Remember that the goal of concept sketching is to capture enough information for the artist to complete a satisfactory drawing. What this means is that the artist must know in advance the process and techniques that he or she is going to adopt even before making the concept sketch.

For example, if the artist wants to draw a landscape, he may want to capture what's beyond the horizon (the sky) and what's in front of the horizon (the foreground). This depends where the artist wants to place the horizon.

If he chooses to place the horizon on the top half of the drawing, then he'll need to make a concept sketch with lots of information on the foreground.

If he chooses to place the horizon on the bottom half of the drawing, then he may want to make a concept sketch with lots of information on the background.

Making concept sketches quickly is all a question of knowing a drawing process very well. I've just given you an example using landscape. If the artist knows a process very well, he'll know what kind of information he'll need to complete a drawing. This needs practice and experience.

And since the goal is all about capturing vital information needed for a drawing, the artist can choose to use any method that he knows to capture information. For instance, he may want to use words on top of some quick sketches to help him remember how he wants the drawing to look like. He can also just color pencils to jot down the colors.

Artists are known for their creativeness, so be creative when making concept sketches. Have a collection of cut out images (from magazines and newspapers) and place them on a drawing to conceptualize how a drawing will turn out. Or take a few pictures with your picture.

So instead of just depending on sketching, you now have a variety of ways to capture information. This will help you in your conceptualization process.