I know, four months with nary a post and this is just a quick visit. If you are a champion for visual practices, Liberating Structures and collective sense making, take a peek at Barry Overeem’s wonderful post about the Liberating Structure, Drawing Together. I particularly appreciate his emphasis on the TOGETHER bit, because this LS can often be relegated to an individual activity.
I was so, so, so sure I had blogged about this wonderful online practice shared in 2020 by the amazing Beck Tench. But when I went to find it to reshare, I could not find it in my archives. So today I am getting this on the blog!
On Zoom we have all these little windows into others’ faces (if their camera is on). It is oddly a great place to do portrait sketching as a way to see, to pay attention, to shift out of monkey-mind. Beck pulled this practice from her reading of Frederick Franck’s The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as meditation.
Go to Beck’s post and read how to do it. https://www.becktench.com/blog/2020/7/26/the-zen-of-zooming
Then if you get to try it with others, I’d love to hear your impressions.
I found it really helpful to get out of my “solve the problem now” habits. To really look at another which I’m not sure we do as well online as we might F2F. When we HAVE shared our sketches with each other in all their glorious imperfections (you sketch WITHOUT looking at the sketch) we laugh, we wonder, even blush. It is a very human moment for me.
I’ll put some of my sketches below.
Today I had a TON of fun with Beehive Productions “Origin Stories” series where they brought in the two founders of Liberating Structures, Keith McCandless and Henri Lipanowicz. Beehiver Amy Lenzo called to ask if I would do a graphic recording of the two hour Zoom session.
So today I got out my paper and pens with glee. I was all set to draw when my eye caught a piece of interesting paper in the mess that is my desk. Just a few days ago Keith had shared some of the collage work he is doing and I thought, hey, I’ll collage! So without permission I went to work. I pulled and piled scraps in front of my computer, grabbed blue glitter glue and a tray of acrylic paints and went crazy.
Is it useful? Who knows, but it was SURE fun to do. It was total improvisation on my part. Here is the final piece.
From the Draft Archives, Summer 2012, the RosViz graphic facilitation workshop with Michelle Laurie. Just. Plain. Imperfect. Fun. The always creative Jason Toal produced. Never underestimate the amount of fun people can have when let loose. I think this is a thread as I reflect back on these old blog drafts!
#MondayVideos
For a slightly more polished harvest video, also from the 2012 archives, take a look at what these kindergartners did for THEIR harvest! https://www.samchaltain.com/this-is-what-student-learning-looks-like
I’ve been having fun riffing on Lynda Barry’s “drawing monsters” in combination with a variety of Liberating Structures. These are known as “string” in the LS community. When we string together structures, we go deeper, increase engagement and have serious fun!
Drawing Monsters helps us make our fears conscious and visible. This sets us up to use a variety of LSs that can help us address those monsters.
This string includes 15% Solutions, Troika Consulting, Improv Prototyping, Discovery and Action Dialog and What, So What, Now What? Rarely would you need all of the LS that followed monsters, but there are some nice pairings and triads of structures. 15% Solutions is a great starting base. If the challenges are individual, Troika Consulting works well. If there is a shared monster, Discovery and Action Dialog is great.
For me the Improv Prototyping is VERY helpful in converting ideas into practice. We can THINK about solutions in our heads, but until we practice talking about them, living them, they may be stifled and unformed.
What, So What, Now What? makes a great reflection and wrap up, doing it 1-2-4-All style or 1- All. Keep the solitary moment of reflection in there. There are people who really need that minute or two!
I’ve been asked enough times that I think it is time to write up and share what I’ve done and learned. At the end of this post is a PDF and PowerPoint attached with all the supporting materials. Have fun and share in the comments what you have done/plan to do with this!
