Sketch-Dancing into Collaboration: Nearly a Year with Becky Ullah

Mandy and Becky at a VIP event hosted by one of favourite indie businesses - Lucy & Yak.

It’s hard to believe it’s been just under a year since Becky Ullah joined the Sketchnotes UK team—and what an incredible ride it’s been already. From bouncing ideas off each other to trying out new tools and formats, it’s been a year of learning, laughter, and some serious colour coordination. Becky has brought fresh energy and insight to our work in live illustration and visual note-taking, and it’s been a joy watching that unfold.

A standout highlight so far? Sketchnoting together at Groundswell Festival.

Groundswell is a regenerative farming event filled with rich ideas, meaningful conversations, and community spirit—everything we love to visualise. This year, we had the joy of creating a live illustration together during the closing session: a rapid-fire wrap-up of two full days of discussions. What unfolded was colourful, chaotic, and deeply harmonious—a real-time visual story that felt more like interpretive Posca pen dancing than notetaking.

Working alongside Becky, we intuitively picked up where the other left off. It was seamless. It was fun. And it reminded us just how powerful collaborative sketchnoting can be.

At Sketchnotes UK, much of our work focuses on big, complex themes—social change, sustainability, community action—and we use visual storytelling to bring these ideas to life. Whether it's at a festival, a policy event, or a grassroots workshop, our goal is always the same: to make conversations more engaging, accessible, and memorable.

Becky’s now more than capable of taking on projects solo—but when we get to create together, something special happens. We're already looking forward to the next opportunity to sketch-dance side by side.

So here’s to nearly a year of collaboration, creativity, and a slightly concerning number of pens.

If you’re looking for live illustration, visual facilitation, or sketchnoting for events, we’d love to chat. Especially if there’s good energy—and maybe some sketch-dancing—on the cards.

In the meantime, I will leave you to watch a short timelapse video of *most" of our sketch dance together. One of the event attendees was so keen to take their own photos of our work that they kindly decided to move our camera out of the way!