In this episode, Ashton Rodenhiser shares her mission to teach sketchnoting skills to students and professionals so they can use doodling and drawing as their best thinking and learning tools.

Sponsored by Concepts

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Running Order

• Intro
• Welcome
• Who is Ashton?
• Origin Story
• Ashton’s current work
• Sponsor: Concepts
• Tips
• Tools
• Where to find Ashton
• Outro

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Ashton’s Website
• Ashton’s Website
• Ashton on Twitter
• Ashton on Instagram
• Ashton on Facebook
• Ashton on Youtube
• Ashton on Pinterest
• Ashton on TikTok
• Ashton on LinkedIn
• Book: Beginner's Guide to Sketchnoting
• Free video lesson
• IFVP Conference
• Find Your Artistic Voice by Lisa Congdon
• Dario Paniagua

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Sketcher marker
• Neuland Bullet tip outliner
• Posca pens
• Microsoft Surface Pro
• Sketchbook Pro
• Document camera

Tips

1. However you need to create it, do it.
2. Cliches are okay.
3. Don't get into the comparing mode.
4. When you are intimidated, you can instead flip it and turn it into inspiration.
5. Have clean nice letters.

Credits

• Producer: Alec Pulianas
• Theme music: Jon Schiedermayer
• Shownotes and transcripts: Esther Odoro

Subscribe to the Sketchnote Army Podcast

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Support the Podcast

To support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!

Episode Transcript

Mike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike and I'm here with Ashton. Ashton Rodenhiser, how are you today?

Ashton Rodenhiser: I'm doing so well, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

MR: It's so great to have you on. We've had fits and starts trying to get this recorded and we finally did it, so I'm excited. And so looking forward to talking with you and sharing your story with everyone. So why don't we just jump right in? Tell us who you are and what you do.

AR: Yeah. So I am based in Canada, on the East Coast of Canada. You know, being a mother is pretty important to me, so I always like to mention that. I have three small children between the ages of 5 and 10. I felt like growing up I really wanted to be an artist, but it was like never an option 'cause there was just so much negative rhetoric in my home, in my community about, you know, the lack of art opportunities out there. I put that in a diplomatic way.

And so, I really struggled even though I did really well in school, I really did not know what I "wanted to be when I grew up." And I fell into a role as a facilitator. I did that for a couple of years, and that's how I learned about graphic facilitation and kind of where I am today. That was 10 years ago, this month, fall of 2013. It's really easy for me to remember because it was the longest I'd left my six-month-old at the time. It was a whole day to take a graphic facilitation course.

I had never even seen it before, but I was like, "This is the best thing ever," where I was able to take my experience as a facilitator and my love for all things creative and mash them together. And then I was facilitating a group at the time and luckily, they were just so great and easygoing. I just threw some paper on the wall and started drawing and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. It was horrible. But I still have that picture to this day and share it often actually as like, "This was my first one, look how bad it was."

And you know, I put it away for a few months and then I brought it out after a while and I looked at it and I was like, "Whoa, I can remember so much from this." It took it from, oh, this is kind of fun and cool and neat to, whoa, this is an actually a powerful thing. This is a way to help navigate that learning and that experience. So doing it in the moment was fun and great, but it was more so about that like after effect for me when I brought it out later and reflected on it and was like, this is more than what I thought it was, in a way.

Then it was at that point that I was like, I might like this. This seems like actually helpful. So maybe I will do this more 'cause it's a good time and it's actually helpful. So, fast forward a little bit. I did, you know, a little bit for those first few years and I actually attended the IFVP Conference in Austin, Texas in 2015. And I was a scholarship recipient for that. There's no way I would've been able to go if I hadn't received that. So, very grateful to that opportunity to this day.

And I went with a mission in mind. I was like," I'm gonna go and just try to soak up as much as I can. And when I leave, I'm gonna make a decision." Like this is gonna be just like a side hobby that I'll do when people ask me to. Or I'm gonna take this like seriously as a business and I'm gonna try to do it. And obviously, you know, the answer to that question. But yeah, it was a few months after that, after I had my second child that I started building a business around graphic recording, graphic facilitation, live illustration. Yeah.

MR: You know, it's interesting you said that it took you a while putting away the work to see your own value in it later. You looked at it like, "Wow, this is really helpful. I remember a lot of the detail because of the work I did." So I think what you were sort of seeing was, I think was a delayed reaction to what the people in the rooms saw.

AR: Right. Yeah.

MR: 'Cause You know, a lot of times we look back at the work we do and we think, "In light of what I do now, that's so terrible. It was so bad." But then, you know, to the people in the moment who experienced it, for them it was, you know, mind blowing because they'd never seen anything like that. And it was helpful regardless of what it looked like. It brings you back to like, it's a lot more of the action of the doing and a whole lot less on the beauty of it. Functionality of it is way more valuable now. Of course, it's good if you can make it look really beautiful. I mean, that's always nice.

AR: That's a bonus, definitely.

MR: But it reminds you that the bones of this stuff that we do is really about the functionality of the work we're doing. And then if we can layer on beauty and layout and all these things on top of it, that just adds another layer to it and it makes it even more enjoyable for both you and for the recipient. Anyway, that struck me when you brought that out.

'Cause I've been thinking about that too. I've looked at some really old sketchnotes that I did way back in 2007, was like, "Compared to what I do now, these are very rudimentary and basic." But I needed to start somewhere. And even those, the bones of them were valuable regardless of if they were exactly what I would've wanted now. I mean, at the time I was okay with it, obviously. So, interesting.

AR: Yeah, No, I love that. I love that for sure.

MR: Well, I'm curious, you mentioned coming from Eastern Canada and you talked about the scholarship to go to Austin, which I can imagine that trip was not cheap and that scholarship probably helped. So tell us your origin story. How did you—you gave us hints to it, you went to this event and made that decision. Fill us some more detail about, how were you as a little girl that brought you to the point at Austin, right? Like, were you always drawing, like, all that stuff?

Because I too faced a thing where my dad sat me down and said, "Mike, you can't make money in art. You should find another career pat