SYNTOPIC BOOK REVIEW: Books by Joy Sikorski

I have owned the following three wonderful books by quicrky artist Joy Sikorski since the late nineties, & have re-visited them many times:

1) 'How to Draw a Radish: And Other Fun Things to Do at Work';

2) 'How to Draw a Cup of Coffee and Other Fun Ideas for Home & Garden';

3) 'How to Draw a Clam: A Wonderful Vacation Planner';

In the field of what I would like to term as 'deliberate doodling', I consider these three books to be the best in the genre.

Unlike the common doodles, which seem whimsical, 'deliberate doodling' involves some form of structure & purpose.

I am very impressed by what the author has done in the three fun books of hers.

All the three books are spiral bound, each with some two hundred pages of inspirational doodling techniques, on top of various other discovery games & paper crafts for professional & personal entertainment.

Each is sturdily constructed with two pockets for special projects, organised with ten card-board dividers & yet small enough to fit into your jacket.

From my personal perspective, they are wonderful “toys for grown-ups”:

playful, instructive & absolutely worthwhile!

The author has actually written another similar book, entitled 'Squeaky Chalk : And Other Fun Things to Draw (And Do) When There's Nothing to Do!' but for some strange reasons, I did not lay my hands on it.

For the benefit of readers, let me share this personal experience of mine:

I have combined the 'deliberate doodling' techniques from Joy with the 'rapid viz' techniques from Kurt Hanks, & integrated them into the 'private writing' processes as formulated by Mark Levy in his wonderful book, 'Accidental Genius: Revolutionize Your Thinking Through Private Writing'.

I use what I often like to term as my 'scratch pad', in the form of Bienfang NoteSketch pads.

Alternatively, I also use the type graphic artists use, i.e. the A3-sized, spiral-bound, 100-pages-per-pad, 100-gms-weight drawing blocks, in conjunction with a multi-colour/multi-utility pen from Rotring.

On many occasions, I have astonished myself by being able to wrestle with the valuable business & life insights from my own seemingly disparate "private writing"/'deliberate doodling'/'rapid viz' pages.

The doodles & illustrations often add a perceptive visual dimension to my seemingly random thoughts on paper.

My scratch pad is always a visual smorgasbord of relatively heavy text, mystical doodles & logical illustrations (thanks & no thanks to my engineering training!).

I have translated many of my valuable insights into pragmatic projects. One of the sideline projects is writing reviews on amazon.com website.

Now, another sideline project is writing my own weblogs!

To all readers:

If you really want to use both sides of your powerful brain to generate valuable insights, I can guarantee that these three books can drive your imagination engine into hyper-speed mode.

Last but not least, many thanks to Joy Sikorski, Kurt Hanks & Mark Levy for your timely & creative interventions!

[Extracted from the 'Optimum Performance Technologies' weblog.]