Drawing Conclusions and Other Ideas

by Raymond Nakamura

Drawing Conclusions and Other Ideas

“A picture is worth a thousand words” does not have the mathematical rigour of E=mc2, but it can be a useful rule of thumb for communicating science, among other things. Smart phones have made photos commonplace, but drawing what we see or think remains useful.

Observing and Drawing

Even if you are not Leonardo da Vinci (and who is), attempting to draw something in front of you forces you to pay attention. Is this doodad bigger than this gizmo? How many dangly bits are there? And so on.

When I took an undergraduate invertebrate zoology course (once upon a time before the Internet), drawing specimens was an integral part of labs.  It can be helpful to do things lightly in pencil first and then when you’ve figured things out, go over things in ink, like successive drafts of a text. I have kept my binder of drawings, partly because I am a hoarder and partly because drawings feel like they bits of me left in them.

Personal Notes, Invertebrate Zoology Sept. 1984

Thinking and Drawing

Sight is the dominant sense for most people and images can act as place holders for ideas. So drawing pictures while you are thinking can make it easier to come up with new connections, arrangements, or other ideas.

Paying attention while you draw can also help you remember the object you are drawing. If you look at something and then close your eyes, you probably can still remember what you saw. Do this over and over as you draw something and it can help you remember that object or the experience. Try taking a break from snapping photos to sit and draw something. If you don’t want people peeking over your shoulder to see what you are drawing, find a place to sit with your back against a wall.

Personal notebook, Alaska July 2012

Communicating and Drawing

Drawings can help share ideas with others. Computers can render images impersonal, but drawing a cartoon is like leaving a signature, as cartoonist Lynn Johnston has noted. A drawing is personal and can immediately establish the mood of a piece. 

Words and pictures can interact in different ways.

Sometimes the information is mostly conveyed by the image, whether an illustration or some kind of graph, where the words are mostly labels.

Sometimes the words carry most of the information and the pictures are more of an embellishment. Then you have situations where both the words and pictures are needed to understand the point.

Sometimes the pictures might say things very different from the text.

Words are obviously powerful and useful tools, but don’t forget about making pictures. I’ve been drawing cartoons on an iPad with an Apple pencil, but If you’re rusty, just try using a little notebook or a scrap piece of paper. It’s up to you to decide where to draw the line.