Drawing Out Your Soul: The Touch Drawing Handbook

Deborah Koff-Chapin, the creator of SoulCards, shares the simple but profound drawing process through which she developed her soul-stirring imagery. This beautiful little book gives all the information needed to begin explorations with Touch Drawing. Numerous drawings by Deborah and her students illustrate both the primal power and childlike playfulness that can be experienced through Touch Drawing. In Touch Drawing, the fingers take the place of pen or paintbrush. Through this direct drawing process, even the least confident of artists finds interior images coming alive on the page. The images are formed through the pressure of fingers on paper that has been placed over an inked board. The hands become organic extensions of the soul, moving freely in response to the sensations of the moment. Many drawings can be created in one session, each a stepping-stone to the next, guiding one deeper and deeper into the self. In a medium as immediate and transparent as Touch Drawing, previously

Deborah Koff-Chapin, BFA Cooper Union, is an artist, vocalist, author, teacher and publisher. She has been developing the process of Touch Drawing since she discovered it in revelatory play in 1974. Deborah is creator and publisher of the best selling decks, SoulCards 1&2 (over 57,000 sold). She is author of Drawing Out Your Soul and has produced slide shows, video and audio CD about the process of Touch Drawing. Deborah collaborated with Marcia Lauck on the book, At the Pool of Wonder: Dreams and Visions of an Awakening Humanity, published by Bear and Company in 1989.

Deborah's live demonstrations of Touch Drawing have amazed audiences at numerous conferences, workshops, and corporate retreats. She has been Interpretive Artist at such conferences as Body and Soul West, The Sacred in the Arts, Women of Wisdom and the landmark Earth and Spirit Conference. Her on-stage performances of Touch Drawing, in collaboration with Transformance Theater, have been warmly received at corporate retreats for Hewlett Packard, Boeing, Sun Microsystems, James River Corporation, Simpson Paper Company and Seattle Center. She has fulfilled design commissions from Hewlett Packard for use in conjunction with corporate transformational processes.

Deborah is founder of The Center for Touch Drawing, a networking point for the dissemination of Touch Drawing into various fields spanning therapeutic, educational and spiritual practices. Each summer since 1997, she has convened the Annual Touch Drawing Gathering, which attracts an international community of Touch Drawing practitioners. Deborah served on the board of directors of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association from 1998-2002. She lives on Whidbey Island in Washington with her husband and their eighteen-year-old daughter.