# Drawing Assignment Planning Sheet

## Step 1: Define your audience

This assignment is an exercise in empathy. Take a moment to define your audience.

* **Who are you drawing for?**
* **What can you assume they know already?**
* **What misconceptions can you expect them to have on the subject?**

As you plan your drawing, constantly ask yourself, **“Will my viewers understand what I’m drawing?”**

If the answer is “no”, simplify your drawing or add elements to orient your viewers.

## Step 2: Define Your Drawing’s Question

**Every visual explanation should answer a question.** What question is your drawing answering?

For example, if you are giving a paper talk, your first visual aid might answer the question: “What are the main points of my talk going to be?” If you are drawing a bicycle pump, the question your drawing answers might be: “How does a bicycle pump work?”

## Step 3: Define Your Drawing’s Answer

It is essential to **have a clear, concise communication goal before you begin drawing**. Your communication goal will drive the visual decisions that you make.

So, before you begin drafting your visual explanation, **take time to decide what your drawing’s message will be**. Your drawing may elucidate a key term, present data in a visual manner, or show important spatial relationships, movement patterns, or physical change over time. Ideally, your drawing will help your audience understand information in a new way rather than duplicate what you’ve communicated in words.

Remember, it is **more important to explain one idea well than to explain many ideas poorly**. If you find that you have more than one answer, pick the most important.

## Step 4: Draft Thumbnail Sketches

Much like you might draft an outline before writing an essay, you can **use thumbnail sketches to compare compositional choices and layouts before embarking on your final drawing**. Thumbnail sketches are generally loose, quick, and small. Artists and designers use thumbnail sketches to plan larger works.

To make a thumbnail sketch, draw a small rectangle. Without worrying about the details, quickly and roughly sketch the major components of your composition within the rectangle. Use simple shapes (circles, rectangles, blobs, etc.) to represent the major elements in your piece. You can represent text with squiggles.

If you are drawing an object, experiment with different scales and perspectives.
* **Which scale -- life-sized, magnified, sub-atomic -- communicates your message best?**
* **Which perspective -- bird’s eye view, head on, from the side, from below -- communicates your message most clearly?**
* **What is most important for viewers to see?**
* **What level of detail is necessary? How much detail is too much?**

As you arrange the elements in each thumbnail, experiment with different sizes, placements, and colors. Leaf through the REPLACE as you explore. Make as many thumbnail sketches as it takes to find a composition that you like. You should be able to fit 8 - 12 sketches on a page.

If you need inspiration or reference images, search for visuals created by others. These could be images describing content similar to yours or not. What can you learn to inform your own drawing? What might you want to imitate? What would you like to avoid?

## Step 5: Draft your Drawing

Once you have created your thumbnails, it’s time to select the sketch that you will base your final drawing on. If you’re struggling to choose, go back to Steps 1 - 3. **Remind yourself of the question your drawing is answering and ask yourself which composition does the best job answering that question**.

Once you’ve chosen your thumbnail, you may want to sketch out some of the more detailed parts of your drawing. You will want to know what you’re going to draw before you begin on your final sheet. You may want to ask a friend to interpret your sketches to make sure that your drawing will serve its explanatory purpose. Ask your friend what in your drawing works well and what, if anything, is still confusing or could be made clearer.

When you have chosen a layout and sketched out the details, you will be ready to begin your drawing.

1. **Start with a pencil**. (Eventually, you will want to erase these pencil lines. They are temporary guides.) Lightly outline the major elements in your composition. Start with the biggest elements first, working in toward the details.

2. Once you have everything positioned in pencil, **draw your composition in markers or colored pencils**. If you are using your drawing in a video, avoid using pens. Pens make skinny lines which are difficult to read.

3. At the very end, **erase your pencil lines**.

## Step 6: Evaluate your Drawing

Again, go back to your question and your answer.

Does your drawing answer the question you set out to answer? If you are not sure, seek feedback. Show your drawing to someone and ask. Listen to their feedback and adjust your drawing if needed.