Copying a drawing of Balsa from Moribito. I download the image to an iPad and then import it into SketchTime. I sketch out the basic geometry on top of the photo and then take the photo opacity to zero so I can just study the geometry that the original artist used. I overlay a grid on top of it and measure out proportions. I have a lot of difficulty getting proportions right, so this method is helping me to understand the relationships. It particularly helps in foreshortening. Then I move to the Moleskine and using the picture as a reference, try to duplicate it as closely as I can. In this case the original image and my experience in trying to replicate it led to some introspective notes on overload in the design process. Tools: Sakura micron, Ohto Graphic Liner, Pentel sign pen, Cocoiro brush pen, Retro 51 Tornado pencil, Ain black eraser, Lyra Rembrandt polycolor pencils, Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, Faber Castell PITT brush pens

Characters from DeathNote. Never read the manga but like Takeshi Obata’s style a lot. He also did Hikaru No Go and Bakuman. Sometimes I will add text to a drawing. Usually not related to the drawing. In this case there was white space between the two characters and it made me think of a path leading out from the viewer into the distance so I wrote some stream of consciousness about pathways. Tools: Sakura micron, Ohto Graphic Liner, Pentel sign pen, Cocoiro brush pen, Retro 51 Tornado pencil, Ain black eraser, Lyra Rembrandt polycolor pencils, Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, Faber Castell PITT brush pens

I use my journal for just about everything. Notes from work, sketching, copying manga characters, and in this case, designing small desk accessories to be built for my little studio at home. Top view on left and front view on right with one 3D call-out. Tools: Sakura micron, Ohto Graphic Liner, Pentel sign pen, Cocoiro brush pen, Retro 51 Tornado pencil, Ain black eraser, Lyra Rembrandt polycolor pencils, Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, Faber Castell PITT brush pens

Adapted from a frame from the movie Spirited Away. The symbol on the guardrail is the fourth chakra, the heart chakra. Tools: Sakura micron, Ohto Graphic Liner, Pentel sign pen, Cocoiro brush pen, Retro 51 Tornado pencil, Ain black eraser, Lyra Rembrandt polycolor pencils, Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, Faber Castell PITT brush pens

I’m just copying. The left is from an image on a photo site. The right is from the manga Hikaru No Go. I do these usually on a plane (change in pressure caused the ink blots on the right page) and am just using the experience to learn something about drawing. Tools: Sakura micron, Ohto Graphic Liner, Pentel sign pen, Cocoiro brush pen, Retro 51 Tornado pencil, Ain black eraser, Lyra Rembrandt polycolor pencils, Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, Faber Castell PITT brush pens, Gelly Roll 08

I was supporting a workshop/conference at Harvard Business School on the future of leadership. There were a couple of themes mid-session. One was that everyone has their own perspective on things. This principle is illustrated in the tale of the blind men and the elephant (hence the elephants in the image). The other was that everyone had their own language and terms around leadership which created a kind of tower of Babel (the biblical version, not the historical version). These pages were just some sketching involving putting these two ideas together and possibly decorating some rolling marker boards with the themes. On the right is a preliminary design for the rest of the day. Aurora fountain pens, Rembrandt Lyra colored pencils, Pentel Sign Pen, Faber Castell PITT brush markers.

Notes taken after a workshop that I conducted on visual modeling. The left side is a model about perception and creation that we talked about and expanded upon during the workshop. The right side talks about the freedom of being and includes a rough sketch of the cairns that artist Andy Goldsworthy creates. Check out the video Rivers and Tides, it’s amazing stuff. Rembrandt Lyra colored pencils, Aurora fountain pens, Pilot sign pen, Faber Castell PITT brush pens

I was getting ready to do some graphic facilitation for a medical supply company and wanted to play with some imagery that I could use to link ideas together. So just a simple refamiliarization with some bones and joints and stylized medical equipment. The red feature in the middle is a planning timeline connected to a stylized plate that would be attached to bone. Used Rembrandt Lyra polycolor pencils and Faber Castell PITT markers.

Notes for two different projects on facing pages. On the left some principles for an article on strategy and on the right a simple process that I use for building a visual model. Pentel sign pen, Faber Castell PITT markers, Rembrandt Lyra Polycolor pencils.

Well, definitely not a masterpiece–maybe not even acceptable for this site! But I wanted to be able to scribe some cow icons for a session that I was doing graphic recording for. So the drawings on the left helped me understand “cowness” enough to draw the little cartoons on the right. Not great art by any means but was fun. Faber Castell PITT pens and Rembrandt Lyra Polycolor pencils.