Sketchnote book- April 2018
Sketchnotes
What are sketchnotes?
Sketchnotes is a way of visual note taking.
It's purposeful doodling or drawing while listening to a sermon, podcast, audiobook, anything really. Sketchnotes is a way to visually synthesize and summarize with shapes, text, connectors, and doodles. They are hand drawn visual summaries, usually done on an electronic device. All my sketchnotes are done on my Apple iPad.
Sketchnoting is not only a way of visual note taking, it's also a creative outlet. A way to personally express what you're hearing. More often that not, some of the artwork in my sketchnotes is memories from my childhood and my life experiences. I have a good size stash of art books, clipart, and other sources that I can pull ideas from for my sketchnotes. But I also pull from my childhood and my own life experiences. As I think any artist does. The sketchnotes in my sketchnote book are visual summaries of the Patch The Pirate Adventures, created by Ron and Shelly Hamilton and the whole Hamilton family.
How I got started sketchnoting.
I first started sketchnoting sermons at church back in 2014 when I was attending Sonlight Christian Center, a small church in the Orange Circle here in Old Town Orange. When I first started attending Sonlight in 2008, I walked into the church not knowing any of their iworship songs, and walked out of the church the same day with all the songs they sang that morning memorized. That was my first clue that I was a visual learner. (I talk about this in a previous blog post. Thinking in Pictures)
Then in 2014, the worship leader, the pastor's daughter, and the youth pastor's wife, Carol Anne McGuire introduced the church to sketchnotes. At this point in time I was very aware that I was a visual learner. I know if I could learn how to sketchnote it would be a very helpful learning tool for me. There was only one problem, sketchnoting requires drawing. Because of a traumatic incident that happened 9 years prior at another church, I swore to myself that I would never ever draw again in my entire life.
Basically what happened is, I was in a Sunday school class at a church in Yorba Linda and the teacher sits us all down around a circular table and passes out paper and candy. She turns on classical music and tells us to use the candy to draw the first thing that comes to mind from the classical music.
That's not a smart thing to ask a kid to do. First of all, how do you draw with candy??
Second, classical music doesn't give any visual ideas. After everyone had "drawn" their pictures, the teacher goes around the table telling everyone good job but me. Any kid would be hurt by this. But this is even more hurtful for a kid that's been bullied and made fun of and looked down on their whole life. This was me. I felt humiliated and rejected.
Every time I tried to draw, I'd have panic attacks out of fear (really sheer terror) that what happened 9 years prior would happen again. But when I saw Carol Anne sketchnoting, I knew it could be very beneficial for me. It was something I really wanted to do. Before I could start drawing again, I knew I had to deal with that traumatic situation. But I didn't know how. So I prayed about it.
I told God that I didn't want to be traumatized by that situation anymore, but I didn't know how to deal with it. I told him he was gonna have to do that, because I didn't know how. It was up to him now.
One night in bed, the Lord showed me the reality of that situation, and how dumb the whole situation really was. He showed me that it had nothing to do with me or my gifts, but had everything to do with another person's poor decision and lack of kindness. I reached out to two close friends and they helped me process the situation realistically. After 9 years of being traumatized by this situation, I was finally able to let it go.
After that, I started drawing again. I could finally draw without a panic attack. Praise the Lord! I learned how to sketchnote and ran with it. I started sketchnoting sermons from church and Bible Study lessons from Community Bible Study. I fell in love with it. Things I sketchnote, I remember. It's been a great reference tool. I often refer to things that I've sketchnoted. It's also become a serious creative outlet for me. It's brought out a creative side of me that I didn't even know was there.
How this book got started.
Let me just say that when I first started this project I had no intentions of making a book. But the Lord had other plans. This project started out of boredom on vacation in April 2018. Why was I bored on vacation you might ask?
We were on vacation in Idaho for my best friend's wedding. We were visiting some friends and we were stuck inside because there was at least two or three feet of snow on the ground. I was bored and didn't have a piano, which if you know me, you know I wasn't happy about that. But I had my iPad and stylus and thought what can I do with this?
A month prior to this trip, we had just gone to see the Patch The Pirate Ocean Commotion Live! concert. :):):) and I had gotten all the patch adventures (38) that they had at the time.
(You can get the Patch adventures at the Majesty Music website)
I put them on my mp3 player which I took on vacation with me.
As I was listening to the Patch adventures I got the idea that I could sketchnote them.
I had already been sketchnoting sermons from church for 4 years.
I had nothing else to do so I started sketchnoting the Patch adventures.
I was only doing it to give me something to do.
I had no clue what a huge impact the Patch adventures would have on my life. First it just became a hobby. Something fun to do (and to keep me busy) on days I wasn't feeling well. Then it became a creative outlet. I started seeing a creative side of me that I didn't know was even there.
As I began sketchnoting the Patch adventures, I began to see the huge, unexpected, impact they were starting to have on me. The Patch adventures became extremely personal for me. I could relate to the stories and the biblical truths that were being taught. Ron very quickly became a spiritual and musical mentor for me. Something I never had growing up.
I found I could remember the adventures that I sketchnoted. I also found that I was learning scripture for the first time in a context that meant something to me and in a way that I could remember it. I continued sketchnoting the Patch adventures after the trip. I was hooked. It became my bible time everyday. It also became a creative outlet for me.
It also became a great reference tool.
I had been wanting to do a project like this for several years, but the right opportunity just never presented itself, until now. I went to a lady's breakfast event at a church with a close friend. The ladies were trying to remember a certain Bible verse, (Matthew 17:20) and I just happened to know it off the top of my head, because it was in one of the patch Adventures (The Calliope Caper).
I told the ladies the verse they were looking for and they didn't believe me. It was really funny. They did finally figure out I was right. The Patch adventures became an amazing reference tool.
That's when I got the idea to turn to turn all of the sketchnotes into a book as a reference tool for myself. I wanted something tangible that I could take with me everywhere.
Probably a week later 3 people told me I needed to make a book. The Lord was confirming my idea. That's when this project really got serious.
Little did I know what it would turn into a year later.
I sketchnoted each Patch adventure (out of chronological order) as the Lord led. I'm the type of person that likes to look at the big picture and get ideas for a million things at once. I would try to get ideas for several sketchnotes at one time but it never worked. The Lord had something different in mind. I would only get ideas for one Patch adventure sketchnote at a time. Once I completely finished that sketchnote, then I would get ideas for the next one. There were many times when I wanted to give up and quit. It seemed like the never ending project. But the Lord had in mind to teach me patience. Something I've never been good in. A lesson I needed to learn.
I also found that each sketchnote that I did was exactly what I needed to hear that week. It also related to some situation or circumstance that I was going through at the time. Only God could do that.
The song "Little By Little" from the Patch Adventure "The Misterslippi River Race" became my theme song for this project.
Another song from "The Misterslippi River Race" that means a lot to me is a song called
It's basically Proverbs 3:5-6 put to music. I grew up knowing this Proverb. I could quote it verbatim but never really understood what it really meant. As soon as I heard the song "Trust in the Lord" I immediately knew what that proverb really meant. This was my first inclination of the power of music.
That leads me into my next blog post.