In this episode, Peter Durand explores the power of using a pen as a creative thinking tool, the beauty of embracing iterative processes, and how collaborating with professionals from different fields has deepened and broadened his artistic perspective.

Sponsored by Concepts

The Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.

In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover:

• The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power feature
• How vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes and
• How vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.

The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.

Watch the workshop video for FREE at:
https://rohdesign.com/concepts

Be sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!

Buy me a coffee!

If you enjoy this episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at sketchnotearmy.com/buymeacoffee

Running Order

• Intro
• Welcome
• Who is Peter Durand
• Origin Story
• Peter's current work
• Sponsor: Concepts
• Tips
• Tools
• Where to find Peter
• Outro

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Peter on LinkedIn
• Ye Olde Website
• Peter on Instagram
• Show Your Work Book by Austin Kleon

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Moleskine paper
• Neuland marker pens
• Sharpie gel pens
• iPad
• Apple pen
• Procreate
• Mural

Tips

1. Create custom color palettes for each client/event.
2. Manage self-negative talk and nerves through preparations and rituals.
3. Approach your work as a gift to share rather than something to be self-conscious about.
4. Being positive and supportive of each other's work.
5. Look for inspiration from artists and eras that are not closely adjacent.

Credits

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

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Episode Transcript

Mike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with Peter Durand. Peter, thanks for being on the show. It's so good to have you.

Peter Durand: Thank you, Mike.

MR: Well, let's just get right into it. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

PD: Well, first I wanna thank you for giving me the heads-up that I should dress in stealth mode with the black shirt and black cap. You know, this is the Captain America disguise.

MR: That's right.

PD: Yeah. Well, my name is Peter Durand. I go by Alphachimp, and that name emerged way back at the dawn of the internet when I was just starting off. I'm an artist. I went to art school. I was a squirmy kid sitting in math and science class, having a rough time tracking what the teacher was saying 'cause My mind was always in cartoon land, and I was always doodling and drawing.

MR: Oh, yeah.

PD: And it was only much later thanks to this book called The Sketch Note Handbook, that I realized I could have been using that the whole time to be a neuroscientist or PhD in physics. Yeah, I was an artistic kid, visual learner, and fortunately had parents that always supported that. Was surrounded by nothing but support to, you know, follow that direction. So, went off to art school in St. Louis, Washington University. Studied painting, printmaking 2D design, 3D design, but landed in illustration as a major and visual communications 'cause I wanted to tell stories. I really liked reading and comic books and graphic novels.

And I think at that time, my real dream was to be whoever the dude or dudette is, who makes the illustration on the other side of a National Geographic foldout map. My grandfather was a geographer, so we grew up with a lot of maps and stuff, but I always liked the reverse side of those foldouts because they had little vignettes of watercolor paintings and, you know, it was like a full giant poster-size, graphic novel squee education thing. So that was my big aspiration when I went off to school.

MR: I suppose it's easier to get paid as an illustrator than as a fine artist. At least regularly. Although maybe there's a few—Banksy maybe can defy that logic, I suppose, with his work.

PD: My father was a lawyer, so I was actually born in Kenya because he went off to law school in the '60s after being in the Marine Corps. And he practiced law for one year and was super bored. And unfortunately, it was up near you, Mike. It was in Madison, Wisconsin.

MR: Okay.

PD: So he was in Madison, Wisconsin, and he was bored. He was like, "I don't think I wanna do this." Somebody had given him a brochure that he threw in his drawer for this thing called the Peace Corps.

MR: Yes. The Peace Corps.

PD: And so, he was in the first wave of the Peace Corps in the '60s and was working with magistrates and lawyers in countries that had just gained independence. So through that, well, he met my mom, who's also American, and they moved to Kenya. And so, I was born in Kenya, and he was using drawing and cartooning in his classes because he didn't have law books. I don't think.

MR: Yeah, yeah.

PD: So there's a picture of him over the right shoulder, his ear, his, you know, jaw, his shoulder drawing a cartoon. And so, now when I teach, I show a picture of that from 1965 in Malawi, and then this pretty much identical picture of my ear, same shaped head drawing is like, you know, this is—

MR: Wow.

PD: I'm just carrying the lineage forward.

MR: Well, the person that I work with who supports me in doing transcripts and the show notes for this podcast is Esther. She lives in Kenya. So that's pretty cool. It's a cool connection.

PD: Yeah.

MR: Yeah.

PD: Yeah. And then for me, it's gone full circle. About 10 years ago I went to Kenya on a project as a graphic recorder and visual note taker. And was working with a group that was studying the effect of climate change on women and girls and visiting a lot of different locations. And at that time, I don't think there were any, you know, professional graphic recorders, sketchnoters in Nairobi that I was aware of. I've just recently reconnected or connected with several that are there. So it's been great to see how this practice is put into use all around the planet.

MR: Yeah. I have a feeling like graphic recorders, visual thinkers, sketchnoters, a lot of times we fly under the radar. I'll kind of include myself. You know, that I think people are there, but you don't always know about them. And I think that's one of the things that IFEP is trying to do in connecting more professional graphic recorders and facilitators so that there is that community.

And I think the sketchnote community is doing the same. That's part of the international Sketchnote Camps job. We run a Slack thing for Sketchnote Army where people can practice and chat with each other. we share activities and whatever's coming up as a way to kind of tie the community together. So I think there's always, I guess, more work to do in that area to help us be aware of like who's where because you know, we can help each other for sure.

PD: I know going to one of these gatherings is like being a unicorn at the Unicorn convention where you're just like, "Hey, wait, I'm used to being the only weird one in the room, and now they're all bunch of us."

MR: "These are my people." That's what I said.

PD: Which is a combination of like excitement and like, "Wait, I wanna be special again." I was just on a call right before this conversation with an artist who had just learned about this field, you know, she's maybe mid-career, and was so excited. I gave her my philosophy, and it's to build on what you just said, Mike, is that the greatest competition that we have, if we're doing this professionally, is nobody knows what to call us.

MR: Right.

PD: That's number one. Like, nobody knows what Google.

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