As a kid, I remember coming into my dad’s office at work to see his desktop calendar doodled up while he occupied his hand on long phone calls. He’d let me tack on doodles of my own. I liked to draw, but never took any specific classes beyond the weekly art class in elementary school. I took one semester of art in middle school which gave me a little more confidence and practice, but that was it.
I’ve always been a journal writer, which gave me plenty of margins and white space to fill with doodles. That fed my interest in taking notes at Church meetings, especially general conference.
Fast forward to my mission. It was the first time other people really took a close look at my notes as I’d have a pocket full of colored pens, and I’d change up the colors as I took notes in MTC devotionals and later zone conferences. I also loved to fill the chalkboard in our classroom with notes and diagrams during personal study.
One of my MTC companions took notice, and was kind enough to purchase a black sketchbook for my mission. I still refer and add to that note book for different visual representations of the gospel as I come across them.
It wasn’t until my first job out of college that I realized that I wasn’t alone, that there wasn’t just others out there doing this kind of thing, but that it had a name and following. Ben Norris gave a presentation at a conference I attended on sketchnotes. It rekindled the fire for me, and now after a few years, has resulted in this website and blog.
Now I sketchnote a number of things on a regular basis:
- general conference and other Church meetings
- planning and other brainstorming sessions
- lesson plans other preparations for teaching
I share my story for a few reasons:
One, you might be a sketchnoter and you might not even realize it.
Two, I have zero formal training, just lots of practice in a variety of settings. So don’t feel like this is something completely out of reach.