Introduction

This is a step-by-step course designed to give people with socially invisible diseases the tools to express their experiences in new, creative ways. It will help you to communicate those aspects of your disease that are invisible to others by drawing about them.

You will need plenty of paper and some basic drawing tools, such as (coloured) pens and pencils. The aim is to encourage you to rediscover the joy of drawing that you will have experienced as a child, so crayons and thick felt-tip pens may help you to relax and not worry so much about how ‘good’ your drawings are. For the final task, you may want to use larger sheets of paper, as well as coloured (tissue) paper, newspapers, scissors and glue.

The exercises start with some general warm-up tasks (1. Everyone can draw) and gradually build up your confidence and skills (2. People, creatures and objects), so that by the end you will be able to draw things that are more directly related to your disease experience (3. Drawing thoughts and feelings). If you are already a confident artist, you might like to skip some of the earlier exercises and go straight to section 3.