Process Drawing Sessions
What is Process Drawing?
Process drawing with Emily is a creative healing experience using a large-scale, bilateral drawing practice to uniquely engage the physical body within a persons process of emotional healing.
Sessions can be booked for 1-3 people.
To book a session head over to the Process Drawing sign up calendar.
Questions? Head on over to send Emily a message!
What will a session be like?
Sessions are held in a covered outdoor studio to engage the body with nature while working. The drawing motions are done with charcoal on a large canvas fabric on the floor. Participants will be guided through a series of line drawing steps and then given time to draw on their own. This process creates a space for participants to engage with deeper parts of themselves, potentially accessing emotions stored within the body. Only by engaging the body can we activate certain stages of emotional healing. While beautiful things are often made, it is not the focus of the session and creative experience is not required.
How is this helpful?
Throughout our lives we experience different types and levels of trauma. These traumas store in our physical body until they can move through and be released. To engage that type of healing, the body must be included within the healing process. There are many ways to engage the body in releasing stored traumas and pain - imagine feeling angry and then having the opportunity to connect bat to baseball and hit as hard as you can. Imagine feeling lethargic and stuck and then turning on your favorite song and dancing around the house. Imagine feeling scared or anxious and then shaking your entire body as hard as you can. Movement affects how we feel, how we relate to ourselves, to our emotions, to our environment, to our lives. Our body holds so much for us.
During a Process Drawing session, we are able to use large motions, which engages more of the body than a smaller table drawing. We use both hands, a bilateral motion, to engage both sides of our brain. This helps the two sides talk with one another, which allows our awareness to sink to a deeper level than we had access to before. Have you ever noticed thinking more clearly on a walk than sitting at a table? Moving both sides of your body helps your brain connect which helps you think and process. We use repetitive motions to create a meditative experience. We are drawing with our motions to engage our senses as well as enact the wonder and magic that creativity uniquely offer to us.
All client images are used with written permission.
Where did Emily get this idea?
When I was in college I discovered a (living) artist named Heather Hansen. Please look her up. She is a former dancer and a deeply impactful artist for me. In her series Emptied Gestures, Hansen used drawn line to do a recording of sorts of a floor routine as a form of performance art. As she danced, she drew. These performance drawings were mesmerizing. I watched her videos over and over and over.
I eventually gathered up the courage to try something similar, a large scale charcoal drawing on a spare piece of cloth I taped to the floor. With tears running down my face nearly the entire time I wondered what it was about this experience that affected me so much. After more practice, continued reading and research, I learned about the mind-body connection in healing from trauma, and the unique offerings that tapping into our creative selves through art therapy type practices hold for us. Fascinating.
I combined pieces of these ideas - Hansen’s stunning floor drawings, bilateral stimulation used for emotional healing, body engagement within this bilateral healing setting, therapeutic art processes and meditative motions - and I began to work in these sessions with the intention of creating a space of inner healing for myself. In 2023 I began opening my home studio space, inviting others into this creative healing process. Each time we begin I feel as though I am on sacred ground, sitting with one or more souls who have felt deep pain and are choosing the gift of healing for themselves. A brave act. One I am honored to sit next to when given the opportunity.
-Emily
