Up: [[Expressive Art]] Created: 2025-12-07 Updated: 2025-12-10 Course: Touch Drawing Immersion with Deborah Koff-Chapin on Zoom Touch drawing is the creation of [Deborah Koff-Chapin](https://touchdrawing.com/deborah/) She has been practicing it since accidentally discovering the process in 1974. I first learned of touch drawing when I bought Deborah’s Soul cards half a dozen years ago. Today I participated in a four hour online immersion to experience touch drawing for myself, and I am hooked! There were eleven of us in the class — most from the United States where Deborah is, but also participants from Norway, Bermuda, China, and me in Canada. Deborah was instructing, along with [Susan Arnsten-Russell](https://www.susanarnsten-russell.com/about) who has kept up a touch drawing practice every week for the past ten years. We’d received information about [[Touch Drawing Supplies and Setup]] well in advance. ### Process The process of touch drawing is really simple. 1. Put dabs of paint on the board. Not worms, just dabs. Worms give you too much paint. I put nine dabs of paint on my board in three rows of three. 2. Roll the board smooth so that the dabs aren’t showing. 3. Put a piece of paper on the painted board. 4. Use your hands, fingers, fingernails to draw on the paper. There’s power to using both hands simultaneously, but don’t feel you have to. Using your non-dominant hand is interesting. So is crossing your hands over each other. 5. Lift the paper off, see what image you’ve made, set it to the side. 6. Roll the board to get rid of the marks in the paint (unless you want a ghost image to appear in your next piece). Depending on the paint and how much you put down, you might not need to add more paint for quite some time. I found I was adding paint after 4 or 5 pieces. Susan was pulling double that before she had to add paint. ### Attitude Your attitude is the most essential element of the touch drawing process. Use the candle lighting and paint rolling to take some deep breaths and drop into a quiet and receptive state. Don’t put any pressure on yourself and be sure to have NO expectations. You’re not trying to be artistic or spiritual. You are just going to move your hand and see what happens. If you feel frustrated, accept that as a natural stage in any creative activity, and just stay with it. Something will start to happen that is alive. Anytime you’re starting to lock up with expectations, just roll your board again. Deborah suggests thinking of the mark making as going deep, and the freshly rolled board as returning to the surface. We worked on attitude through the three different sessions that were part of the four hour class. ### Session 1. Source is Felt Sense Go to where in your body you have a sensation. Let your hands move on the paper in response to that sensation. Whatever you are feeling, take it to the drawing. Stay with primal, don’t try for artistic or spiritual. ![[TD Pick-up sticks.webp|400]] ### Session 2. Source is Face and Body This session involved more felt sense. Deborah said that the more you work with touch drawing, the more articulate you will be and able to form an accurate representation of an inner sensation. The process of touch drawing brings you more deeply into your body, which is your direct channel of expression of your soul. Start each moment in a drawing by asking yourself, “What am I feeling in my body? What are my sensations?” As long as there is an initial impulse, and there always will be, it will work. Say ‘yes’ to whatever you are feeling. Don’t let the inner critic run the show by shutting you down. Externalize the feeling to the paper. In this session we were encouraged to show our inner sensations through images of face or body. ![[TD Dialogue of Differences.webp|400]] ### Session 3. Source is Intention You can have an intention for a particular drawing as a way to drop into intuition. The intention in the first two rounds was to be open to what emerged through your felt sense. In this round, you might offer a seed of a question or a prompt. You can also hold someone in mind and draw for them as a way to be with the person energetically. Deborah and Susan have both done that for friends in hospital. ![[TD Surrrender.webp|400|400x578]] ![[TD Father and Child.webp|400]] ### Closure A series of touch drawings takes you from one state of being to another. Deborah stressed the importance of honouring the whole series. The scribble drawings or your least favourite ones are needed to get you to the ones you love. Sometimes, in the middle of a series, going back to primal, to simple mark making, is the best thing you can do. When you’ve finished a session, turn your pile of touch drawings over and go through them from first to last as if you were looking at a book. Gaze at each drawing and, as words occur, write them down — even if they seem simple or stupid. Susan does this consistently and says that even clichéd words will have an authenticity that won’t be there if she waits a day or two before doing this. Wrap a bit of paper around the collection, date it and write a bit of context for the session. Alternatively, take photographs and keep them in session folders on your computer. The point is to keep each session distinct and intact so you can look through them again in time and when they’re part of a larger collection of touch drawing sessions. End by rolling your board smooth. You’re rolling back to the surface. Put a sheet of paper on the board and roll your brayer over the paper to clean the brayer. Remove the paper so it doesn’t stick to the paint. ### Other Things You Can Do with Touch Drawings - Have a written dialogue with a single image. Write your words with your dominant hand and the image’s words with your non-dominant hand. - Just look at an image and take it in. Be with it without words. - Write a piece of visual poetry. The words for each image form a line of the poem. - Add colour. You can add it during the touch drawing by rolling colours in segments on the drawing board using different brayers so the colours don’t mix. Or you can add a colour to the board after you’ve made some images and let the colour evolve as you pull more images. - You can also add colour after the fact with any of a variety of mediums. To do this, you’ll need to take the drawing that’s on translucent paper and adhere it to a sheet of bristol board. It will rip if you try adding pastel or acrylic to an unprotected drawing. Susan shared this [three minute video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaHEQ67hKug) showing how she coloured and mounted a piece. To do this properly you need Mod Podge or any liquid adhesive, and a heavy rolling tube.