Using the visual part of our brains (and expressing ourselves by drawing) is an important (and FUN!) skill for creating and learning. Here is my collection of resources — verbal AND visual — that support explorations and practice in visual thinking. Being able to express your ideas visually is an important design skill.
Remember, the point of these drawings is not to be REALISTIC, but to be RECOGNIZABLE.
You want it to MEMORABLE, not a MASTERPIECE.
(Learned that from Emily Mills, a sketchnoter in Nashville) Her free short course in illustration is a good resource.)
How to Draw Anything. Dan Roam is one of the first people to make simple drawings a PERFECTLY VALID WAY TO COMMUNICATE. His books are all good, and he has shared many of his tips online, either in YouTube or vimeo. This video is a good starting point for this kind of drawing … and you’ll get it all in less than 7 mins! Feel free to explore more of his free materials – there’s some good stuff there.
Having trouble thinking about the form for your ideas? His idea of Vivid Grammar (don’t let that scare you!) is a powerful one. Summarized in this video, in less than 6 mins.
Another good concept Dan illustrates well is ‘Being double-minded’, addressing two ways our brains process information. Can you find his video about that?
You can’t draw? I don’t believe you. Doug Neill, of Verbal to Visual, is a person I’ve learned a lot from. You might learn that you actually CAN draw from this video.
Once you’ve started building some confidence and skill with expressing your own ideas, you might want to expand your own visual vocabulary. Doug has some neat ideas on how to do that in this video/blog post.
Mike Rohde’s mini-course in sketchnoting This 33 min video is a really good intro to sketchnoting, with a good design exercise (10 more mins) at the end.
Mike Rohde coined the term “sketchnoting”. His books are great resources, full of ideas and techniques. His podcast “sketchnote army” is full of good conversations, too.
The image here is the page of notes I made one day while my design students were watching this video … I like it okay for my own use, but I’d probably refine the layout once more if I were to make this my “official” recording of this workshop. How many passes should 
Ralph Ammer’s stunningly illustrated TED talk about drawing and thinking is one of the most beautiful and skillfully descriptions of the power of drawing for clarifying and conveying ideas. So many big thoughts in this 17mins!