Blanche Ellis and the chance encounter that sparked a career in graphic recording - S16/E05

Sketchnote Army Podcast

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The Harmony of Music and Visual Storytelling

This chapter explores the speaker's profound relationship with music, highlighting the role of voice, guitars, and banjos in their songwriting. It examines the parallels between music and graphic recording, focusing on the significance of storytelling in both art forms and the emotional narratives that emerge. The speaker also shares personal insights on their unique style, the collaborative nature of visual communication, and how influences from literature and speech shape their creative process.

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Episode notes

In this episode, Blanche Ellis shares how dyslexia led her to discover graphic recording through a chance encounter. With a background in literature, music, and art, her work focuses on capturing the emotional essence of ideas and stories to build connections and understanding.

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Running Order

Intro
Welcome
Who is Blanche Ellis
Origin Story
Blanche's current work
Sponsor: Concepts
Tips
Tools
Where to find Blanche Ellis
Outro

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

Strathmore 400 sketchbooks
Watercolors
Soft pencils
Textured paper
Neuland Markers
Molotow Markers
iPad
Procreate
Adobe

Tips

Try different ways into the same activity.
Keep experimenting to find your style.
Keep a Sketchbook with you always.
Only show the kind of work you want to do.
Don't underestimate the background of being an entrepreneur as an artist.
Appreciate the part that you do well.
Drawing on public transport.

Credits

Producer: Alec Pulianas
Shownotes and transcripts: Esther Odoro
Theme music: Jon Schiedermayer

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Episode Transcript

Mike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with Blanche Ellis. Blanche, welcome to the show. It's so good to have you.

Blanche Ellis: Thank you, Mike. No, really nice to be here, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.

MR: Yes, me as well. We've run across each other I think on LinkedIn. I saw some of your graphic recording work. I thought it was really unique and interesting. Wanted to have you on the show. So, let's just begin right at the beginning. Tell us who you are and what you do.

BE: Okay. I am a multidisciplinary artist. I've always done quite a number of things, often at once which I think happens a lot to creative people. I'm a visual artist. I had my own practice of painting and drawing, and then I use graphics to facilitate the flow of ideas for other people and with organizations and workshops. Mostly with graphic recording, also a little bit with animation, a little bit with—or quite a lot with behind-the-scenes graphics. So not live, but working from conversations, documentation of sorts. And then I'm also a musician, and I'm a songwriter, so I spent quite a lot of years doing that in multiple forms as well.

MR: Wow.

BE: It all kind of wraps in and, you know, a bit of poetry, a bit of dance, a little bit of anything you can think of really is on my name.

MR: Wow, that's really fascinating. So, I'm curious, you touched on a musician. Are there certain instruments that you like to play? Are you more of a vocal artist? Tell me a little bit about that. I'm just kind of curious.

BE: Yeah, no, the voice is definitely my home. The voice is my first instrument. Singing harmonies is possibly the best feeling that I know in the world. Instruments, yes, I don't consider myself a great instrumentalist, but I play guitar, I play banjo. I used those, you know, to do songwriting and I perform with that. I even used to be in a band for a few years playing the washboard. Doing harmonies and playing the washboard.

MR: Really?

BE: Yeah.

MR: Wow.

BE: But mostly it's guitar and banjo.

MR: Interesting. It sounds a little bit like Americana or bluegrass or something along those lines is the style I think of when I hear those instruments.

BE: Mm. Yeah. Well, quite folk. So, I think—

MR: Folk music, yeah, that's the word I was looking for, folk.

BE: Poets with guitars, I think, is a good description. A lot of the music that I love, you know, Jenny Mitchell and Annie Cohen.

MR: Yeah, of course.

BE: That whole crew and the Ballad writers. So, storytelling for me is a large part of it. Like the music in itself and the rhythm and the physicality of that that goes beyond words, but then also the storytelling element is very strong, close to my core.

MR: We've touched a little bit on using music and vocals for telling a story. So I would guess that maybe that's what's drawn you to this, you know, if we come back to the focus of the show, which is more visual thinking. Using those same techniques, but with a different part of yourself to either live capture what you're hearing and express it, or like you said, taking recorded bits or research or those things and turning it into something that encapsulates or consolidates that information. Is that a fair way to guess at how those things are working in the way you work?

BE: Yeah, I think there's a really strong connection there, narrative seeking, which think of as, in a way, pulling on threads. You can do it through music, or you can do it through visuals, you can do it through writing, kind of pulling on threads and weaving. That's the feeling of it. And so, thinking with visuals is definitely something—I was the doodling kid in class always. Let's see, I dunno, before I even knew that this existed, Sketchnoting, graphic recording, I took some speeches or books that were really affecting me and turned them into—not exactly comics, 'cause I didn't have that style, but yeah, visual vignettes that for me, communicated that idea and opened it up in a new way. So, I think that's kind of connected.

MR: And again, in a form that's in a way a story, right? You're telling the story of the thing that's impacting you. So again, here we are back at narrative again. It's sort of this core that draws you.

BE: Yeah, and they both have an emotional element because you've got the bare facts, and you've got sort of just putting things down. But I guess I chose things that affected me. So at the time, what was it? One was a book, it was actually a book by a Finnish architect about space and how we designed space and how we live in it, and the multisensorial nature of space actually, in contrast to how everything in the modern world is designed.

A lot of space is designed visually without considering how it would feel, how it would smell, how it would, you know, the enveloping senses. So anyway, that book, and then I felt very strongly about that. And the other one I can think of was like a speech by Neil Gaiman about—I think it was one of those, what are they called when everyone finishes university in the States, and they give a commencement speech or something.

MR: Yeah. Commencement.

BE: I dunno what it's called, but there was a really beautiful one that sort of captured that. And yeah, there's emotion to the song and there's emotion in the weight of the line. That is something in the narrative that can't be stripped back to bare facts. It's another layer.

MR: Interesting. That's fascinating how these all fit together. You mentioned too, that you have a lot of things going on at the same time. I feel the same way. I suspect other listeners to the show feel similarly. I lately have gotten into making pizza and sourdough bread, and I see the same things involved in that as well, like being willing to start something and get it moving, but then you have to wait until it's ready. You can't rush sourdough bread in bulk fermenting, right. It takes five hours or whatever it takes to get to the place where then you can work with it. In some ways, the work that we do is a little bit like that sometimes, I guess.

BE: Yeah. Actually, it's really well described, and it's a really good learning that maybe took me years I think when I moved into doing it professionally was, I sort of thought that the work was when I had my pen on the page, you know, pushing the lines forward to the final piece. And it took time to recognize the value of the reflective work of taking in the information, letting it move around, making lots of trials and experiments. There's parts that work well under pressure and there's other parts, it’s just that they're gonna take as long as they take to get to the right point.

MR: Yeah. That's pretty fascinating. So it sounds like professionally, at least, it sounds like mainly what you would do is the graphic recording, graphic facilitation. Is that a fair guess? Or where would you say the core of your work is? Maybe that's the way to say it.

BE: The core of my work has been graphic recording more than facilitation, although that's something I'm kind of sidestepping more into now from a different angle. But much more listening and digesting and giving back the information. The facilitation, I think happens mostly behind the scenes, or as I think of graphic facilitators, maybe as someone who's standing up and leading the workshop. I love to work with facilitators because then I think you really get the best outta the visuals because you can arrange, you can do interactive pieces, and create a more whole experience. So a lot of facilitation behind the scenes, and that's been part of it as well, learning to guide clients, guide people who want visuals, but they don't quite know what that looks like or how that could happen. And every job is different. I don't know if you experienced this.

MR: Yeah. of course, it is. Yeah.

BE: Yeah, so a large part of this kind of work is that there is no cookie-cutter and someone comes along, and they have this much information, and they want it to have this much impact or this much information, and they want the result to be something—

MR: Fit in here.

BE: - you know, really small and punchy. You know, 60 pages in one, easy to read graphic. And you're like, “Okay, so let's, you know, work out what's possible within this field.” Yeah, and that's kind of a dance that's always going on. That's I think where my facilitation part goes.

MR: Got it.

BE: And then the graphic recording, I kind of love just being the vessel. The information comes in, resonates, finds images, finds connection. Okay, back out onto the page. That's something more like a dance or flow of a different kind.

MR: That's really interesting. I've seen the work that you've done is really beautiful. It's got a certain style to it that is very unique to you, I think. Maybe that's because of your background with visualization, drawing and painting and such. It just has a different—when I look at graphic facilitation or graphic recording, sometimes it can fall into very similar looking styles. I think a little bit of that maybe comes from where you're trained from and what your background is. I can clearly see that you've got artistic skills that you're applying in this way that's sets you apart a little bit. That's just me reacting to what I've seen, which I think is great. I think it really sets you apart and probably is why people wanna work with you. I would hope.

BE: Yeah, I hope too. It's interesting to hear that because often I think a style is easier to see from the outside than from the inside. I feel like I have lots of variety, but I have that in my personal work as well, I think. There's loads of variety. Then someone who knows me or doesn't know me will come along and be like, “Yeah, but these all are clearly by the same person.” There's something in that. I think there's a very strong part of my practice that comes from drawing on the London Underground. Years and years and years of living in London, being a musician and a graphic recorder.

And to be honest, a creative odd jobs person for many years. Like doing so many things and always on the move, two or three hours on the Metro for—well, the London Underground every day, and just drawing and drawing and drawing people. So you never knew how long you had, you weren't gonna see the people again, the stakes were low, the variety and the diversity of people was really high, and everyone's in their own world. I think that's a great trip tip just for drawing in general is drawing on public transport. Loads of people do it. So I learned that kind of like to speed and summarize expressions and scenarios in that kind of.

MR: Speedy capture, I guess in a sense, right. Like you said, the next stop that person might get up and walk away and, you know, you hope that you've caught enough to capture their essence as much as you can in that two minutes or whatever you have.

BE: Yeah, and it's a similar feeling to the graphic recording when the words are flowing past, and you're like, “I only have this moment to capture it. I can't capture everything. What am I gonna go for?” And it's kind of exciting and stimulating as well. It's something about life and movement that, you know, a static document, ah, you could read it today or later or whatever, but information that's in flow, whether that's visual or auditory, yeah, gives that kind of speed deep connection go to the essence.

MR: Oddly enough, as you talked about that, I almost had the sense that you were like a fisherman or a fisher person standing in the stream, you know, like, which fish, putting your hook out and hoping you grab the most interesting things and bring them to shore or something. I dunno.

BE: I like that. And then you're like, “Right, so this is what I've got now how do I make a great meal?”

MR: Yeah.

BE: And you connect it all up.

MR: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, this leads me to the next question, which is really common in the show, is tell us about your origin story. How did you get to this place? Because there are a lot of people that do graphic recording and do the kind of work you do. Obviously, you have a unique style. I can see it immediately. So going back to maybe when you're even like a little girl, like you said that you were the one who's doodling, just like, you know, I was always doodling and drawing, making something. Talk to me about that process. What led you to this place and what were the, the key, I guess, pivot points or turning points or influence points that led you to where you are now? That's really fascinating to me.

BE: Yeah. It's a long—all right.

MR: We have time. We have time.

BE: Thinking about that, in school, I think, part of that, using visuals to process information, which is something I wouldn't have conceived of at that time.

MR: Right. Yeah.

BE: This kind of phraseology is preverbal, basically, you know. So putting information into joints, sorry. I think that could come in no small part because I had quite very strong dyslexia as a kid. My letters were upside down and backwards and mathematics was non-existent. In fact, when I started school and started writing, what I wrote appeared to be gibberish which confused the teachers because they were like, “She could talk perfectly well, she was understanding, but you pick up a pen, there’s no understanding.”

And then actually what happened was one day it was my dad after work, he took my exercise book at school and joined up all the words, read them out phonetically, and then re-separated them. And it was something that made sense, but it was just I had made up my own visual code because I didn't get what other people were doing. So I guess that was some sort of creative solution, even though not one that worked.

MR: Interesting. Yeah.

BE: Yeah, that layer of like some kinds of communication being more difficult for me. Meant that I lent on others more strongly. And visual communication is definitely one of those. There was that. Then I think, part of it is being one of the people who never stopped 'cause we all do this as children and to some degree or another. There's a beautifully simple element of just being allowed to carry on or not stopping because it's a strong enough push. Meaning that I carried on, I had sketchbooks all the way through school. I think it was an art teacher who first suggested I draw on the London Underground at age 14 or something. I just started and never stopped. Now, I'm in my mid-30s and it's still—

MR: Still part of you.

BE: - part of my practice. Yeah. Also, I studied literature. So that's what I went to study after school, literature and creative writing, American literature and creative writing, which is how I ended up studying in the states for a year. And that all connects with storytelling. So, at the end of my degree in American literature, I ended up focusing on oral folk tales. And so, my love of folk art, folk music just grew and grew and grew and storytelling. And the idea that first of all that stories, they belong to everyone, they are accessible, they are living things. That's at least in folk music, folk art, folk stories, they don't belong to anyone in particular.

It's information and flow in community. And it normally serves a purpose. Education, catharsis passing on learning, creating connection. It's really innate and natural and belongs to like the very first humans that we have any evidence of. And we just update the ways in which we use that. So yeah, so I studied all of that. Feel free to push, prompt me, or ask any questions 'cause I'm just jumping all over the place here.

I came out of university, and I think actually I studied literature instead of art because my idea was like, “Oh, in art you don't get jobs.” For some reason, I thought that in literature you do. In my world that I was in, that made more sense. I know maybe you can be a journalist. I used to say to people, “Oh, well I'll be a journalist,” because it was the only thing I could think of that made sense of my studies.

MR: Active writing. Yeah, every day.

BE: Yeah, exactly. And I came out of university and I didn't think I was gonna be a journalist. I was like, “What am I gonna do?” I went to some interviews. I still had this idea that being in an office, chained to a computer, 9 to 5, that's what being a grown up meant. And I was gonna have to do that at some point. I was just playing around until like, that happened to me and then I'd be in it forever. Like, I really, really thought, that's how life is gonna go. Then I would go to these interviews and just shoot myself on the foot because I didn't want the job. Never get the callback.

In the meantime, I was going to meetups all around London, anything to do with arts. So meetups for people working in the arts, for artists, for professionals, for gallerists, for anything. Just talking to people and telling them what I love to do and, yeah, discovering really. At some point, someone, and it was in North London in a pub garden with quite like dim lights.I can't remember the face of the person that I had this conversation with.

But at that moment they were sort of like my guardian angel because they told me that this job, graphic recording existed as I told them what I like to do and how I describe things with visuals. And they were like, “You know that's a job. Right? I sometimes work with this agency that do this.” And they gave me the name. I gave those people a call and went to a very informal interview where they essentially pointed at a wall and said, “Draw while I talk.” I was like, “Okay.” I walked away, and I was like, “No idea what happened with that.” Then they gave me a call and sent me on a three-day job for a big trade show in—

MR: That's pretty quick.

BE: - with three other artists 'cause we always worked on teams with big jobs. It was essentially like single swim, like this is your trial job, but three days of it, which is great because I had time to like really get into it. And I never re-found that person. I asked the people in place. I was like, “Do you know who that is?” Like, so that was weird.

MR: Maybe it was an angel.

BE: Yeah.

MR: Interesting.

BE: Graphics, angel. Yeah. So then I worked with them for years. It was their freelance structure, small family business based in London and a freelance structure. I was still doing lots of other jobs around it. We always worked on teams. Almost always it was two to four people, and I loved that. It was a simplicity to—this is before I had my business, so someone else was doing all of the client work, all of the stuff that I now really appreciate as being like—

MR: Yeah, a lot of work.

BE: - 60% at least of the job. You just get the call, first one to answer the email, first ones that get sent on the job. Take a train, get your materials, take a train, set up, find out—you know, someone hands you the agenda if you're lucky, off you go. You find a working rhythm, like a dance with the other people you're working with, you know, tag-teaming the talks and sharing tips and styles and going along. And then at the end of the day, off home.

MR: Job is done.

BE: That was a lot of learning, very fast learning.

MR: It did sound like, you know, that you'd sort of prepared yourself for that with all the work that you'd done 'cause obviously they wouldn't have just sent you out with the other two people if they didn't think you were at least potentially capable of doing it, right? If they didn't think you were qualified, there would've been, “Yep, see later.” Never heard a call from them. So obviously, you gave them enough to send you. Of course, they hedged their bets, right. At least had two other people. They wouldn't mess it up. I'm sure that they must have had to think that way, or?

BE: Yeah. No, I mean the interview was informal, but they had their criteria. So they're like, you know, in essentially, because it's kind of recreating the circumstances of graphic recording, like an improv, little information potentially, you know, how do you perform under pressure? And what can you do? And of course, the main thing apart from being able to make reasonable lines on a page, the main thing with graphic recording is listening, you know, so.

MR: Right. Right.

BE: All of the literature studies, and I think all of the studies and the interests that I had in, I think beyond formal studies, the interest I have in studying life and the work that I'd done visually and visual summaries that all fit into the work. I like to go beyond keywords. I think sometimes graphic recording can be pushed—

MR: Keyword heavey.

BE: - too far down into the summary. And I sometimes find, I write a little bit more than other colleagues. But then also, like for me, there's so much contact in the details. And of course, it's a balance you put too much in and it's not accessible. But I really do think that the details sometimes give the flavor and the human connection. I don't know if that comes from studies and things where it's just the way that I feel about information and connect with it. It's in the songwriting as well. There's a word smithery. I think that that's connected to the graphic recording apart from the—

MR: Like a smithery is like a smith, you know, where you're hammering on, you know horseshoes or something with a hammer.

BE: Yeah. It is like a really old-fashioned word. I dunno where I got that, but I like the idea because it's sort of like exactly. It's like the tangibility of like physically working a material. I think you can do that with sound. You can do that with words and words smithery.

MR: Well, the thing that struck me when you talked about your history, the one that stuck out to me was the folk storytelling. So you think about where that's coming from. It's people who are probably illiterate in a written sense, maybe in those folk environments where the story was everything, right. You said it belonged to everyone and they would share it.

BE: Yeah.

MR: You had to be a good storyteller on the one hand. So that's the outbound. What about the inbound? Like everyone, because of that environment, that culture, that expectation that there's an expectation of good listening. Because if you don't listen, you're gonna miss the nuance and the beauty of the storytelling. So there's an expectation that you're listening skills have to be up to par. And that's bound into it too, which you don't think about it until you start thinking about the context.

So I would think that your listening skills probably improved quite a bit in those studies listening to lots of stories, I'm sure you listened to a fair amount of stories, spoken stories. So that was one part of it. Then the other thing that you mentioned too was so the keyword heaviness. I see that you're connected with my friend Dario Paniagua. He talks a lot about one of the tests he has for graphic recordings. He has a young daughter, and what he does, he gives it to her and he has her read them.

In a past episode of the podcast, I interviewed him, and he talked about that. He pulled up some of my work. I didn't know he was gonna do this. And he started reading it, and he said, “You know, a lot of the graphic recording or sketch noting,” maps, he calls them, “You read them, and they don't make any sense 'cause it just keywords, this and this, and you jump, there's no connectivity to it.” He found that the best ones are ones where you can read it almost like a sentence. I mean, there's still visuals in it, but there's some thinking of visual structure that makes it fit together. Would that be a fair way to what you're describing? It sounded to me a little bit like that.

BE: Yeah. I mean, I think visual grammar, which is so different to linear grammar, but is really, really important, and flow in the work direction as well. Guiding, I suppose the eye, which is something you learn in the fine arts as well in a different way. But it's connected to guide someone through a piece of work. And it depends on what you're trying to create as well. So, you know whether it's something that's very, very orderly or it's something that actually has many directions and like sometimes you're capturing a talk, and it's 1, 2, 3, 4, and you really need to understand that structure.

Sometimes you're capturing a conversation that is voluminous, and it goes over days or many hours. And actually, it can be read in many ways as long as there's somewhere for the eye to rest and there are connections that make sense. You don't have to block it up to be, you know, unidirectional. It can actually be yeah. More multi-directional. And I think it depends, yeah, what kind of information you're dealing with and also what effect you want it to be having, where you think it will be seen. You know, is they gonna be in a place where people can stand and consider it for time or is it gonna be something that people are scrolling past, and you really need to have ultra clarity to get straight to them.

MR: That makes me wonder too, I guess I've thought of this before, but this idea that the talk itself—so you, as much as you control what you hear and what you place, you have the degree of control, whatever that percentage is, there's gotta be some percentage, maybe it's small, 5%, 10%, 15% where the talk itself drives the structure, right? If somebody is distracted, and they're jumping around to different things, you can correct that to a degree, but like the core of the talk is distracted and jumping in all these places. And that's probably gonna come through a bit in the visual as much as you try to maybe not include it, or am I wrong in that?

BE: Yeah, I mean I think that depends. Sometimes the speaker is basically a gift, you know, and they have a really clear structure, and they tell you where they're gonna go, and then they actually go there, and then they summarize it, and you're like, “Ah, beautiful. You've done half the work.” Sometimes it's more distracted. And then, yeah, there's part of, I mean, working spatially means that as they jump back and forth, you can group in a way that they haven't. That is possible. Sometimes, I mean, you're working with the material that you get and sometimes if it's a very, very confused speech. There are limits to what you can do at the moment. Joyfully with digital, you can move things around a little bit afterwards, but in the paper world, what is there, is there.

MR: It is what it is. Yeah.

BE: Yeah. Exactly.

MR: That's really interesting. Well, and it sounds like now you've sort of come up to current date talking about your experience and where you came from. Really fascinating to hear all those different experiences and the way you approach things. It's funny that you said something about yours being a little bit more wordy. I think my default tends to be more wordy as well. People are surprised by this. When I wrote my book, I really wrote the text first. Probably 'cause I was a reader first. As a kid, I did drawing, but reading was sort of my source. My whole book was first written and once I had the manuscript structured, then I went and I illustrated the structure.

So there was probably structure in my head. I see that occasionally where, you know, visualizations are maybe a little bit more wordy, but I appreciate that in some cases. Unless it's, you know, just all words. I mean, obviously that would be—at the other extreme, I don't think that's too common. People probably wouldn't necessarily pay for that unless it was, you know, functional something where you're just in this facilitation space where you're getting stuff on a board and maybe then you reprocess it into something more refined, I guess, at a later time.

BE: Yeah. I think in the words, there's something about as well, like the human expression that people use when they're talking that they don't write down. Those things for me, really key to capture. Like, language is so colorful when we use it in the day-to-day and speak as warm bodies in a room. As things get formalized and written down and that can get reduced. So I think, that's where I like to be, I'm gonna capture that whole phrase because everyone who's there gonna remember the way that that was said and the emotion behind it.

MR: I think this is gonna be sound really strange, but I've been playing around with Grammarly. It's this third-party tool which will help you, I guess correct your grammar and make you spell things better and such. I just wrote an article recently, and I was frustrated a little bit with it because I think the way I write is I write the way I speak and I wanna capture that. I want that to be in the way I write. Like it sounds like I'm telling it to you. If I were to read it, it would sound like I'm talking.

I found that this Grammarly tool would make these recommendations. Like, “No, I don't want that. That may be technically correct, but I don't want it to sound that way. I want it to sound like I'm thinking it, or I'm saying it.” Which is kind of fascinating what you're talking about this, we say things, and then it gets kind of compressed and corrected into this readable form, which is not what we necessarily exactly what we said, which goes even further back to, you know, these stories that people told that were all, you know, oral discussion, right. There was nobody writing it down necessarily, right?

BE: Right. I was absolutely fell in love when I first came across authors who wrote in the vernacular, like to Toni Morrison and William Faulkner and people who would write the way, and of course, they were writing about specific communities, you know, with their own dialects and accents and everything. The writing would flow the way our minds work, the way our conversations happen and sometimes do away with formal grammar altogether and certainly correct spelling and all of that kind of thing. But it was just understandable in this direct and innate way, but sometimes formal language, we sort of have to bring it in and then understand it. It's not as natural direct to the system. Yeah, exactly.

MR: I remember encountering that when I read The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck. The way he would describe these machines running across the landscape. He is descriptive. I was like, “Wow, I've never read anything like this.” And it really influenced me at that point, at that time to want to do more description. Almost like he was painting a picture with words. I dunno how else to describe that. So that I found really fascinating. I think there is a connection between literature and, you know, visualization. It's all part of human communication we're trying to express, right?

BE: Yeah, and it's naturally multidisciplinary. Art is graphic according you're a user of words and images in a way that's sort of actually in some ways kind of untraditional for each. The images are standalone, and it's not the words in the strict logical flow. It's, “Okay, what happens if we mash these up?” Very long traditions of as well, but it's a bridge. It's a bridge between modalities of thinking which kind of in that way gives broader access, I think. Because you can come in through the words and then let the visuals help you come in through the visuals and let the words help you.

MR: Yeah. I think about music, you're trying to express emotion and all these things that we talk about, if you think about it, they're still limited in some way. You can't fully express your feelings for the things you're thinking. You're giving a reduced set that can be absorbed because we don't have the capacity to, you know, mind meld like Dr. Spock and see someone's thoughts or feelings or emotions. Even the best of times, it's still a pale expression of what we think and feel. Right. So by its nature it's limited to some degree.

BE: Yeah.

MR: This got really philosophical. This is fun. It's really interesting to think about these things, which is why we have guests like you on the show to go in different directions.

BE: Yeah. I guess what you said, everyone comes from somewhere different.

MR: Yeah. Hopefully, you know, someone's coming to this, and they feel aligned with where Blanche is coming from. That's the point of this, is to really provide different perspectives on how to come into this. And of course, the limitations, we do our best, but we are limited. And I think, you know, doing the best we can does communicate. And hopefully, what we're trying to do is, like you said, you know, just a block of text, you can read that at any time, but a visual adds another layer and maybe sound would add another layer. Whatever we're doing, we're trying to communicate these ideas and as direct as way as we can. So I do think visuals are another way.

BE: Yeah. I think it's very much like building bridges between people, between ideas. Building bridges and all these different directions and creating ways into the theme, creating ways to connection. Yeah, I feel like one little piece that I haven't—I don't know, maybe you have another question, but something that I have in my mind that feels relevant in this space, if we're talking about all the different places we come from. You have a place that I did a little bit of training in art therapy, which is a place that has a vocabulary for things that I have understood for a very long time about the way the art works. Also, the accessibility of like, anyone can draw and it has so many functions. Some of them are communicative and some of them are emotional and some of them have all of those pieces involved together.

And so, being a graphic recorder, so part of the facilitation can be participatory and creating spaces where people can bring their voice either by writing or drawing their own pieces to, you know, add to some co-creation piece or by sharing their voice and then seeing it represented by somebody else. So that's a space that I'm also really interested in where there's being a graphic record, but there's also opening that space and everything that it potentially contains those tools and to more people, to anyone who's interested, or to anyone who thinks that way. That's something that I feel is a beautiful place to explore and important as well.

MR: Yeah, I agree. That would speak to being in person, right? There's some advantage to being in person. I think you can to some degree, do this remotely. It's probably a little tougher. But being in person—I think of the story I have is I used to do this kind of graphic recording or facilitation around interface 'cause I'm a user interface, user experience designer by day. That's what I do for my main work. And I was in a situation where we had a team of developers would come, and we had a big whiteboard and I would listen to what the tool was and how we were going to add this feature. So I would listen to what they were saying and be drawing on the board. I remember there's one guy would say, “How are you reading my mind?” “Well, you were telling me exactly what you were—I was just drawing what you were saying.”

But the best moments in those environments where when someone would have an idea, and I wasn't quite capturing it enough, so I would offer the marker, and they would come, and they would always say, “Oh, I can't draw as well as you can.” I was like, “Ah, it doesn't matter. Just do it anyway.” And they would draw on the board and express. Those sessions were the best. Often it was a very difficult feature that was complex. I remember one that it took so long for us to process, I think before we began, I think I drew like a gravestone or something and said, you know, “Rest in peace,” this feature when we finished. That was one of the features that really was well done because we really thought about it from all these perspectives, and it involved everyone.

If someone would say, “Well who designed this feature?” It's like, “We all did.” We were all in the room, we all contributed, we all guided. Some people even came up and drew on the board that weren't Mike. The purpose was not to do the drawing. The purpose of the drawing was to the feature. So it was in a lot of ways a means to an end. Those are the most exciting moments is when everybody was involved, and we were all— they were sort of buzzing at the end of it that I dunno how else to describe that, but it was really fun.

BE: Yeah. There's a line I have in a song that's like, “There's nothing made that beats the joy you get from making.” It's not just joy, it's also connection. Like that buzzing is, I don't know what endorphins. Things reaching your brain and things connecting. That experience expands your capacity, your memory, your future, creative thinking, all of that. So that's a beautiful example of that happening.

MR: Yeah. That's great. I still remember that was, I dunno, 2016, 2017, so years and years ago. Still when I see those people, they mentioned it too, so it was clearly impactful on them as well.

BE: When did you start graphic recording?

MR: I didn't know what graphic recording was actually. I stumbled into sketch noting on my own because I was frustrated back in 2007. But it had been going on a long time before that. If you look back to David Sibbet and maybe even some of his contemporaries were doing in the ‘70s, maybe even the ‘60s, sort of visualizing discussion. I suspect it's been going on longer than that under different names.

BE: Absolutely.

MR: So I really just stumbled into it. And I didn't know that graphic recording was a thing until I met the organization and turned out that we were kind of doing similar stuff. So it was pretty interesting to stumble into this space with my people. “Hey, these are my people.” So it worked out.

BE: Yeah. Like, you're already doing it and then, oh.

MR: Yeah. That was really great. Well, this has really been fascinating to kind of unpack your history and how all these were opening up the space to look at what you do from all these perspectives. It’s really fascinating. I'm glad we had a chance to open that up, and you were willing to.

BE: Yeah. Thank you for proposing the conversation.

MR: Yeah. Yeah. So I think now unless you'd like to add anything, sounds like we're at your current, your space where you're at now, independent, of course, you're appreciating all the selling and all the paperwork and all the logistics that the company did for you which now you have to do on your own.

BE: Exactly. but also, there's hardness to it and there's also actually being able to accompany a whole process, control, and, I dunno, thoroughness, detail, being able to—yeah.

MR: Participate from end to end. Yeah.

BE: Yeah., yeah. It's beautiful too.

MR: I guess influence too, right? I mean, you hinted at this before, you think of facilitation as, “My customer wants to achieve this thing, they don't know how to get there. They have all this material, or they have no material. How do I facilitate them getting to this end point with my experience knowing kind of what they want to achieve?” That's kind of fun, right? In a lot of ways, you're facilitating them achieving what they want to express, which is a little different than being in the room facilitating.

BE: Yeah, it is.

MR: In some ways it's the same and different. I dunno.

BE: Yeah, it has a lot of back and forth. Ping ponging ideas back and forth and going through iterations and finding the unique shape for that particular thing. Then of course, it's really nice if what they're communicating is something that you really wanna support, as much and as often as possible, which I feel like happens quite naturally, which is very, very lucky. But yeah, exactly.

MR: That could be the benefit of having your own firm, right? Where you get to choose like those people while, you know, I could do that work, maybe it just doesn't quite align with what I want to do right now, but that client really aligns. And so, it's a little bit easier to make that—and you have that choice, right? They emailed me, “Hey, Blanche, can you do this thing? We got two other people. Are you in?” Then you have to make a choice, maybe not even fully understanding like what the ask is other than you show up and do stuff.

BE: Even who the client is, sometimes.

MR: Yeah.

BE: No, absolutely. That's a really important part of working for yourself is you can decide who to work with and where to go into and whatever work you show in your portfolio and all of this, like, that's what will come towards you. For me, that's one way to make that choice is I choose what to show and that's naturally fed that. I don't think I have anything that I wouldn't wanna show from quite a few years of work, but because also that kind of natural feedback loop.

MR: Yeah. What you do attracts more of what you want to do, right?

BE: Exactly. Yeah.

MR: I think that's a really good way to think of it. Something to remember too when you're faced with that decision like, “I don't know if I feel good about this.” That might be a red flag to say, maybe it's not for you. Even though it's good work and maybe you need the money. Maybe if you're not proud of it, maybe that's a flag for you to pay attention to. Yeah.

BE: Yeah. I don't know if I thought this, or I probably heard it somewhere, but like, just the idea that, “That's a great opportunity for someone, but not me right now.” For whatever reason, you know, like great opportunity. But you know, after the first years of starting off on your own and taking everything that comes and feeling like you should never say no. Learning to be like, it's okay to say no sometimes, you know? That's also an important part.

MR: Yeah. That's part of the whole decision-making process.

BE: Yeah.

MR: I think if you're not into it either, you're not gonna be helpful to the customer, so you're really not serving them as well.

BE: Absolutely.

MR: It serves both you and them to find the right person.

BE: Yeah.

MR: Interesting. Well, this would be a good time for us to switch into tools. Now, it sounds like you do some analog, or at least you have. It sounds like you do digital. You hinted at that as well. Let's start with the analog tools, you know, pens, pencils, notebooks, paper, any kind of things that you find are helpful in the work you do that might be something interesting for someone listening to go check out and play with. Maybe that's their thing, and they've just never heard of it before.

BE: Well, the first thing that comes to mind, for me, the most simple and the most obvious is having a sketchbook, and just that personal practice. That means that your visual world is always alive and growing. I make my own sketchbooks most of the time, so that's not very helpful.

MR: I was gonna ask that.

BE: It's a really nice thing that you can do is the simplest thing in the world, fold paper, tear paper, you know, make some holes and stitch it up, put some kind of cover on that you like. But yeah, finding materials that really feel good to you, touch them every single day, you know? I love watercolors and I like soft pencils. So where you can make the softest line and the heaviest line with the same tool and just lean into it and make it change. Let's see. In my early days of graphic recording, it was all on firm board because that was what the agency did. I really do like the finish sometimes of firm board, but I don't like the ecological aspects. Especially if I don't think they're gonna keep it and use it, you know?

MR: Right. Throw it away.

BE: Now that everything is so digital very often they'll take the digital image on, throw it away.

MR: Chuck it, yeah.

BE: Yeah. So, my preference is now paper. There's many papers. There's one I find in a local shop. It's almost like a canvas like weave. Still quite light, but it has a little bit of texture, which is nice. Then actually on live graphic recording work, I still like to use pencils. Although in the end I go with the marker. I have quite a sketchy style. And so, with a pencil I can be free and create a sketchy style. Then on top of that, work with the marker. Not always, there's time, you know, two layers is not always possible. But yeah, that’s for the analog. I suppose I am one of many to use Neuland because they're refillable and it's just—

MR: Excellent work. Excellent tools. Yeah.

BE: Yeah. As well as being excellent tools and refillable and that's great. And then also in recent times, oh no, what they're called Molo—maybe we could put it in the show notes.

MR: Was that it, Molotow?

BE: I think so. Yeah, I think so. They're also refillable, kind of acrylic markers that you can get really great colors in and mix your own colors and everything.

MR: I think that's also a German brand, if I'm not wrong. I think that's a German based brand.

BE: Yeah. I went to their shops, and it looks like all kind of like graffiti stuff that works really well for this.

MR: Yeah.

BE: Also, something else that I really enjoy, or maybe I wouldn't do this on every job, but paper cuts out, cutting out signs, cutting out lettering, cutting out creatures, making skyline profiles, you know, depends on the time you have and the budget if you're doing preparation or not, but that can be like another physical element that's really nice to have.

MR: Interesting. Soft pencils, handmade notebooks. I did see there's a short course from Domestika on making your own books. That could be interesting for someone to look up. I can see if I can find a link to that. I know my friend Marro Tuseli was really into hand making books. They were pretty simple with paper. Is there a size that you like? Is there a size you like when you go to the tube?

BE: Yeah.

MR: They are quite small.

BE: Quite like this size, and then they change shape. But I tend to like the tall ones all because I write a lot. So it's writing and drawing. Okay. And mine are really rough around the edges, and I think that's what I encourage anyone who wants to do it. It doesn't all need to be neat. I don't cut paper, I tear it. They're very rough and very lovely. You can make them as finished as you want, but it's actually very accessible way of creating something that feels unique for yourself.

MR: I think too, if you've just torn the paper and put it together yourself, it's a little less precious in some way that—you know, when I first bought Moleskines, I had a resistance to use them 'cause they were too beautiful to use. I thought I would wreck it. And I learned, you know, doing teaching, I just bring a ream of printer paper and hand out the paper and a simple marker because, so you screw it up, you crumple it up, and we recycle it, life goes on, you know.

BE: Yeah. That's great. Any tools that help with perfectionism are great because perfectionism or fear of breaking the, the blank in graphic recording is great for that anyway cause when the event starts and you're like, “I dunno what's gonna happen, but it's gonna happen.”

MR: That's the fun part. Yeah. I think.

BE: Exactly.

MR: The other tidbit I thought about too, as you talked about shifting from foam board to paper and that you specifically like the paper with a little texture because I think for most graphic recorders that I've encountered, they like a smooth paper with very fine if any tooth. It sounds like you're actually okay with that. Maybe that's because you're coming from an artist's perspective that maybe you actually like the feel of that. Maybe it gives the look that you're trying to hit with your pencil that you lay, huh?

BE: Yeah, I think there's something about the actual experience, So like the texture.

MR: Yeah. Feeling it.

BE: With material, you get that little bit of resistance. I think I'm quite like a firm maker, and so I like to feel that kind of resistance. Also, the finish looking at something. we live in such a world of screens and everything on screens is flat and shiny and textless.

MR: Yeah, that's true.

BE: And so, for an actual thing that's in space with you, for me, the more texture and presence it has, there's more connection for me.

MR: That's just an observation. Pretty interesting. Sounds like pretty much stuff you can get at any art store if you're listening.

BE: For sure.

MR: Soft pencils, textured paper, tear it up and make it into a book. rolls of it on a—you know, it might be interesting for a major graphic recorder's listening who's got our training. Maybe they challenge themselves and go with a little bit textured paper this time on the next job and just see how it feels.

BE: Yeah.

MR: Pretty interesting. You mentioned you use digital. I assume you're using on iPad. What's the tool of choice that you like?

BE: I am indeed on the iPad. In the very early days of the pandemic before I had an iPad and I hadn't fully moved into digital, I just made the leap as everybody else did at the same time, and I was using a computer that overheated regularly and a Wacom tablet. Had about a three-second delay.

MR: Oh boy.

BE: You know, you're just going on faith that what you're doing down here is gonna appear up there.

MR: Eventually.

BE: Eventually. That was very nerve-wracking, but when I got my hands on an iPad, I was like, “Okay, yeah, this is better.” So I use iPad, I use Procreate as to many colleagues. Other programs that I find really useful are the Adobe World because actually apart from the actual graphic recording itself, very often you're either taking photographs of work, you know, in uneven conference hall lighting and on [unintelligible 00:54:32] paper or something, and you need. And I do a bit of photography as well. I've got a light room. It's really great for, you know, getting a really—

MR: Corrections.

BE: - and light on everything. For corrections. Obviously, Photoshop as well. And there's a lot of pinging back and forth. So you maybe like take the photos, send it into Lightroom, clean it up the light, and then send it into Photoshop and clean up some other aspects and then send it back into Procreate and you know, add some extra drawings because you can. So there's sort of whole—sorry, it just started to hail, I think. I hope that's not too loud.

MR: That's the life of a podcaster.

BE: Yeah. But yeah, so all of those tools I find really useful in different ways. And I think that there's loads also like I have Adobe 'cause I use it a lot, but there's a lot of free tools that do all the same things. And it's just finding the ones that work for you. Also, I often find it's really unexpected what's gonna help. So like in the last project that I was doing, and basically an illustrated booklet front to back, the whole thing. It was quite like a large project. There were like 12 illustrations in it or something.

MR: Wow.

BE: And it was for a printed piece, which I love because I'm like, “Oh, you know, I have a beautiful project.” Yeah, equality in schools and really lovely thing. And I was really happy to know that it was gonna be printed, but also was talking to them about other ways of accessing it for people who weren't there that day or things like this. I've used InDesign a lot not normally this kind of work, but for creating catalogs for exhibitions. Creating liner notes for album artwork, you know, all this kind of thing. And I was like, “Hey, you know, I can make you an online PDF booklet where people can also go online and, you know, it's got the sound wosh as the pages go over and people can use an index to click back and forth and, and find all the pieces.”

MR: Interesting. Interesting. Well, that's really cool that you gave them an additional space that they maybe hadn't thought of, you know, thought of the physical. This provided something a little bit more. Interesting.

BE: All the tools cross-pollinate in the end. There's almost nothing you learn that isn't useful somewhere down the line. That's what I'm learning.

MR: And the hail is back. The hail is back.

BE: Yes. Maybe that's a sign.

MR: Coming and leaves. Let's talk a little bit about tips that you might offer for someone. So this is a good spot where I frame it that maybe there's someone listening who's a graphic thinker of some kind, maybe they need some inspiration, maybe they're just in plateau, and they need some encouragement, what would be three things you would tell them could be practical, they could be theoretical, to help them maybe go to the next level or just think of things a little differently.

BE: One would be to try different ways in to the same activity. So I did one recently, there was challenging myself to only draw, so not to write and then to go in afterward and give and write drawings.

MR: Annotate. Yeah.

BE: Annotate. Exactly. Not necessarily with exactly the words that were said, but like pulling from the drawings and then maybe you come out with something that was more synthesized than something came out in a long way. Instead of immediately writing all of that down and then trying to find illustration for it, you go straight to the visual meaning and then extrapolate back into it. So that's a fun game. And then, I dunno, experiment and find your own style. Like you said, there's a lot of people, some graphic recording can go into base in the style, and it's useful to have some plates, but also like, mess around with different materials and brushes or, or pencils or, you know, even digitally brushes and procreate, whatever it is. Like to find something that feels yours. I recommend.

I don't know what other things, keep a sketchbook, only show the work you wanna do. I'm just repeating myself now, but those are things I think that are really important. And I think don't underestimate the background work to being an entrepreneur as an artist in any way, in any field. And appreciate that part that you do as well.

MR: That's good to remember. Especially even if you're someone who does it on the side, appreciate all the work that not only that it's—you could really easily fall into the trap, “Oh, I have to talk to the client, I have to do this, I have to do that.” That can lead you to a place where you think of it negatively. Sometimes, this idea that “I get to do, I get to do,” could be a really interesting mental shift where yes, you have to do it, but you also get to do it. If you are responsible, you can change it. That's where you want to be, because then you can adapt to the situation or offer something that they had never thought of. So that's a positive thing.

BE: Yeah, yeah. There’s a quote I heard the other day, oh gosh, I really hope I'm right, saying it was Tony Morrison. It was, “Freedom is a freedom to choose your own responsibilities.” I feel like as an entrepreneur that kind of thing is that, you know, very much to remember that because a lot of things can feel like obligation and there are favorite and not favorite parts of every process. But stepping into that space and taking those pieces on it, that's a chosen freedom, if that makes sense.

MR: Interesting. The other quote I remember is from Mike Tyson, the boxer has this quote, he says, is that—I forget exactly how to say it, but it was something along the lines of “Discipline is doing the things you hate like you love them.” That was pretty deep, right? What if you took the things you hated to do that you acted like you loved them, like training and doing all the things that—getting up at 5:00 in the morning to do the thing that you don't wanna do. What would happen if you switched your mindset to say, “I love doing that.” That's kind of an interesting perspective, I guess along the similar lines of opportunity and choosing your responsibilities. Another thing as well.

BE: Yeah. Nice.

MR: This is the philosophical episode for those who've made it this far. We're just talking about philosophy all over the place.

BE: Sorry, I dunno if that was the plan, but I've enjoyed it.

MR: No, this is fantastic. Yeah, no, I love it. Each episode is unique, and each person brings their own unique perspective. And I appreciate the work that you're doing, Blanche, I love that you're doing it so uniquely that you're not necessarily following a pattern, that you're following your own way. I think that's really great because that encourages other people who see your work to do the same thing. I think we need more personality and variety and instead of everyone getting squished into all doing the same thing, like that would get quite boring. So I'm glad that you're doing that, and I appreciate that you are doing it and following your path that makes sense to you. So, thank you.

BE: It’s a wiggly path, but I'm on it.

MR: Good.

BE: Yeah. Very good.

MR: Now this would be a good time to ask what are the best places to connect with you, to see more of your work, to find you? Where are the places that you hang out? I know we crossed paths in LinkedIn, your Blanche Illustrates on LinkedIn if you wanna find her there. What would be some other good places to find you?

BE: For my graphic recording work and graphic facilitation work, that's all Blanche Illustrates. So that's my website, www.blancheillustrates.com. My LinkedIn and on Instagram as well, Blance Illustrates. And then my personal artwork and some music can be found at Blanche Ellis Art, which is, so it's quite a different aesthetic, a different world. Through there there's links to other places. I have music on Spotify, on YouTube, and all around the place, just under my name Blanche Ellis.

MR: Great. So Blanche Ellis or blancheillustrates.com is the one that I see here that's got your work-work.

BE: Yeah. Exactly. My work-work. Then there's a million personal projects always running behind and most of them are under Blanche Ellis Art, yeah, exactly.

MR: Okay, great. Well, we’ll put those in the show notes for sure and let people connect with you and find you. Thanks so much for being on the show. It's been really fun to have you and have this very deep discussion. I think it's good every now and then we get into these deep discussions. I look forward to them. So thank you for participating and sharing that with me.

BE: No, thank you. I've really enjoyed that. As I said to you at the start, I'm not a public speaker, so I really appreciate speaking with someone who makes that really easy.

MR: Yeah, no, you did great. You're a really fascinating person. So for those who are listening or watching, it's another episode of the podcast. Until the next one, we'll talk to you soon.