How are you? Fusion Coloring as Attunement

By Katrina Plato

Inspired: A new journaling practice

I had just finished a retreat on Cortes Island, British Columbia in which my urban pace had slowed down considerably. My thoughts had shifted from, “How long am I committed to staying here?” to, “How long can I stay?” I noticed shifting my attention from asking our phenomenal teacher, Judyth Weaver, how I could use the material she was teaching on sensory awareness with my therapy clients, to an awareness of noticing, everything, while being still. Like the progression of sounds at dawn, beginning with the near-silent heavy wings of ravens swooping over the tree canopy to the noisy talkative seagulls positioning themselves on top of their rock cairns.

As I transitioned home, I stopped to visit my friends and arts-based researchers Barbara Bickel and R. Michael Fisher (2024), in Nanaimo. While with them, Barbara showed me her pocket-size journal in which she had kept a daily drawing practice. I observed she made a note on the back side of one page, and a small drawing on the opposite page. As she showed me some of her drawings, I recognized the Fusion coloring process (Fisher, R.M., 2017) her partner Michael had taught me when the two of them stayed with me almost ten years earlier during a residency in Boone, North Carolina. Fusion coloring is a term Michael Fisher coined as early as 1985. Michael emphasizes, “The fusion coloring approach I am researching and advocating, is an alternative worldview to the coloring book syndrome (Fisher, R.M., June 7, 2017).”

Michael’s teaching and research suggest coloring what emerges rather than filling in spaces defined by preformed lines can build new healthy habits of drawing.

Inspired by the idea of creating a small journal entry each day, I made a mental note to find a journal when I got home. Two weeks later, on the New Moon, I opened my 4” x 6” field sketchbook to the first page, planting a Flame of Intention (Image 1). I planted a seed to draw in response to a question Judyth Weaver had asked every session on every day of our sensory awareness retreat, “How are you?” She was asking what we noticed about our experience in the present moment (Weaver, 2004). I dedicated my journal process to continuing this inquiry, asking myself, “How are you?”

Fusion Coloring

A variety of drawings emerged as I played with different media in response to the question each day, including Fusion coloring with coloured pencil. I noticed I began using Fusion coloring more often because the process of the emerging drawing pleased me like in (Image 2), where I noted I felt, “So calm this morning.” I wasn’t confident if how I was drawing followed the Fusion process. I reviewed the basic principles in Michael’s 2017 video on Fusion Coloring (Fisher, R.M., June 7, 2017).

I remembered how much I loved the structure, starting with putting down blue painter’s tape to create a square or rectangular frame (Image 3) because of the delight of peeling back the smooth tape. I enjoyed the challenge of attuning to the conversation of pencil and paper by ever so lightly holding the instrument, a high-quality coloured pencil, so that it glided back and forth across the page until a line, or the shadow of a form appeared.

My favourite part of fusion coloring was playing with any emerging line and getting lost in my drawing, realizing that I had No Words (Image 4), allowing the line to surface on its own rather than a pre-designed outline, and then shading dark to light, or light to dark, adding a colour as inspired. These are the main principles of Fusion coloring, “And all of a sudden you have a line that's alive and breathing (Fisher, R.M., June 7, 2017).”

I also enjoyed the flow of the pencils across the page, such as in Emotional Waters (Image 5).

Michael elaborates on the definition, “Why it’s called Fusion Coloring, for me, is because when you move into this ‘D’ model here (Image 6), the colouring and drawing fuse (Fisher, R.M., June 7, 2017).”

Then, about a month into my journal practice, I began to feel, “Overwhelmed with Weariness.” A fatigue came over me that stretched over the next three months. I journaled almost daily, but rather than ask the question, “How are you?” my drawings became maps of the curriculum I was facilitating with my online clients. Flipping through the pages, I realize I stopped drawing in the early meditative hours, or quiet evenings. Instead, I drew alongside my clients while holding space for them during the day. Some of my drawings contained stories, and poems, like I am a Tree (Image 7).

Not making time for my inner practice, I noticed my cup of empathy was evaporating. I was working harder than ever while travelling and making important connections with friends and family. One of my sons reflected to me that the calm inner peace he saw in me, “after that retreat you did on that island,” was replaced by sharp reactive responses. During this time, my group evaluations at work dropped. I took this as another cue that I wasn’t fully present. A trip home for the holidays filled me back up.

Nurturing Daily Practices

In the new year, colour returned to my journal. I renewed my commitment to my daily practice. I noticed that accountability helps me. So, I posted 11 days of nurturing daily practice on social media. On the first day, I shared the two Fusion coloring drawings above (Images 4 & 5) that I had created in the fall. Markus Scott-Alexander spotted them and asked if I would write about the drawing process in Lila. At about the same time, a friend and intuitive healer from the United Kingdom, gave me the prompt that for 21 days, I was to pull a card from the oracle deck, ‘The Secret Language of Color Cards’ by Inna Segal, and draw as inspired by the color. Motivated by the theme of colour, I decided to use fusion coloring for the practice. Again, to hold myself accountable, I posted my 21 days on social media. In his video, Michael writes that sharing colouring, “is what some people call extrovert meditation rather than an introvert meditation. … There's always a pleasure in that. Of course, there's always the risk people won't understand it, and won't like it, but that's just a risk that's always going to be in life (Fisher, R.M., June 7, 2017).”

I posted with a vulnerability, Day 1 of 21 Rainbow (Image 8), I wrote an affirmation in my journal, “I am joyously awake and aware … Ready for anything!“ And a note about the journal process, “Allow the line and color to emerge, then STOP.”

Day 2 of 21 (image 9) was not only inspired by the colour Ruby but also by a sensitivity to where I was drawing from, such as Papago Park in Phoenix, Arizona on this day. I drew while on the trail at the park. This was the first of several journal entries inspired by a sensitivity to my location. While drawing this I wrote several questions and observations in my journal, “Letting go what has been learned to follow the inquiry; Practices of attention not perfection; Draw until the prompt, ‘oh. I like what’s happening there.’; Draw until there becomes a flow; what happens when I add a colour? And, how do I let go of perfection?”

After five drawings, I checked in with Michael Fischer via email, asking if I was on the right path. His response was a question, “Is it feeling alive and enlivening you in the making? Where old habits are dissolving and new ones forming, and it feels all the time the most simple imagery and marking can exude with life-erotic forces.” He emphasized the importance of “lighting impulses” and “life-erotic forces” (Fisher, R.M., personal correspondence February 29, 2024).

I especially enjoyed playing with the lines, shading dark to light, and light to dark, as in Day 3, Emerald Calm (Image 10). I hesitated sharing because I’m always creating a yoni. But the pattern emerged, like, “life-erotic forces.”

In the practice, I noticed playfulness returning to my work. In my journal I wrote on Day 4/21, Image 11 Peas and Calm: “Imagine beautiful rays of aqua light moving through your nervous system, calming, purifying, and creating a sense of peace.”

On Day 7 or 21, Aqua (Image 12) a colleague asked if I could teach the technique. Though still exploring myself, I was glad the process was getting other people to imagine playing with light to dark and colouring in a new way. I wrote in my journal, “How do I teach listening to colours? The most exciting moment was when I felt or heard to add a spark of light green or a trace of red.”

The most enthusiastic response I received from friends on social media was for Day 8 of 21, Sapphire: Dark Night (Image 13) drawn on black paper. Fusion coloring emphasizes the play of light. If light is present, then the process is effective. So, it is interesting that this drawing was inspired by one of my darkest nights of the 21 days. In my journal, I dumped all my worries and then took a bath to clear my mind and body. I wrote on my social media pages, “I drew this during a dark night of the soul, when negativity felt all-encompassing.” I wonder if it was the vulnerability of this extrovert mediation that made it appealing.

I’ll conclude with Day 14 of 21, Brilliance (Image 14). This drawing feels so alive it looks like felted wool. I imagined the colours like a cleansing waterfall showering over my head and wrote in my journal, “Allow all depression, fear, anger, negativity to wash away with this powerful brilliant light waterfall.”

I continue my practice of fusion coloring, learning to unlearn the traditional habits of colouring as I engage in the conversation between pencil and paper. As I journal, I’ve noticed an intermodal weaving of movement helps me attune to my drawing process. I felt stiff in my neck and noticed my legs crossed as I sat drawing, and so put on some music, danced around the house. When I returned to my small page, I felt expansive and the colours flowed effortlessly. I was reminded that just as I need to know and attune to my tools for creating, I need to re-member to tune into my body, which holds and moves the tools.

My vision is to expand my Fusion coloring process to a season, and then a year of attuning to the light and dark of my emotions and body sensations as a reflection of the question, “How are you?”

References

Bickel, B. A., & Fisher, R. M. (2023). Art-care practices for restoring the communal education, co-inquiry, and healing. Routledge.

Fisher, R. (2017). R. Michael Fisher: The Aesthetic Fusion of Color and Light. Retrieved 2024, from video

Weaver, J. O. (2004). Integrating Sensory Awareness and Somatic Psychotherapy. The USA Body Psychotherapy Journal, Volume 3 (Number 1), 31–35.

Katrina Plato, ATR, EdD, PhD, is a registered art therapist, educator, and expressive arts consultant who helps individuals navigate their life path through intuitive approaches to healing, and facilitates expressive arts groups for youth and adults through Charlie Health, Inc.