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International Journal of Art Therapy: Formerly

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What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy

Alison Ramm
Published online: 21 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Alison Ramm (2005) What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy, International Journal of Art
Therapy: Formerly Inscape, 10:2, 63-77, DOI: 10.1080/17454830500347393

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 International Journal of Art Therapy, December 2005; 10(2): 63
/77

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy

ALISON RAMM

Abstract
This article explores the sensory and psychological integration that occurs during the process of drawing and identifies some of the
most basic elements that are at work in art therapy sessions.
Drawing is a fundamental human activity which expresses and intensifies our experience of existing in the world. Its processes and the
trace that these leave, mirror, and reinforce the processes that form our conscious being. In order to explore the interplay of thought,
feeling and physical experience, which are brought together in the act of drawing, the article makes connections between statements
by contemporary artists and the theories of psychoanalysts, philosophers, art historians, neuro-scientists and art therapists, and
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investigates the ancient rock-art of the San people of Zimbabwe.

Keywords: Consciousness, creativity, feeling, intuition, process, trace

Introduction other creative processes in art therapy. Some of the

There is a tension in the discipline of art therapy
between the intuitive understanding, on the part of
art therapists, that the creative process is beneficial
and can be healing for people who are troubled and
distressed, and the need to establish a theoretical
base in order to convince potential employers and
fund holders of its efficacy. The most challenging
task, when it comes to developing this rationale is
that of translating those parts of the therapeutic
process that are essentially visual, into words. For, as
Rudolph Arnheim states, ‘art works best when it is
unacknowledged. It observes that shapes and
objects and events, by displaying their own nature,
can evoke those deeper and simpler powers in
which man recognizes himself. It is one of the
rewards we earn for thinking what we see’ (Arn-
heim 1969). Part of the problem that has to be
confronted when creativity and visual processes are
put under the microscope is that this area of life
seems to involve great complexity and is open to
almost infinite interpretation. In order to arrive at
any useful conclusions, or even to ask relevant
questions it seems necessary to narrow the field of
enquiry in order to explore a facet of creativity that
may eventually shed light on wider issues. By
examining the experience of drawing I hope to limit
my research to a manageable project and to be able
to draw conclusions that may provide insight into
ideas which I explore, in relation to drawing, also
apply to painting, but by narrowing the area of
investigation I hope to be able to achieve a degree
of clarity that would otherwise be difficult in an
article of this size. I also feel a personal need, as an
art therapist, to gain a clearer understanding of this
powerful medium in order to identify elements that
might be utilized more effectively in therapy.
One of my earliest memories is of making a
drawing. I remember a sensation that almost
seemed connected to the inside of my mouth, the
string fringes of the rough-soft, orange carpet, the
width of the silky floorboards and the satisfyingly
shiny-smooth, gloss-painted skirting board. Most
teeth-clenching of all, I recall the icy-blue feel and
perfect flatness of the newly painted plaster wall,
which could have been the beginning of something
that went on for ever. The sensation, in my
fingertips, of the pencil point, gliding over tiny
traces of brush marks, which remained in the
chalky surface of the dry emulsion paint, gave me
such tactile pleasure that I forgot that anything else
had ever existed. It must have been the shocking
vehemence of my mother’s reaction on discovering
the ‘art in progress’ that lodged the experience, so
indelibly, in my mind. I remember that, when I
looked at my work, I realized that all my mother
could see was a mass of scribble.

E-mail: a_k_ramm@yahoo.co.uk

1745-4832 (print)/1745-4840 (online) # 2005 British Association of Art Therapists

DOI: 10.1080/17454830500347393
 64 Alison Ramm
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Figure 1. ‘Misapprehending’ 2005 Ink and pencil on paper 540 mm/
380 mm.
I recount this memory because it evokes strong
feelings in me. It seems significant that this was such
a vivid experience although it happened well before
I began to make an emotional investment in the
idea of drawing, and subsequently began to con-
sider my self a visual artist. I was three, or perhaps,
four years old at the time and this was a
fundamental experience of an activity that, for me,
has since acquired complex layers of meaning,
which have become difficult to unravel. It seems an
appropriate starting point for an article in which I
aim to clarify my understanding of some of the most
important processes that are at work in art therapy
sessions.
An initial scan for relevant literature revealed
that although there has been much written by art
historians, interpreters and observers of art, there is
far less material that describes the creative process
from the point of view of the person making the
work. If this is the case for art in general, it is even
more evident when the subject of research is the
experience and the processes involved in drawing.
However it seems that in the last few years drawing
has been increasingly championed as an important
creative process, but has also gained status as an
analogy, which is useful in understanding some
aspects of contemporary consciousness. Barbara
Stafford’s ideas about the usefulness of analogy, as a
radical means of understanding human experience,
support the idea that by examining the activity of
drawing, it may be possible to gain insight into
other elements of human existence. Her radical
theory springs from the rising discontent of twen-
tieth century intellectuals with the perceived split
between intuition and intellect, to acknowledge
that, whether we are conscious of it or not, human
experience and thought involves our whole being
and that life is a creative condition (Stafford 2001).
If we agree with her view of the human condition,
we can see why drawing, as a creative act, may be a
fruitful analogy.
There have recently been some interesting con-
tributions by several contemporary artists on the
subject of their own practice of drawing and I look
first at some of these. Contemporary art reflects the
experience of individual members of society and, at
the same time, is an accurate barometer of the
current sensibility and state of society. It is important
for art therapists to remain involved with cultural
activity since society influences and to some extent
shapes issues that arise in therapy (Sass 1992).
Having gathered some contemporary ideas about
the nature of drawing I turn my attention to the
writing of creative arts therapist Arthur Robbins
and the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty
to investigate the nature of self and consciousness
and how this relates to drawing. I look at the art of
the San People of the Kalahari Desert in order to
gain a sense of the important position that drawing
has occupied from the earliest hunter-gatherer
societies to the present day, and I make links
between what is understood of the purpose of these
images and the universal characteristics of drawing.
An exploration of Rita Simon’s categorization of
styles in drawing and painting lead me to ask
questions about the role of sensory experience in
creativity and the physical and psychological me-
chanisms that involve the unconscious. There has
been a substantial amount written about the
developmental aspects of children’s drawing and
although this is important and underpins much of
the literature, on which I base my ideas, I do not
refer to it directly.
Psychoanalysts have frequently turned their
attention to the subject of creativity and I refer to
 What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy 65

this work throughout the essay. Artists often borrow

from psychoanalysis; just as psychoanalysts them-
selves frequently turn their attention to the arts in
order to explore the human condition. There is a
natural affinity and cross fertilization between the
two disciplines and it is from this fertile area of
overlap that art therapy has developed. In order to
argue for increased provision of art therapy there is
a need to clarify what precisely it involves, and what
it is that is beneficial and is specific, as opposed to
those elements which it shares with language-based
psychotherapy (Arnheim 1986).
I have divided the article into headed sections,
but, in the process of writing, I have become aware
of the interesting difficulty that emerges, that each
element seems to overlap with at least several others
and I have the sense that the order in which I have
approached these is almost arbitrary, as if by
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throwing them into the air, like a bunch of sticks,

they would land in a pattern that would reveal
another and equally important perspective. It seems
likely that this is related to the nature of drawing
itself.
My method is eclectic and, by looking at the
ideas of artists, art historians, psychoanalysts,
philosophers and art therapists, I aim to gain new
insight into this important subject.

Finding a definition of drawing

It seems that, from the vantage point of the early
twenty first century, it may no longer be possible to
find a straightforward definition of drawing. By its
very nature it has an affinity with the spirit of
postmodern consciousness and although it has
traditionally been regarded as a means to an end
(Gombrich 1998) it has, throughout recent decades,
come to hold more weight as an art form in its own Figure 2. Joseph Beuys ‘ */*/ ? 1966’ pencil on paper 297 mm /
right and to have become instrumental in generat- 210 mm. Estate of the artist.
ing new experience and meaning. The Centre for
Drawing at Wimbledon School of Art was estab-
lished in October 2000 in recognition of the new to the development of practices that purport to be, or are construed
significance of drawing as an experimental med- as being drawing-practices that have left the page altogether, and
ium. The Centre hosts three residencies a year. are performed, physically or electronically in the space of
architecture, installation, live art, the screen or the landscape.
Each participating artist is required to make a
(Ginsborg 2003)
commitment to critical enquiry and to share their
practice through interviews and in a final exhibition The expanding possibilities that may be seen to
at the end of the residency. In the preface to the come under the umbrella of ‘drawing’ remain
2003 catalogue, produced by the Centre, Michael firmly rooted in the most basic definitions of this
Ginsborg makes it clear that drawing has under-
activity. Michael Ginsborg thinks that material
gone significant changes:
experimentation is secondary to the inexhaustible
at the hands of artists from Redon, Seurat and Cezanne range of content that can be dealt with in a two
onwards . . . . into an experimental form which becomes dimensional format and with limited materials.
instrumental in both generating and coming to terms with, It is the economy of the medium that allows
changes in visual art. Lastly these changes in themselves have led drawing its freedom and gives it significance. He
 66 Alison Ramm
gives, with as he says, ‘deliberate provocation’, a
basic definition:
Paper is not the only support for drawing but it is by far the most
widespread. Drawings are made with graphite, charcoal, chalk
or ink and with brush or pen. Drawing is flat and
monochromatic and it does not predominantly address colour
relationships. (Ginsborg 2003)
For the purposes of this article this seems a useful
definition and, if Michael Ginsborg is to be
believed, it should be possible to unravel the most
significant aspects of drawing by attempting to
understand it in its basic form. This definition also
includes the kind of drawing that is made in art
therapy sessions and, as I stated in my introduction,
I aim to begin to look at the relationship between
the practice of drawing and the therapeutic process.
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However, the simplicity of these boundaries is
deceptive, since it will not be possible, in this paper,
to describe the many different kinds of drawing,
which fall within this territory. I hope to lay the
foundations for a, future, more in depth exploration
of the psychological significance of particular ways
of drawing.
Joseph Beuys brings depth and a sense of
intensity to the pared down, material, definition
supplied by Michael Ginsborg in this transcript
from an interview, recorded in 1984, in which he
describes his own practice of drawing.
Drawing is the first visible form in my works. . .the first visible
thing of the form of the thought, the changing point from the
invisible powers to the visible thing . . . . It’s really a special kind
of thought, brought down onto a surface, be it flat or be it
Figure 3. Joseph Beuys ‘ */*/ ? 1959’ pencil on paper 207 mm/295 mm.
rounded, be it a solid support like a blackboard or be it a flexible
thing like paper or leather or parchment or whatever kind of
surface . . . . It is not only a description of the thought . . . . You
have also incorporated the senses . . . the sense of balance, the
sense of vision, the sense of audition, the sense of touch. And
everything now comes together: the thought becomes modified by
other creative strata within the anthropological entity of the
human being . . . . (Joseph Beuys as cited in Temkin &
Rose 1993)
Beuys puts into words something of the complexity
that is involved in the act of drawing and lists the
senses that come into play. He suggests that, by
allowing these different experiences of perception to
come together and act upon each other, the original
idea or perception is changed. He mentions the
capacity of drawing to make the invisible inner
thought, vision or experience, visible, although
changed by the processes involved, and in speaking
of ‘anthropological entity’ he hints that connections
are made with an archetypal sensibility, deep within
the psyche. There is a tremendous feeling of energy,
in his description, and of the ‘power’ of thought
driving both the process and the pencil across the
paper.
Given the passionate conviction of Beuys’ state-
ment it is difficult to appreciate the earlier attitude of
Sigmund Freud towards artists. He does not see
artistic activity as a necessarily positive force. For
him works of art are ‘the product of sublimation;
and derived therefore from primitive sexual and
possibly aggressive, instinctive impulses for which
they are ultimately substitutes’. Writing in 1972
Anthony Storr disagrees: ‘As yet we know little of the
pattern-making function of the mind which under-

lies aesthetic activity. But we do know that, at any
rate in part, it is beyond the control of the conscious
will, and that the unconscious from which it takes
origin can no longer usefully be regarded as simply a
product of repression’ (Storr 1991). However it is
certain that human beings in almost every culture
have made art for many thousands of years and that,
together with the making of objects, drawing is the
oldest and perhaps the most fundamental form of
visual art. It seems that mark making is a natural
consequence of the innate predisposition of humans
to use hands (Dissanayake 2000).
A process of thought and its trace
The difficulty in trying to dissect a phenomenon
that involves many abstract and mysterious qualities
is evident, and I feel the need to reach for a more
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concrete example on which to base some further
observations. First hand descriptions of the experi-
ence of drawing, reveal several common themes
and all express the view that this activity is
important as a process and involves all of the senses
and many aspects of thought and feeling and, I
think, begin to throw some light on some of the
Figure 4. Alison Ramm ‘Balancing act’ 2005 Ink on paper 2005 560 mm
/340 mm.
What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy 67
elements that allow art therapy to be so potent
(Kingston 2003).
In the catalogue for the American Drawing
Centre exhibition in 2003, ‘The Stage of Drawing’
the artist Avis Newman, interviewed by Catherine
de Zegher, explains the sensibility and reason
behind her selection of work from the Tate
Collection for the exhibition. She supports the view
that the act of drawing involves a complex process
that is difficult, and perhaps, ultimately impossible
to unravel. She says that in order to investigate the
nature of drawing she ‘had to create false divisions’
between the properties of line, marks, surfaces, its
characteristic colourlessness, its acts, gestures,
rhythms, and spaces of thought’. She sees it as a
constantly changing relationship between these
elements and partially formed thought. The activity
of making the line on the paper is an ‘act of
consciousness’. It is simultaneously initiated by
thought, and thought is influenced by the physical
act of mark-making (Zegher 2003).
There is a substantial history behind the view
that the significance of drawing lies in its mutable
processes. As an art historian Ernst Gombrich
engages with art work primarily from the point of
view of a spectator and is therefore particularly
sensitive to the appreciation of Leonardo’s de
Vinci’s drawing as a record of the artist’s thought
processes. The drawn line is what remains of this
process in the form of a trace on the paper. For
Leonardo, as for many artists, the finished drawing
becomes a record of an idea or ideas that have
evolved through the activity of drawing. The trace
that remains, as the result of the process, provides a
concrete realization of intangible inner thought. In
simpler terms, something of the artist’s inner
process of thought has been recorded on paper and
can be seen by others and by the artist herself
(Gombrich 1998). This aspect seems to relate to
Catherine de Zegher’s statement that drawing is an
‘act of consciousness’ (Zegher 2003).
An act of consciousness
Arthur Robbins, writing from a creative arts
therapy perspective, uses the psychoanalytic theory
of object relations in order to describe the devel-
opment of an awareness of self in young babies.
Soon after birth they begin a process of sensual
exploration that allows them to feel increasingly
separate from the undifferentiated mass of the
external world of which they first experience
themselves to be part. He sees this process con-
tinuing to some extent throughout the rest of the
lifespan, so that at times a person will feel, to
 68 Alison Ramm
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Figure 5. Alison Ramm ‘Things caught in their own reflections’ 2005
Ink on paper 570 mm/380 mm.
varying degrees, separate or at one with the
external world. He makes it clear that a sense of self
depends on an awareness of ‘the other’, that is,
things that are not perceived to be part of the
self (Robbins 1986). Contemporary neuro-scientists
have extended this idea to describe a model of the
mind that may, to some extent, explain the
phenomenon of consciousness itself. The brain is
seen to be engaged in a constant process of
observation and conversation, between different
parts of itself, in a dialogue that is so complex
that it produces an awareness of self and
conscious being (Rammachandran & Blakeslee
1998).
Maurice Merleau-Ponty understands that the
body, as well as the mind, is essential to the dialogue
which produces consciousness. Through his con-
cept of the ‘lived body’, he explains that con-
sciousness does not simply reside in our heads but is
experienced by, and depends on, the body as part of
its interaction with the world. As living organisms
our existence is confirmed and lived through our
bodies (Merleau-Ponty 1962).
Writing in 1901, the art historian Alois Riegel
pointed out that vision shows a world that is
made up of a confusing array of coloured surfaces,
and which is not easily divided up into distinct
objects (Riegel cited in Arnheim 1986). It seems
obvious that human beings rely on more than the
sense of vision in order to understand the world.
The habit of drawing, that is, of dividing the world
up with symbolic outline, involves processes of
thought that are connected with other senses in
addition to vision and is an exploration of the
‘otherness’ and the difference of things (Balint
1968).
During his residency at the Centre for Drawing
Alexander Roob made dozens of drawings of
students at work in the Wimbledon College of Art.
These were all executed in outline of an unvarying
weight and quality. The images that he produced
seem to expose the arbitrary nature of the human
habit of dividing the world up with outlines. The
drawings have a strange quality of unreality, where
the clay statue of a model bears equal weight to the
live model herself and to the sculptor at work in the
studio. He describes the action of making a drawing
as ‘for me a kind of musical act of feeling. Which
disregards the substantive and focuses on the
relational’ (Roob 2001).
Alexander Roob’s statement seems to bring me
back to the idea of drawing as part of a process that
is an exploration of the world and, at the same time
a response and an expression of the artist’s self that
is projected outwards and on to the paper. If
drawing is truly an ‘act of consciousness’ then,
according to contemporary ideas about the nature
of consciousness the activity that it involves must in
turn, because it is a process of exploration, affect
the consciousness of the artist (Arnheim 1986).
At this point I would like to allow the, sometimes
obscure and enigmatic, statements of contemporary
artist to recede for a few paragraphs in order to
explore these themes of consciousness and outline
within the context of the historical roots of drawing
and allow this perspective to illuminate some more
aspects of this mysterious activity.
Line as outline
Over the last 40 years the rock drawings of the San
People of Zimbabwe have been studied extensively.
Of those images that survive the earliest of these are
thought to be over 2000 years old. The San used
powdered iron oxides, hematite and magnetite to
produce dark reds browns, yellows and ochres.
Kaolin and quartz provided a white pigment. These
minerals were combined with animal fat and

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Figure 6. Alison Ramm ‘Drawing of San rock art’ from a photograph by Alan Gar lake. Ink on paper 2005 265 mm/210 mm.
applied with the crushed or chewed ends of sticks or
with brushes made from the tail hairs of animals or
with feathers. In common with the rock art of other
early cultures the basic feature of San art is its
reliance on outline. Colour was used only for the
purpose of filling in the outline and for this reason
the pictures are considered to fall into the category
of drawing rather than painting. The pictures
depict humans and the animals with which they
were surrounded and on which their survival
depended and according to Peter Garlake reflect
the San’s cognitive system. The presence of abstract
patterns of lines, zigzags and dots are considered to
be illustrations of ‘entopics’, a neurological phe-
nomena which is the result of direct stimulation of
the nervous system that is experienced in states of
trance. He describes, in detail, a system of ‘twisted
perspective’ that allowed all the important features
of animals or humans to be represented in the
drawings. Although the main body and head might
be drawn from the side, in profile, other features,
such as ears, horns and feet were drawn from the
front. Elements that could have been concealed
within the outline of the body were shown extend-
ing outwards. ‘Thus the legs of an animal lying
down, although bent as in life, were not tucked in
against the body but shown extending below the
body, a man’s penis and a woman’s breasts were
shown erect and projecting from the body outline
What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy 69
and an elephant’s ears were transposed to the top of
its head and shown there in their entirety.’ There
have been several theories put forward to explain
why the drawings were made with this style of
representation. It has been suggested that for
magical purposes it may have been important to
represent all the important elements of a subject in
order to invoke complete replicas or spirits, but
there has been an increasing interest in the idea
that this style represents a form of perception that
includes other sensibilities, apart from the purely
visual (Garlake 1995).
As I mentioned earlier, Alois Riegal suggested in
1901 that the people of primitive cultures saw the
world as ‘made up of tightly cohering discrete
material units’. He felt this way of knowing was
associated with tactile perception and that, as a
consequence, overlap and variations in shape and
size that resulted from a more visual understanding,
were ignored. He said the eye ‘shows us things
merely as coloured surfaces and not as impene-
trable material individuals; vision is precisely the
mode of perception that presents us the things of
the outer world as a chaotic conglomeration’. In his
representation of Alois Riegal’s theory Rudolph
Arnheim does not elaborate on the origin of the
application of this tactile way of thinking, which is
employed in drawing (Arnheim 1986). Descartes
considered sight and touch to be closely linked. He
 70 Alison Ramm

proclaimed the sense of sight to be analogous to the

touch of a ‘blind man’s stick’ (Kingston 2003). The
conceptual activity of the tactile, feeling of the edges
of objects that is required in the act of dividing the
world up with drawn line seems reminiscent of the
early exploration of the world made by young
babies using their hands and mouths (Balint 1968).
Peter Garlake’s description of the character and
quality of San rock art bears a striking similarity to
the style of drawing that Rita Simon categorizes as
‘archaic linear’. Perhaps this is not surprising since
her use of the term ‘archaic’ relates directly to the
similarity between pictures of a particular type
produced in art therapy and those made by children
and the appearance of ‘primitive or prehistoric art’.
This style includes pictures that primarily utilize
outline and where colour is flat, and she sees this as
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the most ‘immediately impressive’ of four main

styles. She identifies the archaic style with the artist
who is ‘carried by his sensuous rapport with the
material and a sense of physical coordination within
his whole body. He can paint a circle with a single
sweep of a brush and draws a straight line without a
mechanical aid’ (Simon 1992).
Rita Simon concentrates primarily on the inter-
pretation of artwork from the point of view of what
is consciously and unconsciously expressed by the
artist, and she interprets the artist’s experience of
the world by looking at the images. Her observa-
tions provide a perspective that seems to fit the
cultural context in which the San drawings were
made and to suggest something of what these artists
may have felt during the process of drawing. She
also makes observations about the differing qualities
of physical stance and gesture that accompany the
making of images.
Embodiment and gesture
Catherine de Zegher states that drawing consists of
‘residual traces of primitive bodily movements, the
significance of which is deeply rooted in our
gestural acts.’ When she talks of ‘primitive’ move-
ment she seems to be implying both a connection
with our prehistoric and evolutionary roots and, at
Figure 7. Alison Ramm ‘Untitled’ 2005 Ink on paper 570 mm /
380 mm.
the body, made possible by neural receptors in the
muscles, tendons and joints’ (Arnheim 1986).
At about twenty months most children first
develop the ability to guide their hands visually.
They stop following their hand movements with
their eyes and begin to guide their gestures with
their vision. According to Piaget this ability emerges
towards the end of a stage of development when the
child’s knowledge of the world comes from his own
actions and perceptions (Gardner 1982). Avis
Newman refers to this stage of experience, sug-
gesting that the act of making a mark on the paper
can trigger deeply felt memory and that the paper
represents the ‘other’, the ‘not me’ (Winnicott
1971).
The earliest experiences of babies are felt
through their bodies. Everything is experienced
through the senses (Caldwell 1996). The movement
therapist Elaine Siegal believes that ‘there is a body-
memory
all experiences are stored in the body
/

the same time using the term in the psychoanalytic
sense, to make a link with the ‘primitive’ experience
of young babies. Gestures made at this stage are an
‘exploration of movement’ (Zegher 2003). Much of
this early experience derives from the sense of
touch, the ‘haptic’ This term covers both the tactile
sense ‘by which receptors at the surface of the body
explore the shape of physical objects’, and the
kinesthetic sense of ‘the awareness of tensions inside
and specifically in the muscle systems and are
recoverable under appropriate circumstances’. An
experienced movement therapist is able to identify
the stage of life at which trauma may have occurred
by observing the areas of the body in which tension
is held. Physical movement can allow these areas of
tension to be safely discharged. She agrees that
movement facilitates the retrieval of early memories
and can provoke the re-experiencing of early
 What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy 71

feelings (Siegal in Robbins 1986). If drawing is to be

understood to be closely linked with movement it is
likely that it too can help to put the artist in touch
with these early experiences. Seen as gesture it is an
expression of the inner self onto the paper that is
‘other’ and part of the external world and in
addition to this the activity causes change in the
artist. Gestural acts can trigger both conscious
memories and the kind of sensory memory that is
recorded in the physicality of the body. Likewise,
remembering an early experience can provoke a
physical sensation which may, in turn, lead to
expression (Caldwell 1996). Along with movement,
drawing provides this opportunity and, unlike
movement, leaves a record of the process that can
be reflected upon.
In the following description of her own experi-
ence of drawing Maggi Hambling captures some-
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thing of its physical nature.

Sometimes when drawing I have the feeling that my fingers are

brighter than my eyes, and certainly brighter than my intelligence.
If one says finger one says hand, if one says hand one says arm,
if one says arm one says shoulder . . . . At the best moments one
draws with the whole body. (Hambling 2001) Figure 8. Alison Ramm ‘Passage’ 2005 Ink on paper 540 mm /
380 mm.

Aesthetic experience
I used the words of Maggi Hambling to illustrate
the embodied, physical quality of the activity of
drawing, but it also demonstrates that the experi-
ence is aesthetic, meaning ‘felt through the senses’.
The meaning of the term has changed since the late
nineteenth century when it referred to ‘exquisite
sensations’, but in recent years it has regained some
of it’s more complex former meaning. Peter Abbs is
definite that aesthetic experience remains impor-
tant throughout the whole life span. He defines it as
‘a particular form of sensuous understanding, a
mode of apprehending through the senses the
patterned import of human experience’ (Abbs
1989). David Maclagan emphasises psychological,
imaginative and emotional experience in his defi-
nition of aesthetics as ‘psycho-sensual’ (Maclagan
2001).
The pre-linguistic thought of babies is experi-
enced aesthetically and Francis Tustin writes vividly
about the sensory experience of ‘being’ as a ’stream
of sensations from which constructs emerge as
nameless identities’. She thinks that the newly born
infant experiences herself as in terms of fluids and
gasses, since she has recently left the fluid environ-
ment of the womb and has to adjust to living on dry
land. She asserts that sensations associated with
floating may become part of the early body image
and that this along with other early experiences
may remain as an aesthetic memory throughout
later life. It seems clear that the form of thought
that is available to young babies is, as Frances
Tustin states, a sensory and emotional experience of
‘being’ (Tustin 1972).
Aesthetic experience is felt in the present mo-
ment. When it is remembered the memory pro-
vokes, at least to some extent a re-experiencing of
the original aesthetic sensation. This was the
phenomenon which I explored, when, at the
beginning of this essay, I described an early memory
of making a drawing. When I remember the
incident I am aware that I actually feel some of the
physical sensations that I experienced when it first
occurred. The state of mind that is accessed during
the activity of drawing, similarly, has a sensory ‘in
the present’ quality that involves the sense of sight.
The sense of touch is very much evident and is
linked to a kinesthetic sense as the artist engages in
psychic and imaginative exploration of the subject
that is being drawn. Taste, hearing and smell seem
less important and recede. Although the process of
drawing may trigger memories and associations
identified with these senses. In fact all the four basic
psychological functions identified by Roger Young
(Young 1993), intellectual, emotional, sensual and
intuitive are present to varying degrees and are part
 72 Alison Ramm
of a dynamic relationship (Mclagan 2001). Perhaps,
in addition to it’s sensory qualities, it is the ‘here
and now’, in Irvine Yallom’s term, or ‘being’
experience, in the language of Frances Tustin, that
is required in order to draw, that places the activity
in the aesthetic realm. It is possible for a drawing to
have a subject that is far removed from present, ‘in
the moment’, experience but the artist has, to some
extent to think her self into a ‘here and now’
(Yallom 1980) exploration of it in order to capture it
on paper. Rita Simon’s system of looking at images
makes it possible to gain further understanding of
the relationship between the psychological func-
tions and aesthetic experience.
In addition to the ‘archaic linear style’, which
earlier, I related to San rock art, Rita Simon
identified a second archaic style and two traditional
styles. The second archaic style, the ‘archaic mas-
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sive’, along with a second traditional style, the
‘traditional massive’, are identified more with
painting than drawing since they include colour. The
‘archaic massive’ involves ‘bold colours and large
simple shapes’ and the ‘traditional massive’ utilizes
colour and tone to produce a more complex
depiction of form and space that may involve
perspective. Her years of experience as an art
therapist led her to the conclusion that these two
painterly styles represent a more emotional expres-
sion on the part of the client. As I explained
previously, the ‘archaic linear’ style denotes a
sensual, gestural expression. On the other hand the
traditional linear style often has a smaller scale and
represents ‘factual objects’. Geometric perspective is
used but it does not give a strong impression of depth
and any use of colour has a secondary importance to
line. ‘The artist’s posture and gestures are stiff, being
dominated by the small muscles of his hand and eye.
He plans his work, tends to use mechanical aids, and
works methodically.’ She associates the two tradi-
tional styles with a post- Renaissance tradition of
representation (Simon 1992).
Jose Arguelles takes the contemporary view that
intuitive and intellectual thought differ in that they
originate in different areas of the human brain and
he interprets the increasing interest in perspective
and illusionistic depth and form in Renaissance art
as a shift away from the right-brain, intuitive and
holistic understanding towards a culture that em-
braced a more intellectual form of thought that
originates in the analytic and logically orientated
left hemisphere of the brain. As I have demon-
strated, the act of drawing requires a high degree of
right brain activity but it seems that in certain
circumstances the artist may be less conscious of
this aspect of the experience. Arguelles is adamant
that the cultural denigration of right- brain pro-
cesses and the elevation of linguistic, analytic and
logical thought has been detrimental on a global
scale and can be damaging to the mental well-being
of individuals. (Arguelles 1975).
Conscious and the unconscious experience
In my introduction I observed that ideas about
drawing currently seem to have a resonance within
contemporary art. This seems to be partly because
for many artists it is an indispensable part of art
making, but also because its processes seem to
provide analogies for the way that people living in
westernized industrial and post industrial cultures
perceive human consciousness and thought. It has
also struck me, during the writing of this paper, that
first hand descriptions of the experience of drawing
do not seem to recognize an emotional aspect. This
brings to mind the complaint, made by art historian
James Elkins that emotional expression and re-
sponse are not, in the main, current concerns in the
field of contemporary art (Elkins 2001). Feelings
and emotions can be and are intensely felt and
expressed in line and there are numerous examples
of this to be found in the literature of art therapy.
Marion Milner seems to identify an ambiguity in
this area. Writing about her experience of drawing
and painting she concludes that ideas evoked by
feelings about paintings are ‘not the essence and
core of painting although they do have a secondary
usefulness in communicating emotion’ (Milner
1950). Margaret Donaldson explains that emotions
are a subset of the more general phenomenon of
‘feelings’, but that they have a ‘value’ attached to
them. It seems that emotions are feelings that have
been recognized and given meaning at a more
conscious level (Donaldson 1992). The evidence
that emotional experience seems to change and to
recede during the process of drawing supports the
idea that drawing connects with the unconscious,
primary, experience of thought and feeling. Perhaps
the contemporary preoccupation with process,
rather than emotional expression, shows that the
call for unifying the left brain/ right brain divide of
writers like Jose Arguelles have not yet been fully
embraced.
There is another explanation for the absence of
emotion in descriptions of the experience of draw-
ing. It seems that the level of concentration and the
embodied nature of the process often lead to
qualitatively different levels of consciousness. Con-
scious attention can only be applied to one thing at
a time. Rammachandra (1998) from his perspective
as a psychoanalyst, painter and musician Anton

Ehrenzweig agrees with this. He points out that it is
only possible to focus consciously on one aspect of a
musical composition at once. With a piece of music
this is usually the melody, which seems to stand out
from the rest of the harmonic accompaniment. If
attention is subsequently focused on another part of
the composition then the melody appears to recede
from consciousness. He makes the same observa-
tion about looking at the different elements that
make up images, but maintains that, alongside
conscious attention a more unconscious process is
at work to allow the unfocused scanning of a work
of art in its entirety. We are all familiar with the
experience of appreciating a piece of music or a
work of art as a whole, although we may only be
concentrating on one element at a time. He
proposes that artists are particularly good at
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achieving a shift of consciousness into ‘undifferen-
tiated attention’ that allows them to experience the
work in a single unfocused glance and that most
creative work is carried out in this state of mind. He
Plate 1. Alison Ramm, Trance II- after San rock art drawing. Pen on paper (200 mm/260 mm).
What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy 73
labeled this the ‘oceanic’ state, in deference to
Sigmund Freud and he related it to Wilfred Bion’s
idea of ‘reverie’ as ‘an undifferentiated state of
consciousness akin to day dreaming’. He also
describes it as a state of ‘manic elation’, a descrip-
tion that seems to indicate a subtly different quality
of experience (Ehrenzweig 1967).
David Mclagan is adamant that ‘there is a
psychological lining to experience’ and that this
involves the world of emotions or feelings, but, he
says the creative experience is not exclusively to do
with these and may have resonances with bodily
sensations or phantasies. The complexity and range
of the unconscious processes, that may be involved,
is indicated by the following example. There is a
phenomenon known as ‘blind sight’, in which
people with damage to the visual cortex, and who
consider themselves to be blind, are able to point to
objects when asked to do so, although they have no
conscious idea that that they have a visual sense. It
seems that since their visual apparatus remains
 74 Alison Ramm
intact the brain continues to receive information
from the eyes and can process this in an uncon-
scious way (Ramachandran 1998).
At this point I would like to return to the subject
of the rock art of the San. As we have seen, there
has been a great deal of debate about the function
and meaning of prehistoric rock art in general but
there is a consensus that many of these images, in
common with the drawings of the San People, were
made by shamans and illustrate their experience of
trance. The San induced states of trance through
prolonged communal dancing in order to generate,
harness and release their ‘innate spiritual energy or
potency’. Although these practices are barely within
living memory, some of the descendents of the San,
the Bushmen of the Kalahari have told anthropol-
ogists that the paintings were not simply images of
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potency but that the pigments were potent in
themselves. It also seems likely that the very act of
drawing was part of the process of inducing trance
(Garlake 1995). I am reminded of Rita Simon’s
observation, quoted earlier, that the ‘archaic linear
style’ into which category the rock pictures seem to
fall, is identified with a state of ‘physical coordina-
tion’ within the artist’s whole body’ The ideas of
Anton Ehrenzweig and David Maclagan suggest
that the activity of drawing would naturally facil-
itate a shift of consciousness. In her introduction to
‘The Revealing Image’, Joy Schaverien explains
that ‘when a picture is made in therapy it may
Figure 9. Alison Ramm ‘Birthright’ 2005 Ink and brown-wash on paper 400 mm/590 mm.
‘uncloak’ an image of which the artist was pre-
viously unconscious’ and that as a result a trans-
formation begins to take place in the inner world of
the artist’. The change continues as the artist moves
through subsequent stages, in a more conscious and
emotional relationship with the image (Schaverien
1992). As we have seen emotion is the part of
psychological experience which allows us to feel
that things are significant, and is the means by
which we assess our feeling state, and yet this is a
small part of our experience, compared to the
unconscious workings of the psyche. It seems that
part of the value of the state of mind to which
drawing can give us access is in connecting us to
and affirming the deeper levels of experience.
Psychological space and mental imagery
Some of the animals and human figures in the San
pictures are drawn so that they seem to be
disappearing into crevices in the surface of the rock
and this has aroused speculation that the artists
considered the rock, on which they made their
drawings, to be a thin veil between their every day
reality and the spirit realm. The state of trance
dissolved this rocky barrier and allowed them to
enter the other world. For the San shamans, as for a
significant number of more recent artists, drawing
helped them to gain access to a mystical dimension
which they considered to be in an external
relationship to themselves.

The seventeenth century artist, William Blake
was no stranger to visionary experience and he
regarded art and the drawn line as the ‘very energy
of the life force itself ’. He also acknowledged a
more internal experience that resides in the mind
and body of the artist and which allowed him to
realize his vision of the natural condition of
humanity as a ‘state of communion between body
and soul’ where the senses are fully alive and
integrated in a ‘synesthetic unity’ (Arguelles 1975).
Rudolph Arnheim, writing in 1969 develops this
theme in his exploration of the nature of thought
processes. He argues that ‘unless the stuff of the
senses remains present the mind has nothing to
think with’. He valiantly attempts to define the
substance of thought and concludes that unless
objects are directly perceived, they must, if they are
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to be represented indirectly, be remembered by
what is known about them. The brain provides
generalized and part memories of objects for
conscious thought and filters the parts of sensory
memory that are most relevant to what is being
thought about, and much of the process remains
unconscious (Arnheim 1969). The act of drawing
allows the artist to pin down and engage with some
of these shifting pieces of imagery and sensation
and give them definition. He sees art therapy as an
applied art, in the sense that it serves a ‘substantial
human need’. It puts its maker in touch with her
own genuine experience and reveals an integrity
Plate 2. Alberto Giacometti, Untitled, 1960 , Pen on paper (330 mm/500 mm). Estate of the artist.
What is drawing? Bringing the art into art therapy 75
that is often lacking in the art that is shown in
galleries and museums (Arnheim 1986).
Conclusion
Finally, I have reached a point, in this exploration of
the multi-faceted nature of the activity of drawing,
when I can begin to identify with Alberto Giaco-
metti’s passionate proclamation that ‘drawing is all’,
for it seems to have a close relationship to the very
roots of consciousness and to the process of
individuation (Lord 1971).
I began this piece of writing with a personal
description of a memory of making a drawing. The
vividness, with which I re-experienced the original
incident, allowed me to catch hold of some of the
sensory experiences which underpin both the
original act and its re-conjuring, as a memory; and
led me to investigate further, the significance of this
intensity in relation to the fundamental human
experience of existence. I began to feel that many of
the psychological and physical elements that are
involved are so fundamental to our being that they
are easily overlooked and are difficult to define, and
I suspected that by gaining a clearer understanding
of these elements it might be possible to gain a
deeper understanding of how drawing can
strengthen this experience of being. The process of
collecting and interpreting the complicated musings
of contemporary artists, on the subject, provided a
reservoir of themes that appeared to resurface in
 76 Alison Ramm
mutating forms and the structuring of the article
became difficult, in a remarkably revealing way,
since each angle that I chose seemed to lead, at
once to every other element. It was difficult to find a
linear structure of thought through which I could
clarify my ideas. I gained some insight into the
virtual impossibility of translating visual experience
into words (Arnheim 1969) and I understood why
the verbal and written explanations of visual artists
often seem incomplete or deliberately obscure.
Theories about consciousness and object rela-
tions offer explanations which allow art therapists to
describe ways in which drawing and art-making are
powerful tools in raising awareness and self-esteem.
The physicality of drawing contributes to the
tangibility of this process, facilitates the sensual and
unifying nature of the experience and opens a
dialogue with the unconscious. I think, perhaps, the
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rock art of the San gave the most vivid clues to what
I am beginning to perceive as the primal role that
drawing may play in strengthening our sense that
we are truly alive. Barbara Stafford’s ideas about
the usefulness of analogy point to additional reasons
why drawing may be particularly helpful to us, as
the inhabitants of fragmented and complex con-
temporary cultures. It mobilizes the unifying and
healing potential of a kind of thought that makes
creative use of perceived similarities (Stafford 2001).
Drawing represents just such an analogy and is
simultaneously, at a personal level, a unifying
experience (Storr 1991). In Rudolph Arnheim’s
estimation it is clear that artwork made in art
therapy sessions is more than simple fantasy and
that to some extent the patient has actually
experienced the change that is embodied in the
image. Arnheim believes the reality of the artistic
experience should be taken seriously ‘not only
because it is symptomatic but also because its
consequences are as tangible as those of events
occurring in the so-called real world’ (Arnheim
1986).
I regard this article very much as the beginning
of a process of discovering and clarifying the most
basic elements that are particular to art therapy and
I am aware that I have not yet begun relate these
observations explicitly to more specific themes that
are confronted by patients and therapists within
therapy sessions. By gaining a broad perspective on
the relationship between drawing and fundamental
human experience I feel that I have raised further
questions about the usefulness of ‘synesthetic unity’
in the context of art therapy, and a future, more
detailed examination would shed light on the extent
to which different ways of drawing can facilitate or,
perhaps, inhibit this kind of integration. A deeper
excavation of the archaeology of creativity would
equip art therapists with a more precise set of tools
with which to help their clients engage, more deeply
with the experience of being alive. I have laid
foundations which allow me to defend the claim
that art is fundamental to human well-being and
that art therapy should be widely available as an
important and effective treatment for those mem-
bers of our society who find themselves in psycho-
logical crisis. As I set out to do, at the beginning of
this article, I have begun to explore the beginnings
of the persuasive theoretical argument which is
required in order to ‘describe the principles by
which art therapy claims to be beneficial’ (Arnheim
1986).
I am sitting with Jeannie in an art therapy
session. She asks me to draw a picture of her, so that
she can see herself as others see her. I suggest that
perhaps the way we see ourselves may be more
significant, to the way we are, than are the
impressions of others. I, gently, persuade her to
make a drawing of herself. She puts her hand to her
face in order to trace the outline of her nose with
her fingertips.
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Biographical details
Alison Ramm has recently completed the postgraduate
diploma in art therapy at Queen Margaret University
College, Edinburgh, having worked for many years as an
artist. She expanded from her experience as a painter, to
run visual art workshops for youth and education
projects, and has worked, as an artist facilitator for the
Dundee based mental health project, Art Angel. She
currently, works as an art therapist, for older people, at
Murray Royal Hospital in Perth, and is writing her MSc.
dissertation in art therapy, in which she continues to
explore the psychological significance of drawing.