EVOLVE! MAGAZINE
SoulTouch™ Coloring Journals
Years in the Making, But Right on Time
by Deborah Koff-Chapin
Twenty years ago, I released the first deck of SoulCards. They continue to live in the hands and hearts of many thousands of people around the world. Now, I am riding a new wave. As the interest in adult coloring books grows and crests, I offer my images to the world in a new form: SoulTouch Coloring Journals.
Adult coloring books are fulfilling a deep need for respite – a way to de-stress in our complex and technologized world. Seeing a prism of colorful art materials, holding one in your hand and filling a page with color, brings us into a childlike place of focus and passion. The rhythm of coloring seems to sooth a primal longing. Having something on the page to focus our action helps overcome the fear of drawing that so many people have internalized.
SoulTouch Coloring Journals offer all the gifts of coloring, with a unique and free form approach. Instead of precise patterns to fill in with color, the images in these books are formed with flowing variations of line and shade. Having been created from a place of soulful attunement, these images engage the colorist in a deeper relationship. They are invited to bring the images alive with their own artistic expression. Textures, layers, free flowing areas – any goes. After coloring, there is an invitation to further explore and interact with the image through creative writing. This dialogue between visual and verbal modalities can ignite a new level of inspiration and insight.
The images in the SoulTouch Coloring Journals have an evocative power that stems from the way they in which were created. They emerged out of 40 years of work with the process of Touch Drawing. In 1974, on my last day in art school, I came I upon this simple yet profound process in an ecstatic creative moment. Moving my hands over paper that was laid upon a smooth surface of paint, I lifted it to see the imprint of my touch on the underside. This direct form of expression had an enlivening, primal power. Over the years I have deepened my own practice of Touch Drawing and introduced it to people around the world.
Touch Drawing materials are very portable. I have drawn in the forest, on the beach, in ancient stone circles, cathedrals and temples. I have drawn during countless lectures by authors and visionaries in the realms of ecopsychology, spirituality, and cultural transformation. I have been honored to draw in the presence of numerous spiritual teachers and lineages: Mevlevi whirling dervishes, Buddhist masters and divine mothers. I have sat in the presence of many individuals, creating images that bring into form subtle facets of their soul.
As the years went by and I kept drawing, my archive of drawings kept growing.
The images in the SoulCards were selected from touch drawings I created alone in my studio, coloring slowly, with many layers. But there are are far more spontaneous images that I created in inspiring settings that have never been colored. I knew I had to eventually find a way to bring them out into the world. But without the full range of color, I wasn’t sure if people would find them as interesting at the images in SoulCards. Ideas came and went, but nothing took hold until now… Let everyone color my drawings!
The idea began simply, at a party where I was bemoaning my under-used archive of images. A friend suggested I create a coloring book. This was the last thing I could have imagined doing at the time. My life’s work is to teach people to access their own images. I couldn’t take hold of the idea. But oddly, it felt good in my body. A month later, another friend posted a news report about the popularity of adult coloring books. A late night chat ensued. The idea creating of a coloring book began resonating with life. Before going to sleep, I emailed my sales representative at New Leaf Distributing and asked what he thought of the idea. I woke up the following morning to his positive response. He and his team were realizing how big the coloring book revival was, and my timing was perfect. From that moment I went into production mode. Within a month of the seed idea, SoulTouch Coloring Journals were taking form.
I began by searching through my vast library digitized images. I placed them into different albums according to their common feeling-tone. Out of the mass of images, some order began to emerge. Once I had found a large selection that fit the theme, I sorted through them again to find the ones that seemed to be appealing for free-form coloring. I then worked two coaches who joined me in the exploration of titles that could express each theme. Together we came up with these:
CREATIVE AWAKENING:
Soul Touch Coloring Journal ©
by Koff-Chapin, Deborah
Publisher: Center For Touch Drawing
$13.99, ISBN13: 9780964562387
LISTENING WITHIN:
Soul Touch Coloring Journal ©
by Koff-Chapin, Deborah
Publisher: Center For Touch Drawing
$12.99, ISBN13: 9780996463423
GIFTS OF THE FEMININE:
Soul Touch Coloring Journal ©
by Koff-Chapin, Deborah
Publisher: Center For Touch Drawing
$13.99, ISBN13: 9780996463416
OPENING TO LOVE:
Soul Touch Coloring Journal ©
by Koff-Chapin, Deborah
Publisher: Center For Touch Drawing
$13.99, ISBN13: 9780996463409
FULLNESS OF LIFE:
Soul Touch Coloring Journal ©
by Koff-Chapin, Deborah
Publisher: Center For Touch Drawing
$13.99, ISBN13: 9780964562394
My intent in creating the Coloring Journals is to offer an accessible and inspiring creative experience, one that could fit easily into a busy life. I didn’t really know if these images would be appealing to color. I didn’t even know how I would feel upon seeing my own images colored by others! I sent sample images out to a few friends and colleagues, asking them to give it a try. I am happy to share how natural and joyful it feels to see my images through the fresh eyes and hands of other people; and to hear how they loved engaging my images in such and active and collaborative way. Here is one response to coloring from Diana Stimmel M.A. LPC NCC.
“I was just reading your text describing how to go about the coloring process. That is exactly how it happened for me. As I flipped through the pages, I would look at one and have no idea how to even begin coloring it. So I would shift to the next until one did speak to me. As I gazed at the image I could feel the colors and energy manifest. I would ask the image how it wanted to be colored and to show me. The images I colored have had a deep effect upon me.
Coloring the image, seeing it transform, rotating the paper to see it from many different angles evokes something beyond the ordinary experience of coloring. It is as if I have just experienced timelessness with an element of my own soul as I color. I cannot recall having ever had an experience of this kind from a coloring book. I actually made two of the images my iPhone’s lock screen and background wallpaper. Every time I pick up my phone, the eyes are staring back at me. For a split second I experience a knowing with the image, even in the midst of scheduling my work.
Yesterday I had a client color one of your images and she said that she felt she was able to talk more deeply in that session. I’ve seen this client for over 2 years. She opened up so much more than she ever had in one session. She was so surprised at herself. The only difference was that she talked while she colored one of your images. I also asked my seven year old daughter to join me in coloring. She chose the drawing with the spilling hearts. I asked her what the image was about for her and she replied ‘It is a being from the earth that is doing what Cupid does, which is to spread the love’. “
If Diana’s experience is any indication, this is only the beginning of a deeply fulfilling creative collaboration. The field of possibility for SoulTouch Coloring Journals is wide open. They are accessible and easy to use, yet provide an experience with great depth potential. They can be used by people of all ages – in hospitals, support groups and social gatherings; as a break in the work day or a way to quiet the mind before sleep. Therapists might add them to their collection of processes, Once they are complete, the pages can be photographed and shared on social media with reflective writing, or removed from the book, framed and given as gifts. If more people can have moments of soul connection in the midst of their day-to-day life through creative engagement with these images, they are serving in the way I hope would hope they can. Our world needs more people who are in touch with their souls, and with the soul of life.
