My GIGANTIC Reasons to ❤️ Visual Thinking | Inktober 2017

In this week's #studiotuesday I was inspired by today's Inktober prompt, "gigantic." So I grabbed my Montana Marker filled with a custom mix Neuland ink to make a GIGANTIC drawing of what I love about visual thinking - drawing as a thinking tool.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: 

Hello, I'm Brandy Agerbeck, loosetooth.com, and today's Studio Tuesday, I am drawing large.

Today's Inktober prompt is "gigantic," so I made sure I went into my inventory of markers and I found my Montana empty marker that's been filled with Neuland ink so that I can make some super giant marks on today's drawing. This Montana marker, which was originally created for acrylic paint, has a 55-millimeter nib. This gorgeous, giant nib — I actually first mixed this color of ink for a performance I did with Chad Calise for something called 20x2. I'll add a link below to this two-minute performance of synesthesia with Chad playing stand-up bass and me making a giant drawing. That is originally why I mixed this beautiful color of sort of Lake Michigan blue and added it to this Montana marker. So this kind of marker gets this kind of gorgeous, giant line.

Generally, when I'm doing graphic facilitation work, I'm using these BigOne markers from Neuland. The tip is anywhere from 6 to 12 millimeters — 12 millimeters if you're going the wide width of the pen, and 6 millimeters if you're working it on the side. In my kit, I have normal, sort of number-one size markers, but most of the time I use these guys because of the chisel tip. I'm able to turn the marker and get different kinds of lines out of one single chisel-tip marker.

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I just wanted to share this drawing that really does describe what my favorite aspects of drawing as a thinking tool are.

When folks talk to me about being a graphic facilitator, so often what people tune into is that the work is visual — absolutely, undeniably. There is no doubt that I'm a visual thinker, that I'm a visual learner. But personally, one of the things I love so much about this work is that I get to work with my whole body. It really is this aspect of the work that it's kinesthetic and hands-on. It's not sort of being in a chair, crunched up over a little drawing. It really is this fact that I'm moving my whole body as I'm making these drawings — moving around the page, standing, listening with my whole body as I work with my clients.

I absolutely believe that, maybe even more so than being a visual learner and visual thinker, I have always been a hands-on learner. All my favorite classes have always been the ones with labs, the ones where we could get our hands on our work. Give me a diorama assignment, and I'm a very happy camper.

So the fact that the work is visual, the fact that the work is kinesthetic, that we're using our bodies. Another big thing is that it's spatial — the ability to use spatial reasoning and really show how things fit together. Use scale to show here are the bigger ideas, here are the smaller supporting ideas, moving things around on the page so that I can create these integrated drawings for my clients. They're not linear. They're made up of a lot of lines, but there is not much about my work that sort of follows a straight line. And what I like to say is: when is the last time you solved a problem in a straight line? So many of today's problems are far more complex. Many of these conversations that I help support are far more complex, and drawing is really fantastic at being able to show those kinds of complexities and interdependencies because it's spatial, because you can put the next idea anywhere on this piece of paper.

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Another thing I love about this work is that it's physical — you're making physical drawings. And when you're making drawings, you're making choices. I chose this marker. I chose to put this figure on the piece of paper. I chose to place this figure in the center of the page. I chose another marker to draw the eyeball. I chose to create these lines in this third color coming out from the eye. Each one of those choices that I'm making, I'm making meaning for myself.

And that's why I think visual thinking — just for your own processing, for your own ability to work out complex problems, prioritize, make decisions, clarify your thinking, create clear communications, think critically — all of these things are really, really supported by this making of choices as you make a drawing. And that's absolutely what *The Idea Shapers* book is all about: helping you become more sophisticated in how you make those choices.

I do think that most folks are actually very sophisticated when it comes to viewing images. We have an incredibly visual culture that only is getting more so as we have more and more media in front of us. And the issue is that most of us don't feel like we can produce images. So, really, *The Idea Shapers* is about getting these ideas into your own hands. How am I using color? How am I using scale? How does this type of line convey something different than this type of line? All these different choices we make making these physical drawings.

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Connected to that is this idea that when we are making physical drawings, we're able to tune into the physical cues we're getting from our body. I certainly have had this experience — maybe you have too — where you're working on something and you sit down and you're just in that creative tension. You're just in that spot where nothing feels right. You want to kind of crawl out of your skin. And you sit there, you persevere, you work on the work. And at some point things shift. Some little puzzle piece snaps into place. And there's that wave of relief. There is that sense of something has just been made clear, a new level of understanding.

So when I'm sitting there making drawings, when you're making drawings, we really have this beautiful opportunity to tune into those physical cues and see where we're at with something. I think it's really easy to sort of try to think our way through everything, that everything has to be figured out with this hunk of stuff up here. And no doubt that's incredibly important. I think we're going through this super neurocentric time where everything is about what we're studying in the brain. I'm incredibly thankful for this work and for the study and the new discoveries, but right now we're kind of treating people like brains in jars, and we do have these full physical bodies that tell us a lot. Listen to our bodies. Look out for those tensions. Look out for that ease. Look out for the goosebumps — when you really hit on something and there's just those goosebumps, and you know you've really hit on something.

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And you know, one of the things about that physicality that I think is so basic and so beautiful is that very simple act of getting those ideas out of your head and onto a piece of paper, so that now you can see what you're working on from a new perspective. Just that tangibility.

It's very much what I'm doing in my work as a graphic facilitator. Folks come into a meeting and you go in with your sense of, I know what we should do, I've got the answer. And you kind of sit there waiting till you can give your idea. So much of your listening ability is really preoccupied with trying to get your two cents out there on the table, get your cards on the table. And what's so great about being a graphic facilitator — supporting groups that way — is that I'm really making that conversation tangible. Once you come in, you put your cards on the table, and I get them up there on the drawing. You're able to listen to the conversation in a whole different way, because you see that ephemeral hunk of a meeting — that little piece of the conversation made physical, made tangible, because it's up here on the chart.

And I do think that just the tangibility, that simple thing of out of your head onto the paper, is probably my personal best antidote to overwhelm. And I am certainly somebody who feels overwhelmed most of the time. So I'm very thankful that it just takes paper and pen to be able to get this stuff out of here and onto there.

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Lastly, something that through conversations after *The Idea Shapers* was published — probably means I should sneak it in in a new edit — is something that was so completely core to me that I absolutely took it for granted. A complete blind spot. And that's this idea of tapping into your intuition.

I think this does have a lot to do with those physical cues. But tapping into your intuition is really giving yourself the space — giving yourself a blank piece of paper — and having this thing, whatever it is you're mulling over. Is it a decision to be made? Is it a problem to be solved? Is it a piece of communication you're trying to clarify? Is it something difficult you're trying to tackle? Is it a project that you need to wrangle and figure out the pieces of? Any of these things — it's really that opportunity that you give yourself, that sheet of paper, these simple tools, and you tap into that intuition and see what arises in this drawing as you're making it.

I think there's a whole lot we know within ourselves. So often we use all these external things. This is a huge reason why I am such a fan of emergent drawings. It's why The Lab was created with such an emergent agenda — the idea that we're going to figure out what we need together in the lab, and you're going to figure out what you need when you sit down and work with this blank sheet of paper.

Very often people want to give themselves some kind of external construct. Give me a structure — I'm going to do a SWOT analysis. You've got these four boxes: the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, the threats. And what happens so often is you just click into that fill-in-the-box thinking: I'll get these down, I'll get these down, done. That's a directed drawing. That's when you know what the shape is and you're filling your ideas into that shape.

With this idea of intuition and what's internal, the beautiful thing about emergent drawings is that it really is the gift of a blank sheet of paper. It's messy. It can be ugly, it can be awkward. The kinds of drawings we're making are not about being beautiful, they're not about being perfect. They're just about getting stuff out and moving it around. So those emergent drawings can feel really awkward and not be elegant in any way. But that is their beauty — you're giving yourself that space, that time, that blank piece of paper to see what emerges, to see what comes from your intuition and where it takes you.

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So that's our Studio Tuesday.

Definitely hope that you'll take some time, grab that blank sheet of paper, get yourself some simple pens, and see what emerges. Just see what happens. I know I've been excited to participate in Inktober, which is really meant to be a month of improving one's inking skills, created by cartoonists who just wanted more practice. I love this opportunity to just not be drawing for a client or a book, and sort of say, hey, I've got this opportunity — what would I like to create? How would I like to use my tools in new ways? What kinds of drawings can I make?

So this is my gigantic drawing for today's Inktober, and I hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you next Studio Tuesday.