Inner Body: A Somatic Sketchbook
24 charcoal drawings and five short prompts for coming back into your body. Open it anywhere.
For people who live in their heads
Your mind is busy. It plans, replays, worries, and rarely checks in with the body carrying it around.
This book is a way back in. Not through more thinking, but through feeling: the breath, the weight of your hands, the place where you meet the chair.
There’s no programme to follow and no streak to keep. Open a page, read a prompt, look at a drawing for a minute. Then close it.
Why the drawings are blurred
Every drawing starts as one of my pinhole photographs. A pinhole camera has no lens, so the light arrives soft and the edges melt.
I rebuild each image in raw charcoal, rub it back, then build it again, until the figure sits somewhere between appearing and dissolving. Then I seal it with fixative.
That softness is the point. From the inside, your body has no hard outlines either. Close your eyes and try to find exactly where your hand ends. You’ll find a field of sensation, not a line.
And the strips of masking tape? They’re the layers the mind lays over everything. Scars, if you like. They stay.
What’s inside
- 24 charcoal drawings, each printed close to its original size (about 18 × 11 cm)
- 5 somatic prompts: The Breath, Softening the Face, Feeling the Hands and Fingers, The Deep Centre, and Gravity and the Edge
- 54 pages, square format, 210 × 210 mm
- Printed on demand in the UK, so nothing sits in a warehouse
The last prompt asks you to find exactly where your body ends. Your eyes give one answer. The inner body gives another.
How to use it
Open it anywhere. Read one prompt. Look at the drawing next to it for a minute, no more. Then close the book and notice what’s changed, even slightly.
Morning, before bed, between two things that matter. A minute is enough.
What it won’t do
It might quiet your mind for a moment, but it won’t turn you into a sack of potatoes. What you might find is a brief pause. Somewhere to rest, for a breath or two.
And it only works if you open it. On the shelf, it’s just a nice book.
Choose your edition
Same book, same drawings, same price. Need it soon? Go matte. Not in a rush? Gloss supports the studio directly.
Gloss edition
Deeper blacks and stronger contrast. Printed to order in Peterborough, and buying on Etsy supports the studio directly.
Allow up to two weeks. Most copies arrive sooner.
Matte edition
A softer, still premium paper-like finish, closer to the feel of charcoal on paper.
Sold through Amazon, usually the quicker option with Prime delivery.
Try it before you buy it
Get the opening pages, the first prompt, The Breath, and a printable A4 charcoal drawing from the book. Free, straight to your inbox.
Print the drawing, read the prompt, give it one minute. If your shoulders drop even a little, the rest of the book is waiting.
About the artist
I’m Csaba Tibor Palotás, a painter and mindfulness teacher in Milton Keynes. I teach life drawing, which means watching people try to capture the body from the outside. This book is the other half: feeling it from the inside.
You’ll also find my original oil paintings and the Pulse of the Paradox art prints here.
