I wrote in my notebook last week three words. I don’t yet know what the impact of this act is going to be, but right now, I’m pretty enthused about the possibilities. And the words were:
learn to draw
In my job as a technical writer, I often find myself needing to convey conceptual information to an audience. In the sphere of accounting, a lot of the material is very dry, but we deal with technology and computers – things that aren’t necessarily part of an accountants’ vocabulary. Illustrations and diagrams would help with this, but I don’t really know where to start, and when I do start, I get hung up on the tool to use and find myself floundering in the sea of endless artistic possibilities.
A colleague goes into meetings armed with felt tip pens and A3 paper, and rather than taking notes, he draws the information he wants to absorb from the meeting. As a business analyst learning a new subject, he finds this the easiest way to digest lots of information quickly. I saw the drawings, and was immediately jealous. What he was producing was simple, colourful, effective, and perhaps most importantly, looked a whole lot of fun.
I decided to follow through my original thought and learn to draw.
Thinking about it now, I used to enjoy drawing when i was younger. It used to feature in my creative work as a child. When I wanted to tell a story, it wasn’t automatically prose I chose to use, it was comic book form. To keep myself entertained, I’d occasionally take a picture I’d like and try to copy it. This wasn’t something that I was encouraged to do, I just decided to go and do it. If I found it a good creative output when I was a child, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t feel the same way about it now.
This last weekend, I paid a trip to the library and came back with a couple of books on drawing. I visited the stationers and picked up some artist pens and sketchbook. I’ve been looking on the Internet for the kinds of drawing I like, And I’ve been drawing! Very quickly I’ve found the style of drawing I want to get started with: contour drawing with pen. As a beginner, this simple line drawing technique produces not unpleasing effects with a minimal amount of skill and practice. It might not be the kind of work I want to include in my technical writing, but for now, it’s a stepping stone on my path to becoming a better artist.
And how do I think this fits in with my primary means of expression, the written word? Surely, the two complement each other. Training your eye to see is a skill crucial to both artists and writers. I mean, it’s all about evoking images in the observer, and whether that medium is through words or pictures, that telepathic trick of getting the observer to see what you’re seeing is universal.
