Sketchplanations
Big Ideas Little Pictures

Sketchplanations in a book! I think you'll love Big Ideas Little Pictures

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Explaining the world one sketch at a time

Identify a douglas fir: showing a douglas fir cone with it's 3 pointed mini-leaves named Dougie, Douglas and Doug

Identify a Douglas fir

How to identify a douglas fir? I find identifying the sometimes subtle differences of tall evergreens rather difficult, but fortunately, that's not the case for the douglas fir. Identifying a douglas fir, a tall, straight and very impressive evergreen conifer is easy with this simple reminder if you find any cones. Normally, the cones are easy to find around the base of a tree. For such a large tree, like the redwood or sequoia, the cones are quite small. Douglas fir cones have many small 3-pointed tongues (or bracts) that emerge from the tight cones. Typically, they are of unequal lengths with the longest in the centre. After it came to mind to name each one Dougie, Douglas, and Doug, in turn, after the length of each point, I haven’t forgotten since and identifying a douglas fir is easy. Mature douglas firs typically have grey, tough and deeply-fissured bark to go with it. The douglas fir, one of my favourite trees, might even have grown above the tallest redwoods living today making the douglas fir one of the tallest known trees. The Douglas fir is named after Scottish botanist David Douglas and is not a true fir tree and so it's sometimes written Douglas-fir. Also see: Ponderosa pine fire protections, nurse log, phoenix trees
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Easily draw expressions

Not my invention. Most recently spotted via the excellent Eva-lotta Lamm.
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Watch out for barnacles illustration: One barnacle on the left seems like nothing, but if you have enough of them coating the back of a ship and its propeller then the cost of prevention, drag and removal will cost you

Watch out for barnacles

More value will likely be found through analogy than the shipping situation. Watch out for barnacles on your project. One by itself is nothing, but enough of them can cost you.
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The benefits of sharing your work in public showing the risk you take and that it increase quality and provides unexpected benefits

Sharing your work

Sharing your work: …is taking a risk. …but it increases quality because your name is attached to it. …and it almost always provides unexpected benefits, because you never know what others will do. I have experienced all of this first hand through this Sketchplanations project. I credit sharing and creating in public, with Sketchplanations eventually becoming the book Big Ideas Little Pictures. Also see: Feedback fear Share by default
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An explanation of the plimsoll line, the international load line, for how high a ship sits in the water

The Plimsoll line

The International Load Line, formerly called the Plimsoll Line, is an internationally adopted system for ensuring ships aren’t overloaded. Safe loading levels vary depending on the salinity—how salty it is—and the temperature of the water. Also see: Set an anchor Iceberg orientation Anchors and tugboats
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