The Basics

Primary and Secondary Information 

Resources ultimately contain two types of information. The first being Primary Information which thoroughly explains the core premises that the resource is focused on, and Secondary Information that elaborates or provides additional context relating to, but not necessarily crucial  to, the Primary Information. 

It is important to know the difference so that you can prioritize the Primary Information, or the core premise when you are studying, taking notes, and practicing those concepts. However, there may be times when Secondary Information can be just as useful as Primary Information as these sections may play a role in the larger overall framework of the material in supporting the Primary Information. It can build a foundation, reframe it, or help you to understand the core premise better, so don’t discount all Secondary Information as bad or useless information.

Both types of information are there for a reason, one just tends to be more important.

One note I want to make before we move on is that different people may find different excerpts of Secondary Information more valuable than others. It doesn’t mater which bits you find yourself internalizing, as it might make you consider something you’ve never thought about before, or it is something that strikes you as particularly informative, reassuring, or note worthy. So if you find yourself comparing notes with someone else, theirs may look a little different than your own and that is okay. 

Examples of Primary and Secondary Information

Understanding the difference between the two types of information is only the start, because you want to be able to easily recognize and separate the two so you can decide what is worth noting down as quick as possible.

Here we have an excerpt from Sketch Every Day by Simone Grunewald where she talks about The Habit of Sketching, on page 26. She talks about her personal experience on why trying to sketch everyday helped her become a better artist and the tools she used to do so. However, a lot of what she talks about is Secondary Information you may or may not find helpful.

So instead of copying everything she says into your notes, they might look like the following:

The Habit of Sketching Simone Grunewald

The Benefits of Sketching:

  • Keeps you from getting rusty

  • Practice makes you faster

  • Builds a better routine

  • Gets your ideas out on paper

  • You improve more quickly

  • Builds your Visual Library

On page 27 she continues to to give some pointers on how to deal with your sketchbook. To summarize the two pages in my own words I might create the following:

It can be really beneficial to keep a sketchbook (and draw daily), remembering that sketchbooks are not meant to be beautiful they are there for you to keep up your drawing habit so you can improve over time.

If anything else stuck out to you, feel free to make note of it so you can look back at it later.

Examples of Primary and Secondary Imagery

Sometimes it can be just as hard to figure out what parts of the resource we should be drawing into our notes - so let’s look at two examples, one that is more obvious and one that is less.

The first example is from Drawing Basics and Video Game Art by Chris Solarski, pages 114 and 115. The drawings on the left hand side are the examples we are meant to copy into our notes, while the images on the right are there to help visualize the relationship between the two forearm bones; the radius and ulna. 

Alternatively, we can look at another example from Sketch Every Day, pages 116 and 117. The current topic is drawing lips. It might be a bit harder to see what is meant to be copied and what is not. Here you don’t need to copy the 6 portrait drawings, instead you should do your best to just copy all the lip drawings into your notes. 

An Example of what notes taken from Sketch Every Day, pages 116 and 117 might look like: