Practice: Your Drawing Arms

A Drawing Health announcement

Hi everyone, just a quick note to you this week. The purpose of this podcast is to help people take care of themselves, and to invite real conversations and real community in and around that care. My commitment to myself is that I am included, because I’m people too. I don’t martyr myself for others, I walk the walk as I talk the talk. I’m in the shit with you, learning as I go. I have a body that responds loudly, with flares of pain and other symptoms, when anything in my life is twisting away from my values, my heart, what I believe in. So I’m listening to my body now, and putting this beautiful project on pause so that I am demonstrating what I teach: listening to the body.  I do my best work when I don’t have to silence the parts of me crying out for attention, especially when I think I’m doing so for others’ benefit. I will return in a few weeks with some necessary changes, and this podcast will be better for it.  I’ll be back soon, bringing my best, and until then I really encourage you to listen back to the episodes produced so far. There is so much to learn from attentive repetition. Details you didn’t notice before, nuances you hear differently from hour to hour, week to week.  As I always say in class: listen to yourself more than you listen to me. We’re listening to ourselves, together.

Practice: Your Drawing Arms

You need your arms to draw, and they need you too. Bring in all your senses, play with them. A gentle touch carries so much information that you can translate to your drawings, and your drawing practice. Listen and begin. Drawing Health is a live class every Saturday from 11am - 12pm EST. Sign up to join in, at drawinghealth.com [http://drawinghealth.com]. = About the podcast Drawing Health is a podcast about the intersection of comics and health, also called Graphic Medicine. Through community interviews and guided audio practices, we explore the worlds within ourselves and without, nurturing your creative practice, inspiration, and personal health journey. Health and creativity are not at odds, they are two expressions of you.  Our music Our spring season theme music is Piling up the stones by Del Stephen, from his independently produced record, Good Spirit Inner Station. Explore Del’s many albums at https://delstephen.bandcamp.com [https://delstephen.bandcamp.com], and be generous with him as he is so generous with us. Thank you Del! Disclaimer This podcast is for information and exploration purposes only and is never intended as medical advice. Every viewer and listener is encouraged to seek medical attention at their own discretion. This podcast and the guided practices are tools for listeners to support their whole health, and should be used with care.

Inner Intimacy, with Sacha Mardou

Have you read IFS comics yet? You’re about to. Sacha Mardou has been making journal comics about the most intimate moments in her life — the inner dialogue she has with all the parts of herself while practicing Internal Family Systems. It’s a beautiful and accessible opening of the most vulnerable intimacy, shown with her robust resource of skill.  Our conversation is mostly me complimenting Sacha -- I got a bit carried away with wanting to tell her all the things I loved about her book, Past Tense, and the IFS comics that touched my own heart. We still managed to discuss graphic memoir, asking permission to tell your own story, leaving a religion, deconstructing belief, inviting the internet into your therapy sessions, and so much more. Always more.  Sacha offers an exercise for you to try at the end, giving you a chance to experience a touch of the grace she’s learned, to feel it for yourself. = Episode Links & Resources Mardou’s therapy comics website: https://ifscomics.com/ [https://ifscomics.com/] Past Tense: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/714479/past-tense-by-sacha-mardou/ [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/714479/past-tense-by-sacha-mardou/] Mardou’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mardou_draws/ [https://www.instagram.com/mardou_draws/] = About the podcast Drawing Health is a podcast about the intersection of comics and health, also called Graphic Medicine. Through community interviews and guided audio practices, we explore the worlds within ourselves and without, nurturing your creative practice, inspiration, and personal health journey. Health and creativity are not at odds, they are two expressions of you.  Our music Our spring season theme music is Piling up the stones by Del Stephen, from his independently produced record, Good Spirit Inner Station. Explore Del’s many albums at https://delstephen.bandcamp.com [https://delstephen.bandcamp.com], and be generous with him as he is so generous with us. Thank you Del! About the Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW) The Sequential Artists Workshop is a grassroots, non-profit comics school and creative community. At SAW, we teach people how to tell stories and make comics in Gainesville, Florida, USA, and around the world via our online courses and resources. Go to www.sequentialartistsworkshop.org [http://www.sequentialartistsworkshop.org] or www.drawinghealth.com [http://www.drawinghealth.com] to join our community of learners and artists today! Disclaimer This podcast is for information and exploration purposes only and is never intended as medical advice. Every viewer and listener is encouraged to seek medical attention at their own discretion. This podcast and the guided practices are tools for listeners to support their whole health, and should be used with care.

Practice: Animal Body

Do you know you’re still an animal? How do you care for your animal?  Listen and settle into sensation, instinct, quiet observation. Your body knows how to be animal, just listen, and draw it out. Drawing Health is a live class every Saturday from 11am - 12pm EST. Sign up to join in, at drawinghealth.com [http://drawinghealth.com].

Creative Commons, with Aaron Comeau

For this, our last episode of the Winter 2025/26 season, we have a special one for you. I decided to share some ramblings at the start of this one, about how practice becomes skill, and skills become automatic. In this world, our burdens are enormous, and we need to find balance between effort and ease — all while living with integrity. Listen to the first 20 minutes of this episode to hear how I explain the connection between practice and skill, ease and integrity. The second half of today’s episode is a BONUS INTERVIEW with none other than Aaron Comeau, the composer of our theme music for this season: Magic Hours, from his album Fully Unformed.  On the surface it seems like music and comics are very different art forms, and very different practices…but they might have more in common, and more to offer each other, than you think. Fuck AI-generated art! Every season we’re gonna meet the humans behind the theme music that carries the season, and learn more about how each artist creates. Listen to the whole first season, WINTER 2025/26 with new ears after this episode. Spark new creative channels for yourself, make new connections across artistic media and genres. We make great things together! A new season of Drawing Health starts next Sunday: Spring 2026! Episode Links Main St. Music Library website: mainstmusiclibrary.com [http://mainstmusiclibrary.com] Main St. Music Library Bandcamp: https://acomeau.bandcamp.com/ [https://acomeau.bandcamp.com/] Aaron's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aaroncomeau/ [https://www.instagram.com/aaroncomeau/] Music acknowledgement Our theme music is Magic Hours by Aaron Comeau made for the Main St. Music Library. The Main St. Music Library hosts instrumental music created with simple parameters, with scores and instructions for listeners to recreate the music themselves . Musicians, artists, & listeners are encouraged to borrow freely from the library and return the materials in a different form than they found them. Find out more at mainstmusiclibrary.com [http://mainstmusiclibrary.com]. Disclaimer This podcast is for information and exploration purposes only and is never intended as medical advice. Every viewer and listener is encouraged to seek medical attention at their own discretion. This podcast and the guided practices are tools for listeners to support their whole health, and should be used with care. #drawinghealth [https://www.dropbox.com/?q=%23drawinghealth] #thememusic [https://www.dropbox.com/?q=%23thememusic] #fuckaimusic [https://www.dropbox.com/?q=%23fuckaimusic] #supportartists [https://www.dropbox.com/?q=%23supportartists] #creativehealth [https://www.dropbox.com/?q=%23creativehealth]