Overcoming crises of inspiration
(and some ideas to help you sketchnote more).
Hello again and welcome back to Sketchy Ideas.
The newsletter that isn’t sketchy in the “‘accidentally’ shoot down the guy who planned a mutiny against you” kind of way.
I hope you’ve had a good week and found some useful resources in last week’s edition.
This week we’ve got a smorgasbord of sketchiness for you:
links around the web
4 ways to draw
Inspiration crisis
How to start a sketchnote habit
Let’s go!
Around the web
Want to improve your sketchnote drawing skills? Eva-Lotta Lamm’s next Pragmatic sketching course might help. It starts on September 11th.
Love music? Love sketching? Check out this week’s “Draw with me” with Danny Gregory of Sketchbook Skool.
The next International Sketchnote camp starts September 1. It’s too late to get tickets (unless there are some cancellations). You might still want to follow the event on Instagram (especially if there’s an announcement of the next sketchnote camp location)!
4 ways to draw
This is a great creative challenge and inspiration.
Ania occasionally shares these examples of four different ways to draw the same concepts. Can you think of any other ways to represent work-life balance? Which would you naturally do?
Inspiration crisis
Ever feel starved of inspiration?
Of course you do. We all do! So you can probably relate to this sketchnote from Clare Willcocks. One thing I really like about this sketchnote is that it’s a great example of using no colour at all and yet through fonts, dividers and backgrounds, parts still stand out.
Do you have any tips for overcoming a block in inspiration? Reply so everyone can benefit.
How to start a sketchnote habit
I go through better and worse periods of sketchnoting.
Sometimes I make one or more sketchnotes every day. Other times I can go a week between sketchnotes. There are usually lots of reasons, like being busy at work, my iPad being constantly drained due to the kids “borrowing it” or lots of course reading.
But there’s one simple action that helps me get back into the habit.
Putting a notebook and pen on top of my keyboard every day.
Yup, that’s it. By having a set of tools always ready to go AND the physical prompt to make a sketch, I almost always make some sort of sketchnote every day. Plus when there’s a boring meeting, I have my tools ready to go next to me too.
I suspect a similar approach may work for you (work/study/family situation dependent) but if you need some more tips, here are some ideas adapted from James Clear’s best-selling book on habit formation, Atomic Habits.
What helps you sketchnote more consistently? Leave a reply and share it with the community.
That’s all folks
If you enjoyed this week’s edition, send it on to a friend who might enjoy it too.
See you next week!