Pencil Me In: The Business Drawing Book for People Who Can't Draw

For several years I have collected works (many of which appear in the bibliography of this book) to develop a culture of visualization in my organization. This author wrote a compelling narrative that justifies the use of drawing to think and communicate while mapping a pathway to develop sketch-competence. For us, this approach makes digital tools such as Solidworks, Photoshop, Tableau, and Blender less intimidating because the user has already drawn what he wants to communicate before he begins using them and he can therefore focus on *how* to create it. I highly recommend it fir personal and professional use.

I was considering taking Wodtke's $300 1-day class at Stanford Extension, and I decided I should try out the book first before registering. I'm glad I did, because the stuff she covers in this book doesn't exactly help me. I browsed through the book in an hour, and obviously to learn the techniques, you have to practice drawing every day.The problem was, I couldn't see an overall concept to guide me. Instead, most of the chapters pointed to the websites and techniques of other people/artists. Other than basic sketching, I feel like the book is more of an aggregation of other people's work. Also, many examples are from flow charting and user interface design, which I already knew as a former software designer. Often, the primary communication tool in the examples was text enhanced with hand-drawn fonts. For that, I'd be better off using Powerpoint...I just didn't find this book to be the useful tool it seemed to purport to be. But at least it saved me $300 in the long run.

I love this book. It's helped me be more confident in my drawing skill. I use it in my classes to help business people who haven't drawn since kindergarden grow more confident in their drawing skills. It starts simple with drawing lines and basic shapes and builds from there. It's simple and effective. I read everything on Kindle, but for this book, I recommend the paperwork. And get ready to have fun drawing.

This book is so much fun! It gradually builds up to more complex steps, it's easy to follow, and because the focus is on communication and not aesthetic, you can't help but build skill. Highly recommend if you're tentative about drawing or just communicating visually.

Easy to read and very helpful book. Highly recommend!

Was good as an ebook but excellent as a physical book.

Interesting collection of ways to add more visuals to your business and for your enjoyment.

What struck me immediately was the form of this book. Coming in at 168 pages and in an unintimidating 5” x 7” size, Pencil Me In clearly knows its audience. Making an instructional “Business Drawing Book for People Who Can’t Draw,” look unassuming with its fun typeface and simple drawings pulled me in and allowed me to get through this book quickly.It’s structured in two parts; first, “How to Draw,” and then, “When to Draw.” Author, Christina Wodtke, doesn’t get into the applications of drawing (whether for meetings, sketchnotes, modeling concepts, interfaces, or user journeys), until after she’s equipped you with the skills to draw fast and draw clearly. Of course, like any other instructional book, it’s up to the reader to practice.Be forewarned that this is not a book that will make you a master illustrator. Rather, it’s an additional tool to add to your communication kit if you’d like to be able to use simple drawings to more effectively and efficiently convey your message.I’ve often wanted to “show” rather than “tell” with a quick sketch. This book has provided me with the skills to get over that hurdle of not knowing how to quickly communicate on a napkin, scratch piece of paper, or post it note. I’ve noticed a few compliments come my way lately as to how I’m able to explain something visually through a drawing, instead of looking for the right words.

Easy to follow and nice to have an hand when you want to doodle and improve your hand drawn illustrations

I had Christina's book on my shelf ever since I bought it on release. It wasn't until one of her tweets reminded me of it in my weekend of need. Flicking through the pages I saw great perspectives from some of my visualisation hero(ine)s and from Christina herself. I'd recently lost touch with my naturally visual side. The mix of different visual styles helped me become more at ease again. The different ideas, gave me some new inspiration. All in such a small package. I'll be taking it into work tomorrow and know it will have contributed to the boost I need.

Disappointed with the quality and content of this book. It’s a print on demand book and the printing is similar to a photocopy which is unfortunate as it’s also quite small so the images are not crisp and can take more effort to read and understand.The author doesn’t appear to have a lot of experience drawing in business contexts as almost all of the examples in the book are from other people, sometimes with little context or effort to explain them. It feels like it should have been a blog rather than a book and is certainly not worth its inflated price tag.The overall impression is quite chaotic and unplanned and didn’t meet my expectations. There are plenty of better books about using drawing as a communication tool which is a shame because I had high hopes for this one having a business slant.

Good book

Really enjoyed the book, teaches you how to draw as a communication tool, give you plenty of take aways for drawing and ideas for applying those drawing skills to all kinds of practical day to day situations, from planning to presenting ideas to creating prototypes.