I mean, really. It’s been time.
I’ve been so comfortable with my sketchpad and my rainbow collection of Tombow pens. People dig my work, I enjoy it, but there’s more to graphic recording life than sitting in the room listening and recording: there’s standing in front of the room listening and recording!
And that’s what I’ve moved into. Or pushed myself into. It was time to move out of my comfort zone: time to go BIG or go home.
So I spent this past weekend with Lynn Carruthers, Emily Shepard, and twenty other gluttons for graphic recording punishment. Two days of physically- and mentally- intensive drilling as we dove into sheet after sheet of large-scale recording work. By Sunday night, I was exhausted, I didn’t want our time together to end, and I was a certified large-scale recording convert.
So now:
Instead of ten inch sheets, I’m working with four foot sheets.
Instead of just my Tombows, I’m working with Charters and Tombows and pastels.
And instead of using my hand and forearm to draw, I’m using my entire body… because a four foot high sheet requires you to hustle to capture what someone’s saying! (This only confirms my view that ones size affects ones perception of time – the smaller you are, the more leisurely things go… but the bigger you get, the faster time moves!)
I have to admit… working on big paper is a RUSH! It feels more like I’m at the starting line of a race, and when the talk or event begins it’s like a gunshot and an announcer shouting “GO!” as I book along, focused on listening, deciding what’s relevant and what’s filler, capturing content and making it look a bit more interesting. Because when the speaker’s done, or the meeting’s over, I’m pretty much done. The (seriously-cropped) image with this blog post, for example, was done for a seven-minute talk. In seven minutes. In real time as the person spoke. And that’s what I came up with.
Dang, that’s cool! : )
Graphic Recording: Go Big or Go Home
