early stuff from like
10 years ago when I didn't really draw a whole lot. I was very creative, but in draw a whole lot.
(25:20):
So my drawings weren't great. We were pretty awful. So I like when I can show that progression of my
sort of 10-year journey, it's like, people can't compare, oh, what I can create 10 years in as
like, oh, well, if I can't draw that, I might as well not even try. And that's not the case. So
(25:42):
it's really about this little building box and those little stepping stones and using the doodling
as this beautiful, non-threatening, low barrier to entry, pretty safe space to jump off of.
Yeah, I love that. It's a non-threatening art form that I mean, I definitely remember getting
(26:04):
in trouble at school for doodling. And perhaps it was part of me trying to recall and understand
what was actually happening in the cast. So do you think that anyone should be able to doodle and
this might enhance their understanding or at work? Or how do you think that people could apply this
(26:24):
in their everyday life? Yeah, well, I actually like to describe it, it's very useful when complexity
is so high. Like I started this conversation off talking about a lot of complexity. So
often we'll find ourselves and you might not even think that about it and you might brush it off as
(26:46):
you're at a restaurant and you grab an napkin, you ask someone for a pen, you make a little
scratch, scratch scratch, trying to explain a concept to somebody. Like that is the power of
a doodle. And so I find doodling just as something to kind of help keep your hands busy while you're
(27:06):
learning something is fine. But also can be leveraged in situations where that complexity is
higher and you're trying to understand something for yourself. And sometimes words aren't always
going to do it. And you don't need a fancy visual program to create something to try to get those
(27:29):
ideas out of your head. And sometimes you just need a few little scratch scratches on a piece of
paper and a few words and you're trying to gain clarity for yourself or explain something to
somebody else. So that could be something that you're trying to figure out for yourself or
in a situation in like a workplace where you're faced with a situation where you're trying to
(27:53):
gain understanding or clarity or explain something to somebody. So the situations are kind of endless
and how you could use it. It's just kind of adding it into sort of something that you can do as like,
"Hey, I need to explain something. I'm going to doodle this out. And this is going to help me
(28:18):
explain it to you or me be able to understand for myself." So. Yeah. Yeah. I think even just
like capturing the moment, you're talking about complexity in my mind instantly went to,
"My gosh, we've got so many things going on in our lives. There's an Australia interest rates
rising and there's just so much going on politically and everything like that." Even just kind of doodling
(28:42):
down what is on your mind. You don't necessarily have to write a list like, "This is worrying me.
This is worrying me." You just draw things and just get it off your brain. I can imagine that
would be something useful for me to do just as a release. Yeah. Yeah. Like when we do this, when we
do, we take words and we, words and pictures the way that I do it professionally. When we do it
(29:07):
for ourselves, the common term is sketch noting or visual note taking. You call it either thing.
But I know people in the sketch noting community that that's their primary use as like a self-care
meditative thing for themselves. So, there's so many different ways to be able to kind of use
(29:30):
this for yourself to, "I love how it can help people learn." And that's sort of like my,
the hill I'll die on is about like the learning because I feel like we've just done people such
a great disservice by taking something as simple as a drawing out of the hands of students as they
(29:51):
get older and then that we, and then we get into adulthood into the workplace and we don't leverage
something that could really help us learn and engage with information. So, I still really,
really love that aspect of it. But it can be used in so many different ways, like the self-care,
for example. Yeah. I mean, we see a lot of the mindfulness, coloring books and things like that.
(30:16):
It's kind of like that, but you don't even need the book. You just need a pen and paper.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I love that part about it too, like doodling being such a
non-threading art form, but then you don't need anything fancy. Like everyone's got
something to draw with and a piece of paper lying around, right? Yeah. It doesn't require anything
(30:41):
fancy. And I always find one of the first questions people always tend to ask me when
they're learning how to sketch note or do visual note taking are the materials. And I'm like,
"Don't worry about the materials. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about what digital program I use.
Don't worry about it. Just pick up whatever you have because I find we think, I think sometimes
(31:04):
we think, "Oh, well, we need to have the good pens or we need to have the goods that..." And I'm like,
"No, no. No, I started with office supplies store $10 pack of markers and that lasted me like a
year or more." And I was doing it for other people, right? I started off with real like
cheapy basic things and it didn't matter. People weren't asking me, "Oh, are those the fancy markers
(31:29):
or the $10 markers?" And nobody asked, right? Nobody cared. They were just like impressed that I could
kind of do it on the fly, right? So I always think like, you know, it's nice to have fun materials
that we love to play with, but you know, it's definitely not necessary. You're first starting
out for sure. Yeah, I love that. It's very accessible to get into it. And I just had just had a thought,
(31:55):
"Man, you must be awesome at Pictionary." You know what? I haven't played Pictionary in years and I
think it's because no one suggests it. I actually own it. I actually own it. Yeah, I'm like, nobody
wants to play Pictionary with me. I actually mentioned it. It's my first page of my book.
I like the book that I wrote about Pictionary and it's actually in the first page of my
(32:20):
introduction. I was like, "Are you always picked last for Pictionary?"
Oh, so tell me about your book. So is this an instructional book on how to get into it?
Yeah, so it's called The Beginner's Guide to Pictionary. So it's everything that you
need to know from the beginning as a beginner. So emphasis on the beginner's guide. I really felt
(32:48):
like there's so many amazing, wonderfully talented people who do this professionally.
But the problem is that's all we see are these beautiful sketch notes, these beautiful graphics
from these conferences. They're so incredible. And I felt like there was this huge gap in the
(33:11):
world space, whatever, of beginner-beginner content, just putting pen to paper.
Because if we're trying to talk to people who, just getting them back to putting pen to paper,
but they're looking at all these beautiful illustrations, you're like, "I can't do that."
(33:31):
It starts with lettering. And like I said, it goes into the line, an arrow. And it talks about
how you can use a line, like the purpose of using a line. You can use a line to connect information
on a page. You can use it to separate. You can use it to highlight. A square as a container,
and then you can change it up, make all different kinds of shapes of containers, but
(33:53):
start with something as a square. You can group information. You can emphasize. You can use them
as subheadings. So how to use these really basic drawing elements to integrate them into the words
that you're capturing. Because the content is still always going to be really, really important.
We're not looking at taking information and turning it into 100% drawings. So for people that are
(34:23):
familiar with infographics, you could lean on that for inspiration, where infographics usually have
an icon and words. But it goes a little bit beyond an infographic because oftentimes,
as you get more experience with it, that information weaves in and around drawings and
(34:44):
things. So it's not necessarily like where a lot of infographics are like, "Here's a pie chart
that describes this data point, and here's the information with it." Which a lot of people
start their sketchnoting journey off doing that, but it can go way, way beyond that.
But yeah, I don't even teach icons and drawing icons until at the very end of the book,
(35:09):
because really trying to build the foundation, some of the drawing skills, introducing drawing
little people, and then talking about the process of listening and thinking and then making sense
part, and then introducing more about the visual vocabulary, I call it, whereas you can start to
learn how to draw really basic icons and they can have meaning. So learning an icon that can
(35:37):
have multiple meanings, starting off with those instead of something that's just like, "I keep
going back to a cat." Like a little cat face. That's great to learn how to draw, but you might not
use that all the time. But a little magnifying glass or a little light bulb or a little book
or a little clipboard or a little pencil or a little something have multiple meanings to them.
(36:01):
Like a pencil could be like, "You're writing something. You're drawing something. You're
explaining something." So it can describe many ideas. So I like to teach when we start to get
into more drawings, which I find people just want to jump right to learning how to draw.
But if they don't get some of those foundational elements of the lines and things like that,
(36:23):
then I find people just burn out and then like, "Oh, they give up too quickly." But you could create
a really beautiful sketch note with just using some lines or just using line and arrow and
a container or two. It could look very nice, but at the end of the day, it should be about the
process and not the product. So even though I do teach aesthetics in the book and the visual
(36:49):
appeal of how it might look, still the content is always going to be really important.
And the process of your thinking and learning while you are creating. Yeah.
You've just hit on a major theme that runs through this podcast, which is
it's about the process. It's not necessarily about the end result, especially as you are
(37:12):
learning. So that's wonderful. I definitely am going to have to look up your book because it
sounds so interesting. And I want to say thanks so much for joining me today. It's been a really
great conversation. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I could have talked to you forever. I know. I feel like I have
(37:33):
so many more questions, but I'll just have to invite you back, I think. There you go.
And I also want to say thank you to everyone who's tuned in today to Creativity (37:37):
Uncovered.
I really hope this episode has inspired you to pick up a pen and start doodling.
And as always, I hope that this topic helps you summon creativity the next time that you
need it.
(38:07):
So
if you've made it this far, a huge thank you for your support and tuning into today's episode.
Creativity (38:32):
Uncovered has been lovingly recorded on the land of the Kabi Kabi people,
and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. This podcast has been produced by my
amazing team here at Crisp Communications, and the music you just heard was composed by James
Gatling. If you liked this episode, please do share it around and help us on our mission to
(38:58):
unlock more creativity in this world. You can also hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any new
episode releases.
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