Day 9. INFOGRAPHIC BREAK!
Mixing things up with a little visual self-reflection
A quick note to people impacted by the LA fires: our hearts are with you. If anyone with kids could use some comforting, uplifting drawing videos and podcasts, they are available to watch/do for free on DrawTogether.Studio. All kids need is a pen and paper. We’re also offering free GUT memberships to anyone impacted by the fire. Just write to Community@DrawTogether.Studio. If we can help in any other way, reach out. We’re with you. xo, WendyMac and the DT team❤️✏️❤️
Alright. DAY 9, friends. Nine days of ten minute drawings. That’s 90 minutes of drawing. 9 finished drawings. A sketchbook starting to fill up. And one heck of a start to 2025. Good work, you.
Our adventure with Sister Corita yesterday was a wild success. I can see by all the INCREDIBLE work and ecstatic comments in the chat how helpful the finder was for paying attention to what’s around us, and then focusing in on one little piece. And then creating an interesting composition, to boot.
Yesterday was also our first foray into learning to LOOK - aka learning to draw the world around us. In Part 1 (the first week or so of this 30 days) you used drawing to get out of your brain and into your body. To get in touch with your breath, and slow down and pay attention to our feelings. To process them through moving our bodies and create something with them. To decrease stress and anxiety. And begin to focus on PROCESS, not outcome. I call this kind of drawing “Drawing from the Inside.”
In Part 2, we will shift from the Inside to the Outside. Which is to say, we will learn to See - and we’ll do some really fun 10 minute drawing experiments that will surprise and delight you. I can’t wait to see what you make and hear how it changes the way you see the world (and how you draw!)
But first!
WE INTERRUPT THIS 30 DAYS OF DRAWING FOR AN…
INFOGRAPHIC BREAK!
We’re taking a break today from our deeeeep drawing work for some silly fun. We’re making charts. Why? Because it’s fun. Also, drawing charts by hand unlocks another cool power drawing offers: it slows us down, gives us a fresh perspective, and helps us think things through things visually. (There’s always a method to my madness.)
I Heart Charts
If you are familiar with my work, you know I love drawing diagrams. I started drawing charts and diagrams in the early 2000s when I was in grad school for social work.
Social workers use charts to plot and understand relationships and forces at play in people’s lives. We practiced charting all kinds of things: impact maps, family systems, power analysis, all that fun stuff. And while I used them as a social worker, I also began playing around with diagrams and charts on my own time, in my own way. I discovered they were a fun way to boil down really big ideas into approachable, narrative pictures. A sort of visual philosophy. Clever stories in a single image.
Here are a few fun ones I made over the years:
And, a real classic from waaaay back in the day:
And these don’t even include the charts I made with Samin Nosrat for Salt Fat Acid Heat! (We’ll return to those later ;)
There are so many different kinds of chart. Each one offers us a different way to think through an idea.
Pie Charts
One of the most simple and delightful charts to play with is the classic pie chart.
Below is one I drew for the book Lost Cat (that I made with my wonderful ex-wife and oft collaborator, writer Caroline Paul.)
And perhaps you know the brilliant Ann Friedman who has been drawing pie chart pie charts for YEARS and publishing them in her newsletter:
The great thing about a pie chart it tells a fun story in one picture - and you can totally make stuff up and have fun with it.
No rules in (ch)art!
So today we take a break from the inside/outside drawing approach to have a little visual fun. Get out your pen and get ready to overshare, because we are drawing some “very personal pie charts” (VPPCs).
