How Urban Sketching Helps Graphic Recording

Tuesday Tips & Tricks 
by USk Chicago Correspondent Wes Douglas

What is Graphic Recording?*Graphic recording is the skill of listening, synthesizing and transforming the spoken word into a visual language in real-time. They are rich, visual notes created from a blending of handwriting, drawings, hand-rendered display type, shapes, and visual elements to help capture the essence of a speech, presentation or performance. The goal is to take a complex narrative and break it down to its essential elements and create a memorable, easy-to-understand low-tech summary on paper large or small. (That is me at the large board).

Basic requirements of graphic recording:
- It helps if you can listen carefully while sketching 30 seconds behind
- It helps if you can write legibly
- It helps if you focus only on key points that are interesting to you
  (as opposed to trying to write everything that is said-- you are not a stenographer)
- Whenever possible, replace words with pictures
- Utilize icons, metaphors, and visual puns when you can
- Drawing quickly and from memory is a must.
  Practice drawing random, everyday objects will help build up your visual vocabulary

How does Urban Sketching come into play? (plus examples of my graphic recordings)

Urban sketching: careful observation
Graphic recording: careful listening and 
drawing from memory

Urban sketching: loose sketching
Graphic recording: loose writing/drawing

Urban sketching: you don't have to draw everything you see
Graphic recording: you don't have to write down everything you hear

Urban sketching: everyday objects sketched from observation
Graphic recording: everyday objects, shapes and forms from memory

Urban sketching: break down scene to most important element
Graphic recording: break down summary to most important points/visuals

Urban sketching: sketch real time on location
Graphic recording: listening real time and draw with 30 second delay

Shape: triangle, arrows, pentagon, bow tie, Forward or Rewind symbol, wedge

USK equivalents: rooftops, tents, umbrellas, milk carton, caps on building, caps on banisters, yield sign, caution sign, school crossing sign, porch roof, bike frame, navigational/directional signs, FedEx tubes, windows, railroad crossing, safety cones.

Shape: circles, balls, domes, ellipse, ovals, lightbulb, tear drop, clouds

USK equivalents: wheels, coins, manhole cover, tokens, street lights, wrong way sign, donuts, bagels, cupcakes, pizza, plates, porthole window, the sun/moon, coasters, capital building, arches.

Shape: square, rectangle, bars, square dot pattern, grid, banners, charts

USK equivalents: buildings, homes, windows, doors, tile, bricks, flooring, vases, pillars, caution sign (diamond shape), buses, trains, cargo ships, bridges

While this may not be an all-inclusive list, these are the similarities I have found whenever I am graphic recording. I hope that I have impressed upon you the value of urban sketching and how it can manifest itself into other forms of art and design. Urban sketching, I have found, is one of the best ways to keep your sketching skills sharp and ready for all kinds of applications, even if your day job does not entail illustration. Graphic recording is one way I have found to incorporate sketching in a business or classroom environment and empowers better recall of information. If you have any further questions on graphic recording, please ask below in the comments section.

Wes Douglas

*Note: Other labels commonly referred to this art form: visual thinking, visual notes, graphic notes, sketch notes, graphic scribe, and creative meeting notes.

Figures in Motion - Workshop Recap

TUESDAY TIPS AND TRICKS

As I’m flipping through my sketchbook and mourning the end of summer, I’m reflecting on all that I learned about urban sketching this season. I especially wanted to share some tricks I picked up at the annual sketch seminar.  In case you missed it, here’s a recap of the class I taught "Capturing Figures in Motion." 

To warm up we took our sketchbooks to the curb and immediately learned two things...

1.  Figures are frustrating.

2.  Moving figures are super frustrating.

So what’s the trick?  Well, there’s not just one, but a BIG one that might make all the difference is having an open mind.  I’m used to long commutes and having a good 20 minutes to make a decent drawing, but when you’re sketching from the sidewalk, you’d be lucky to get a 20 second glance of a passerby.  You have to change your expectations. It’s a different way of sketching, but no less impressive.

20 minute sketch

20 second sketch

Find a busy street and set yourself a goal like, “Today I’ll draw motion for half an hour.”  I encouraged everyone at the seminar to grab a stick of vine charcoal. It’s really messy and takes some getting used to, but it forces you to stay loose and let go of the details.

Don’t work in your absolute favorite sketchbook.  Instead of trying to get a post perfect picture, just try to fill a quota: ten pages of blobby human shapes. Draw as many people as you can, as fast as you can.  Fill up every inch!  (Don't forget to have a can of fixative and spray each page before turning!)

The results may not be readable to anyone other than yourself, but you’ll start to build some muscle memory of how people move, where their weight shifts, how a pair of pants hangs etc.  When you look back at your book you’ll have all of these wonderfully expressive reference pages to enrich your urban settings.  Were you sketching a crosswalk and only got down half a woman?  Fill in the gaps by looking at some scribbles you have in your gesture library.

Think about it like an athlete; warm up sketching, or gesture drawing, is awkward at first and can be embarrassing.  There's no doubt it's a lot of hard work!  But keep at it and before you know it you'll have trained your brain to rapidly record motion.  When you do get a decent motion sketch, you should be really proud of yourself and post it everywhere!  You recorded all that information in a matter of seconds…  That’s pretty amazing! 

"Random Selection"

TUESDAY TIPS & TRICKS

As a visual person, I have often wondered why two or more people can look at the same object and have a wide range of opposing reactions. Take for example the gas meter and construction site below:

Reactions to these photos might be mixed, ranging from "that thing is ugly!" to "so what?" Perhaps the only person who might think of the gas meter as a thing of beauty is the guy who designed it. How you think about something as mundane as gas meters or construction sites is largely dependent on your personal experience with them. Now let's look at each of them as a sketch:

Did your reaction change at all? Of course I am hoping that your reaction was a positive one. It reminds me of my favorite fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen called "The Ugly Duckling." When I chose to sketch this gas meter, I must have passed it a hundred times to and from picking up lunch, but one day something caught my eye. Did this gas meter suddenly become beautiful or interesting? Or was it always interesting but I had failed to see it before? According to Denis Dutton in his TED Talk "A Darwinian Theory of Beauty," he suggests that "beauty is an adaptive effect which we extend and intensify in the creation and enjoyment of works of art and entertainment."

How about these other boring or ugly scenes?

What would happen if, instead of walking up to a sketching location and pacing for a half hour (in search of the perfect subject to sketch), we just closed our eyes, spun around and sketched the first thing we saw when we opened our eyes? Regardless of its beauty or ugliness you have to sketch it. Imagine how that soiled plastic bag and paper coffee cup sitting in that murky puddle will look as a sketch by you? 

I would love to see the "swan" that comes out of your "ugly duckling."

The Ugly Duckling" (Danish: Den grimme ælling) is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen (1805 – 1875). The story tells of a homely little bird born in a barnyard who suffers abuse from the others around him until, much to his delight (and to the surprise of others), he matures into a beautiful swan, the most beautiful bird of all. 

References: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Duckling

https://www.ted.com/talks/denis_dutton_a_darwinian_theory_of_beauty#t-283839