How drawing helps you think | Ralph Ammer | TEDxTUM

Summary

The speaker emphasizes the importance of drawing, not as an artistic skill but as a powerful tool for thinking and creativity. Drawing, like language, helps us understand the world, imagine new possibilities, and express our thoughts. It enhances intuition, attention to beauty, and helps visualize concepts that words cannot fully capture. By breaking free from the fear of not being 'good enough,' anyone can use drawing to unlock creativity, deepen understanding, and communicate ideas. The talk encourages making drawing a daily habit to improve thinking and connection with others.

Takeaways

• 🎨 Drawing is not only about artistic excellence or self-expression, but a way to think visually, like an architect or a scientist.
• 🧠 Visual thinking can be developed through drawing, which helps the brain connect with the hand and eye, leading to intuitive insights.
• 🌀 Repetitive drawing exercises can soothe the mind and bring attention to the present moment, helping reduce restless thoughts.
• 🌿 Drawing encourages us to truly observe and see the world, rather than labeling things, which deepens our connection with our surroundings.
• 🔄 By focusing on negative space or unfamiliar forms, we can switch off preconceived knowledge and see the world more accurately.
• 💡 We can use visual compositions and the arrangement of shapes and lines to convey emotions, thoughts, and invisible ideas.
• 🖼 Drawing helps to understand complex thoughts. If something cannot be drawn, it likely hasn’t been fully understood.
• ✨ Drawing stimulates creativity by combining multiple thoughts into new ideas, acting as a powerful tool for ideation and problem-solving.
• 📊 Visual representations, like drawings, make abstract concepts more personal and memorable, bridging the gap between language and personal experience.
• 🖋 Drawings don’t need to be perfect or artistic. Their true value lies in how they help us think, communicate, and connect with others.

Q & A

What is the main message of the speaker regarding drawing?

The speaker emphasizes that drawing is not just about artistic excellence or talent; it is a tool for thinking, understanding, and communicating visually. It is bigger than art and can be used to explore ideas, emotions, and creativity.

How does the speaker compare drawing with language?

The speaker compares drawing to language, suggesting that just as we use language to think and communicate, drawing is a way to think in pictures and express ideas visually. Like language, it should not be judged solely on artistic merit.

What exercise does the speaker suggest to improve hand-eye coordination for drawing?

The speaker suggests an exercise where you fill a piece of paper with circles, starting with larger ones and gradually filling the space with smaller ones. This helps strengthen hand control and enhances visual focus.

How does drawing help people discover beauty in the world around them?

Drawing forces people to pay attention to the details of the world around them, beyond mere recognition. It helps people move beyond labels and truly observe shapes, patterns, and forms, allowing them to discover beauty in ordinary things.

What is the trick the speaker shares for drawing what we see instead of what we know?

The speaker suggests focusing on the spaces between objects rather than the objects themselves. This helps the mind bypass its tendency to draw based on what it already knows and instead focus on observing the actual forms in front of us.

How does the speaker explain the relationship between visual shapes and human perception?

The speaker explains that our perception of shapes, such as horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines, is influenced by evolution. Horizontal and vertical lines feel stable, while diagonal lines create unease. These visual habits shape our understanding of images and the world around us.

What does the speaker mean by 'drawing things that you can't see'?

The speaker means that drawing can be used to represent abstract concepts, thoughts, and emotions. By understanding how different shapes and compositions influence perception, we can visually express ideas and feelings that aren't physically visible.

How does the speaker use drawing to support understanding?

The speaker makes it a habit to draw their thoughts daily, using sketches to figure out complex ideas. If they can't draw something, it indicates they haven't fully understood it yet. Drawing helps organize and clarify thinking.

How does drawing help with creativity according to the speaker?

Drawing aids creativity by allowing people to visualize and combine different thoughts, helping generate new ideas. The more thoughts one can represent visually, the more likely they are to combine them in new, creative ways. It's especially useful in the brainstorming phase of creativity.

What does the speaker say about the power of personal drawings in communication?

The speaker highlights that personal drawings can make abstract ideas more relatable and memorable. Unlike conventional symbols (e.g., the light bulb for ideas), personal drawings offer unique, specific interpretations that help others connect more deeply with the concept being communicated.

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Drawing as a Way of Thinking

The speaker emphasizes that drawing, like language, is not just about artistic talent but is a tool for thinking and connecting with others. Drawing has been unfairly limited to the art world, but it serves a greater purpose. It allows us to visualize thoughts and ideas, just like architects or scientists do. The act of drawing is an intuitive process that can help us improve our hand-eye coordination, focus, and think visually. Through repetitive exercises, such as drawing circles, we train our hands and calm our minds, creating space for intuitive visual thinking.

05:00

🔍 The Importance of Seeing and Discovering Beauty

Drawing forces us to truly look at the world rather than just recognizing labels. By paying attention to details, we can store vivid memories in our minds, unlike when we merely take photos. The speaker explains that drawing helps us notice beauty in ordinary things by focusing on the spaces between objects rather than on what we already know. This approach helps us disconnect from preconceived ideas, opening us up to discovering hidden beauty through intense observation.

10:03

🧠 Drawing Thoughts and Emotions

The speaker discusses how drawing allows us to express and understand things that cannot be seen, such as thoughts and emotions. Our perception of the world is shaped by evolution, which influences how we interpret lines and shapes. By understanding this visual language, we can create compositions that convey meaning without words. Drawing compositions allows us to think about subjects differently, offering new perspectives. The speaker shares examples of how they use daily sketches to explore personal thoughts, helping them understand and visualize their mental processes.

15:06

💡 Imagining and Creating New Ideas

Creativity is described as a process of combining existing thoughts to form new ideas. Drawing is a powerful tool in this process, enabling us to visualize and iterate on ideas without having to physically create them. The speaker illustrates how drawing can help in the brainstorming phase, where even bad ideas are welcome. Visual thinking is useful not only for problem-solving but also for generating new concepts, which can later be shared with others through sketches. This approach encourages creativity by allowing ideas to evolve without judgment.

🖼️ The Power of Personal Drawings

The speaker contrasts conventional symbols, like the light bulb representing an idea, with more personal, specific drawings. While conventional symbols serve as simple placeholders, personal drawings offer a deeper connection between the creator's experience and the audience. Personal illustrations can supplement words, making ideas more relatable and easier to understand. The speaker advocates for using original, personal drawings to enhance communication and help ideas resonate more effectively with others. By creating drawings that are unique to us, we can better convey complex ideas.

Keywords

💡Drawing

Drawing in this video is portrayed as more than an art form; it is a way to think and engage with the world. It is described as a tool for visual thinking, helping us to connect our hands and eyes, express ideas, and even solve problems. The speaker emphasizes that drawing isn’t about artistic talent but about understanding and communication.

💡Visual Thinking

Visual thinking refers to the process of thinking through images and shapes instead of relying solely on language or words. In the video, this is discussed as a critical method used by architects, scientists, and even ordinary people to understand and communicate complex ideas. The speaker advocates for drawing as a way to enhance visual thinking.

💡Intuition

Intuition is described as a key aspect of drawing that helps us bypass overthinking and focus on our visual senses. By practicing repetitive exercises like drawing circles, we strengthen the connection between our hands and eyes and enter a more intuitive mindset. This allows us to 'see' more clearly and notice beauty in ordinary things.

💡Beauty

In the video, beauty is not something that is found, but something that is made by paying attention to the world around us. Drawing helps us see past labels and recognize the detailed beauty of things, like the shape of a tree or the spaces between objects. This practice helps to enrich our perception of the world.

💡Compositions

Compositions refer to the arrangement of shapes and lines in a drawing, which can convey different meanings depending on how they are organized. For example, the speaker describes how the placement of a ladybug on a page can evoke different emotions or ideas, such as fear or affection. Understanding compositions allows for more effective visual communication.

💡Creativity

Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas by combining existing thoughts in novel ways. The speaker emphasizes that creativity involves quantity—producing as many ideas as possible without judgment in the early stages. Drawing is a tool that facilitates creativity by allowing us to visualize and experiment with ideas, even those that seem silly or unworkable at first.

💡Evolutionary Perception

This concept refers to the idea that our perception of the world has been shaped by millions of years of evolution. Humans are especially sensitive to certain visual cues like horizontal and vertical lines, which are stable, and diagonal lines, which feel unstable. These natural tendencies influence how we interpret drawings and visual information.

💡Emotions

Emotions in the video are discussed in the context of how drawing can help us express and understand our feelings. By using different shapes, lines, and compositions, we can visually represent complex emotions that might be difficult to convey with words alone. Drawing serves as a bridge between internal emotions and external expression.

💡Personal Expression

Personal expression in drawing is encouraged as a way to connect with others and communicate ideas uniquely. The video suggests that unconventional, specific, and personal drawings are more effective for communication because they tap into individual experiences, making the message more relatable and memorable.

💡Ideas

Ideas are described as the core of creativity in the video. An idea is essentially a combination of two or more thoughts that merge to form something new. Drawing aids in the development of ideas by providing a visual representation of abstract concepts, allowing us to experiment with different possibilities and share those ideas with others.

Highlights

Drawing is not just about artistic excellence but a way to think visually, like architects and scientists do.

Drawing helps us develop an intuitive mindset by training the connection between our hands and eyes through simple exercises.

Through drawing, we can shift our perception from labeling objects to truly seeing and observing the world around us.

We tend to draw what we know, not what we see, but focusing on negative spaces helps switch off our rational mind and see forms clearly.

Drawing helps us to notice extraordinary beauty in ordinary things by paying attention to detail.

Drawing can help visualize things that are invisible, like emotions or thoughts, through visual compositions using lines and shapes.

Visual language, unlike verbal language, is shaped by our perception of the physical world, such as how we respond to lines and structures.

Drawing thoughts every day provides a clearer understanding of concepts, allowing us to review and connect our ideas.

Visual thinking and drawing allow us to imagine things that don't exist yet, offering a foundation for creativity.

The more thoughts we have, the more creative combinations can emerge, emphasizing creativity as a process of generating ideas.

Drawing is a valuable part of the creative process for generating and exploring ideas without the need to physically create them first.

Drawings can enhance communication by making abstract concepts more memorable and relatable compared to words alone.

Personal drawings, even if unconventional, can build bridges between abstract ideas and personal experiences, enriching communication.

By making drawing a daily habit, we can significantly improve our thinking, creativity, and ability to connect with others.

Our drawings don't have to be artistic masterpieces; if they help us think and communicate, they are good enough.

Transcripts

Translator: Rosa Baranda Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

Whenever we draw something,

we ask ourselves painful questions,

such as,

'Is this drawing good?'

'Am I talented?'

or worst of all, 'Is this art?'

And that leads many of us to say,

'Well, this doesn't look like art. I'm not an artist anyway.

I can't draw, and I shouldn't do it.'

We would never do that with language.

No one would say,

'Well, this just didn't come out like a poem. I shouldn't speak.'

(Laughter)

Because we know language is a way to think

and get in touch with others.

Well, and so is drawing.

We've put drawing into this dark corner of the art world.

But drawing is not only about artistic excellence,

personal self-expression, or talent for that matter.

Drawing is not about art.

Drawing is bigger than art.

It is a way to think in pictures -

like an architect does when she tries to imagine a new building,

or a scientist who tries to figure out the spatial structure of molecules.

These people are not only thinking in words;

they are also thinking in pictures.

The think visually.

You can do that too.

And today I want to show you five ways

how drawing can support your visual thinking.

Let's get to the first one, intuition.

When we want to get better at drawing, the first thing we might want to do

is improve the connection between our hands and our eyes.

And we can do that with little exercises like this one,

where we just fill a piece of paper with circles.

We start with bigger ones and gradually fill up the whole space.

And exercises like these are physical workouts for our hands.

So they might get a little tense now and then,

but the stronger our hands become,

the better we can control them to draw.

Repetitive exercises like these also have a soothing effect on our minds.

We have to focus intentionally on our visual sense.

So they bore other parts of our thinking,

bore them in the best sense of the word.

They bore our restless thoughts and worries

and make room for a more intuitive visual mindset.

And in this intuitive mindset, we can see beautiful things.

Because, you know, seeing beauty is not that easy.

The problem is there are just too many things.

We can't see everything - it would be too exhausting -

so we have to reduce the amount of information that we take in,

and we try to see patterns and order.

We also see less.

Now, without turning around, ask yourselves,

What is the person behind you wearing?

How many trees did you see in front of this building when you came in?

We don't pay attention to these things, because we don't have to.

It's much easier to just recognize things around us instead of actually looking.

We don't care how many leaves are on a tree

or how its branches are shaped,

(Laughter)

all we need to do is identify the tree so we don't run into it.

We reduce the world to labels.

But when we draw,

we actually have to look and discover the world around us.

The labels disappear, and we see what is actually there, right now.

We situate ourselves in the world.

And because we pay such intense attention to what is around us,

it becomes a part of us.

So when I think back of this beautiful French small town

where I spent last summer,

I can remember many beautiful details.

Because I spent the time and the effort to look and draw them.

So I stored those memories in my mind and not on my camera.

Now, you might say, 'Okay, I want to discover beautiful things too;

I'm going to draw one of those plants.'

And the drawing should look something like this.

So you give it a go,

but your drawing might turn out more something like that.

(Laughter)

What's going on here?

The problem is we tend to draw what we already know,

and not what we see.

Here is a little trick, how you can switch off what you know.

Instead of drawing an object,

let's focus on the spaces between the object

and draw those.

Because when there's nothing to recognize for our rational mind,

like the leaves or the buds of the plant,

it's easier for us to actually observe the forms in front of us.

And when we make observations like these,

we can discover extraordinary beauty in ordinary things.

Because we don't find beauty;

we make the world beautiful by paying attention.

Okay, so we know how to get into an intuitive visual mindset

and how to draw what we see.

Can we also draw what we cannot see,

like our thoughts or emotions?

We first have to understand that the way we see the world

and, as a consequence, the way how we see images

has been shaped by evolution.

Over millions of years, our surroundings have taught us how to perceive the world.

Gravity, for instance, is very important for us,

so we're very sensitive to horizontal and vertical lines.

Horizontal lines seem to be stable and resting, like the ground.

Vertical lines are in opposition to gravity,

as you can see in a standing person or a growing plant.

Both horizontal and vertical lines seem to be relatively stable for us.

Diagonals are a whole different story.

They make us a little uneasy:

'Is this thing going to stand up or tip over?'

And it is visual habits like these

that are the foundation of our visual language.

Now, when I use the term language, I'm using it as a metaphor here.

Shapes are very different from words;

you can't look up what a shape means in a dictionary.

And we don't build sentences, but we build compositions of shapes -

compositions that mean something.

Here's something you can try.

Pick any subject, like this ladybug, for instance,

and arrange it in different ways on a piece of paper.

Now, observe how the position of the subject

changes what the composition says.

Each of these arrangements prompts us to think differently about the ladybug -

as a threatening monster,

a lover,

or maybe someone who got lost.

And if you learn compositions like these,

if you learn how to use different lines and shapes,

then we can draw things that you can't see.

For instance, I made it a habit to draw my thoughts everyday.

In fact I have a rule:

if I can't draw something, then I probably haven't understood it yet.

So I make little sketches, like this one, where I was trying to figure out

what's going on in my mind when I focus on something.

Or this one, where I was wondering

about the relationship between the shapes of our everyday objects

and the shapes of our hands.

This was about two different sorts of conversations that two people can have.

And here I was thinking about rhythms and language

and other types of communication.

So over time I've gathered many, many of these sketches,

and they give me an overview of my thoughts about the world.

And I can also rearrange these drawings and see connections.

So drawing can also help us to understand.

Okay, so we know how to get into an intuitive mindset,

how to discover beauty with drawings,

how to draw things that are invisible.

What can we do with this?

Well, we can imagine something new, something that isn't there yet.

At the core of creativity are ideas.

What is an idea?

I like to think of ideas as two thoughts or more that we have

and that somehow magically combine in our heads and shape something new.

And of course,

the more thoughts and knowledge we have about what already is,

the likelier are the chances that some of those thoughts

might combine into something that could be.

Creativity really is all about quantity.

Let me give you an example.

Let's assume for a minute that you share my passion for pottery,

and you want to come up with a new cup.

If you know how to draw things,

then you have a visual representation in your mind,

and you can combine those, you can work with those.

Let's say you are into football, and you want to imagine a world cup.

You can easily imagine it vividly.

All you have to do now is draw it.

Or let's say

you feel a little grumpy today,

and you want an angry cup.

Or ...

you might have a friend who likes things very orderly.

You might come up with a very precise cup for her.

And this type of visual thinking is very powerful

because you can imagine something without having to make it.

So, this is very useful in the first part of your creative process,

where you try to come up with as many ideas as possible, even the bad ones.

Especially the bad ones.

We don't judge in this part of the creative process.

And then in the second part,

when we narrow things down to find out a viable solution,

a stupid idea from before

might turn out as just the right birthday present for a friend.

And you can apply this way of visual thinking to all sorts of problems.

Because creativity really is like breathing:

you take in information and knowledge,

and you combine it to new ideas that you made.

And if you know how to draw what you think,

then you have a powerful support for this process.

You can also share those new ideas with others,

in texts or in presentations.

Language is probably

the most powerful tool we have to communicate,

and yet it has its limits.

One problem with written words, for instance,

is you have to go through them line by line, word by word

to know what they say.

And as soon as you have, those words quickly disappear

and vanish into a grey texture again.

It is hard for us to anchor words in our minds,

and drawings can help make them stick.

Let's go back to how we use words as labels.

I want you to close your eyes for a second and imagine a tree.

Imagine a tree.

Got it? Okay.

Did your tree, or does your tree, look like this?

Or like this?

Or maybe even like that?

Probably not.

I bet each and everyone of you has a different tree in mind right now.

Because the word tree is a public placeholder for all sorts of trees.

Now, you could say, 'Okay, these imaginations,

these personal imaginations that we have are different for everyone of us,

so they're useless for communication.

We should focus on the word, the common ground.'

And I would say, 'If we do that, we're missing out.'

The problem with words and why it's so hard to anchor them

is it's hard to relate them to personal experiences.

Now, a drawing can build a bridge

between the personal experience of a tree and the abstract expression of it -

the word, the conventional word.

And it's crucial that this drawing is unconventional, specific, and personal.

Let's have a look at a very conventional illustration of an idea first

that keeps haunting flip charts all over the world: the light bulb.

I would argue the light bulb is very much on the conventional side.

It's a mere substitute for word.

So it doesn't add any nutritional value, really.

If, on the other hand, we have a specific personal illustration,

then that can supplement what we say with our words.

So if you want to convey an idea with your words,

you can help make it stick with an image or a drawing.

And the fact that this drawing is very personal

is not a problem;

this is actually where its power lies.

Because you can lead other people through your personal expression

to connect them and understand your general ideas.

And for that to happen, these drawings have to be as original as our words.

Okay, these are just five ways

how drawing can support your thinking:

it can ignite our intuition,

make our lives more beautiful,

help us understand,

imagine new things, and share them with others.

If you make drawing a daily habit,

it will be a dramatic improvement for your thinking.

And please remember:

Our drawings do not have to be pieces of art.

If they help us to think and connect with others,

they are good enough.

Thank you.

(Applause)