so I would like to start with asking how
many of you in the audience can draw
raise your hand okay I can see that some
of you don’t raise your hand and I hope
to change your opinion by the end of
this talk all children are born artists
all kids can draw and we even follow the
same pattern in our development in
drawing it’s something very native to us
also at a young age we understand the
concept of a drawing representing
something from real life it’s actually
quite amazing how a one-year-old can
understand that a picture-book dog is
the same as a real-life living dog even
though they don’t actually always look
like one another but at a very young age
we learn what features define for
example a dog and we get coded with
visual vocabulary can you still remember
when you were a child and you did not
hesitate to draw you felt happy drawing
and you weren’t ashamed you even got
praised or you’re somewhat crappy
drawings but at some some points the
attitudes change especially boys are not
supported to have an artistic hobby only
20% of the students in schools
specialized in visual arts are boys but
what is it that made you stop drawing
are you just saying that you can’t draw
because you saw someone do it better
than you or maybe something similar
happened to you that happened to my
grandmother she was in her second grade
and
was given a task to draw a cow she was a
city girl so not a lot of experience on
cows right and she took the picture to
her teacher but it happy and my
grandmother felt defeated by the
feedback and and she never wanted to
draw again but actually she was clever
she had to do the assignment again
because the first cow wasn’t good enough
and this time she copied the picture
through a paper from one of those big
teaching boards that they used to have
with pictures and she took that to her
teacher and she got through the
assignment but what she did not get was
the joy of expressing herself visually
through drawing ever again in her life
so now I’m wondering is this the only
way really to draw a lifelike copied
imitation of things what is really
knowing how to draw is this it or would
you say this is knowing how to draw or
how many of you think this is knowing
how to draw because we all have had this
type of stage of knowing how to draw so
I asked how many of you can draw in
comparison I would like to ask you how
many of you can write with pen and paper
like with your name or something so ok
you might not love your handwriting but
you wouldn’t say you can’t write right
you’re probably not the next Shakespeare
but you still keep on writing those
emails and text messages without the
shape so now if you can close your eyes
just for a minute and as we were talking
about school think of your childhood
school can you still remember even those
art classes or maybe you can imagine how
a future school would be now open your
eyes
and be dead honest could you think in a
format of Word documents probably not
and it’s not because you use Google Docs
it’s because we tend to think in
pictures it’s no coincidence that the
word imagine has the word image in it
the more abstract a thing is then we
used to think in words but then I can
get if we can make something abstract to
something visible and see it with our
mind’s eye
it gets more tangible to us so if we
think in pictures why do we love written
documents so much we give a lot of
respect to books and reports and other
written documents we think they’re so
smart and fantasy of course reading and
writing skills are important but a
picture tells the same story and it’s so
much faster and the change is here the
young are more interested in other ways
of communication they use emojis and
videos and pictures and we have also got
some data out of it we can see that in
social media platforms other things then
text get noticed
info graphs pictures and videos get more
likes and shares and draw more attention
they are more effective for example a
tweet with a picture gets 150 percent
more retweets
so snap a picture and tweet it
Illustrated pictures help us remember
especially when the reading skills are
not that developed yet but drawing
ourselves is an even more powerful tool
taking notes with pen and paper is far
more effective than taking notes with a
laptop even though with a laptop you can
take more notes but what’s more adding a
hand-drawn picture to your notes can
even double their chances in remember
the content and one of the reasons for
all of this is that we digest visual
information 60,000 times faster than
written things or text our brain loves
drawing in our daily lives we use a lot
of the left side of the brain but
drawing activates also the more creative
right side of the brain and it gives us
pleasure to draw so what can we use
drawing for even the people who think
they can’t draw can use drawing as a
tool for learning communicating and
thinking better drawing coloring
doodling helps us relax and also focus
maybe you can remember a long phone call
with a friend when you were drawing at
the same time would you say you weren’t
listening sadly we have this widely
spread miss belief that a person who is
in a meeting for example and drawing at
the same time is actually not really
listening I at least have gotten in
trouble because of drawing in class but
actually it’s quite the opposite drawing
is a great tool especially for a
kinesthetic learner like me and it
actually helps you from losing focus so
I hope that in the future we can be more
positive about the people drawing in
meetings I’m in class because it’s
actually a great way of communicating
for example in that meeting have you
ever gone to a hair dresser with a
picture to illustrate what kind of end
result you want to achieve so how about
when you’re talking about something more
complex than just here you could draw
out a schedule and show it to your child
or your boss it works for all ages you
could show a process
and its goals with only one picture and
drawing out the process or an idea
itself really reveals it is there
something that you haven’t thought of or
if you can’t draw it you probably
haven’t understood it drawing is a great
way to imagine and plan your future
it is very effective to dream and draw
out your dreams like said before it
makes your visions more tangible when
you have a set vision you can go and
plant the way to achieve it it’s also a
good idea to have a visual track keeper
so then the only hard part to do is go
and do what you need to do to achieve
your goals so drawing can be used for a
lot of things and remember you don’t
have to be an artist to do this from
communication perspective it is
irrelevant how well something is drawn
its no picture area so you always have
your mouth and text to explain what your
pictures mean so there might be still
some people here in the audience who are
still doubting your skills in drawing so
let me prove you wrong with a short
exercise and for that I need you to take
out a pencil paper and you should have
them in the bag for example okay
so a lot of you guys said that you know
how to write so today we’re only going
to use capital letters as out our
building parts so that will be made easy
and I will show you that drawing doesn’t
differ much from writing and we’re going
to do the ABC for drawing so we start
with the letter A so you can draw the
letter A here somewhere up in your
papers and then we go on and add W
beneath then we add of an L and I and
zette and you so as you can see drawing
a pencil is just another way of writing
of Li Xue okay so now we move to the
letter B so we are going to start with
the B just chillin here on its back
and we’re going to add a capital i’
beneath then a you another you and then
a couple of o’s a c and a reverse C and
this boy hasn’t got an arts hobby so
he’s rather serious so let’s add an eye
here and then if you like you can go and
add some more letters here and there
okay here we have a cowboy so what does
the cowboy need well he needs a cow of
course so we move to the letter C okay
and we’re starting and we’re going to
use many C’s in this pig
so we start with the medium-sized see
and we go on and we add a small kind of
tilted see here above and then a small
em like a reverse tilted to see here
then a big reverse see even ease then a
w ru e that is kind of upside down and
yeah W here we can add an S and one more
see here in the front a couple of dots
here and there and then you can add some
O’s to color them later so here we have
the ABC for drawing here we have all in
one picture we can add one more here a
couple of O’s and use and as you can see
now the boy is happy because he just
realized something that he can draw and
so can you
[Applause]
many of you in the audience can draw
raise your hand okay I can see that some
of you don’t raise your hand and I hope
to change your opinion by the end of
this talk all children are born artists
all kids can draw and we even follow the
same pattern in our development in
drawing it’s something very native to us
also at a young age we understand the
concept of a drawing representing
something from real life it’s actually
quite amazing how a one-year-old can
understand that a picture-book dog is
the same as a real-life living dog even
though they don’t actually always look
like one another but at a very young age
we learn what features define for
example a dog and we get coded with
visual vocabulary can you still remember
when you were a child and you did not
hesitate to draw you felt happy drawing
and you weren’t ashamed you even got
praised or you’re somewhat crappy
drawings but at some some points the
attitudes change especially boys are not
supported to have an artistic hobby only
20% of the students in schools
specialized in visual arts are boys but
what is it that made you stop drawing
are you just saying that you can’t draw
because you saw someone do it better
than you or maybe something similar
happened to you that happened to my
grandmother she was in her second grade
and
was given a task to draw a cow she was a
city girl so not a lot of experience on
cows right and she took the picture to
her teacher but it happy and my
grandmother felt defeated by the
feedback and and she never wanted to
draw again but actually she was clever
she had to do the assignment again
because the first cow wasn’t good enough
and this time she copied the picture
through a paper from one of those big
teaching boards that they used to have
with pictures and she took that to her
teacher and she got through the
assignment but what she did not get was
the joy of expressing herself visually
through drawing ever again in her life
so now I’m wondering is this the only
way really to draw a lifelike copied
imitation of things what is really
knowing how to draw is this it or would
you say this is knowing how to draw or
how many of you think this is knowing
how to draw because we all have had this
type of stage of knowing how to draw so
I asked how many of you can draw in
comparison I would like to ask you how
many of you can write with pen and paper
like with your name or something so ok
you might not love your handwriting but
you wouldn’t say you can’t write right
you’re probably not the next Shakespeare
but you still keep on writing those
emails and text messages without the
shape so now if you can close your eyes
just for a minute and as we were talking
about school think of your childhood
school can you still remember even those
art classes or maybe you can imagine how
a future school would be now open your
eyes
and be dead honest could you think in a
format of Word documents probably not
and it’s not because you use Google Docs
it’s because we tend to think in
pictures it’s no coincidence that the
word imagine has the word image in it
the more abstract a thing is then we
used to think in words but then I can
get if we can make something abstract to
something visible and see it with our
mind’s eye
it gets more tangible to us so if we
think in pictures why do we love written
documents so much we give a lot of
respect to books and reports and other
written documents we think they’re so
smart and fantasy of course reading and
writing skills are important but a
picture tells the same story and it’s so
much faster and the change is here the
young are more interested in other ways
of communication they use emojis and
videos and pictures and we have also got
some data out of it we can see that in
social media platforms other things then
text get noticed
info graphs pictures and videos get more
likes and shares and draw more attention
they are more effective for example a
tweet with a picture gets 150 percent
more retweets
so snap a picture and tweet it
Illustrated pictures help us remember
especially when the reading skills are
not that developed yet but drawing
ourselves is an even more powerful tool
taking notes with pen and paper is far
more effective than taking notes with a
laptop even though with a laptop you can
take more notes but what’s more adding a
hand-drawn picture to your notes can
even double their chances in remember
the content and one of the reasons for
all of this is that we digest visual
information 60,000 times faster than
written things or text our brain loves
drawing in our daily lives we use a lot
of the left side of the brain but
drawing activates also the more creative
right side of the brain and it gives us
pleasure to draw so what can we use
drawing for even the people who think
they can’t draw can use drawing as a
tool for learning communicating and
thinking better drawing coloring
doodling helps us relax and also focus
maybe you can remember a long phone call
with a friend when you were drawing at
the same time would you say you weren’t
listening sadly we have this widely
spread miss belief that a person who is
in a meeting for example and drawing at
the same time is actually not really
listening I at least have gotten in
trouble because of drawing in class but
actually it’s quite the opposite drawing
is a great tool especially for a
kinesthetic learner like me and it
actually helps you from losing focus so
I hope that in the future we can be more
positive about the people drawing in
meetings I’m in class because it’s
actually a great way of communicating
for example in that meeting have you
ever gone to a hair dresser with a
picture to illustrate what kind of end
result you want to achieve so how about
when you’re talking about something more
complex than just here you could draw
out a schedule and show it to your child
or your boss it works for all ages you
could show a process
and its goals with only one picture and
drawing out the process or an idea
itself really reveals it is there
something that you haven’t thought of or
if you can’t draw it you probably
haven’t understood it drawing is a great
way to imagine and plan your future
it is very effective to dream and draw
out your dreams like said before it
makes your visions more tangible when
you have a set vision you can go and
plant the way to achieve it it’s also a
good idea to have a visual track keeper
so then the only hard part to do is go
and do what you need to do to achieve
your goals so drawing can be used for a
lot of things and remember you don’t
have to be an artist to do this from
communication perspective it is
irrelevant how well something is drawn
its no picture area so you always have
your mouth and text to explain what your
pictures mean so there might be still
some people here in the audience who are
still doubting your skills in drawing so
let me prove you wrong with a short
exercise and for that I need you to take
out a pencil paper and you should have
them in the bag for example okay
so a lot of you guys said that you know
how to write so today we’re only going
to use capital letters as out our
building parts so that will be made easy
and I will show you that drawing doesn’t
differ much from writing and we’re going
to do the ABC for drawing so we start
with the letter A so you can draw the
letter A here somewhere up in your
papers and then we go on and add W
beneath then we add of an L and I and
zette and you so as you can see drawing
a pencil is just another way of writing
of Li Xue okay so now we move to the
letter B so we are going to start with
the B just chillin here on its back
and we’re going to add a capital i’
beneath then a you another you and then
a couple of o’s a c and a reverse C and
this boy hasn’t got an arts hobby so
he’s rather serious so let’s add an eye
here and then if you like you can go and
add some more letters here and there
okay here we have a cowboy so what does
the cowboy need well he needs a cow of
course so we move to the letter C okay
and we’re starting and we’re going to
use many C’s in this pig
so we start with the medium-sized see
and we go on and we add a small kind of
tilted see here above and then a small
em like a reverse tilted to see here
then a big reverse see even ease then a
w ru e that is kind of upside down and
yeah W here we can add an S and one more
see here in the front a couple of dots
here and there and then you can add some
O’s to color them later so here we have
the ABC for drawing here we have all in
one picture we can add one more here a
couple of O’s and use and as you can see
now the boy is happy because he just
realized something that he can draw and
so can you
[Applause]
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