Something I have shifted to realizing now in my 30’s is that expressing gratitude regularly can have a profound effect on your life. What I am finding is that when I take the time to be grateful for all that I have in life, I stop playing the “I’ll be happy when” game. I realize that I have everything already – I just need to take the time to remember and pay attention to what I have.

The past two weeks I’ve spent a great amount of time thinking about gratitude as I drew pictures for the parents of the children at ALC Mosaic. When I think about the parents here that are choosing to take such a courageous leap into pioneering a new model of education, I simply lack the words to tell them how much they mean to me. Being slightly socially awkward myself in person, I wanted to think of a way I could express my gratitude for them joining this ALC journey.

I decided to stretch my artistic skills to draw each one a picture of their favorite animal and write the animal’s Native American totem meaning on each. I was challenged to draw animals I never had attempted before and it was fun and hard! I did most of them at school and explained to the kids what I was doing and why. They were asked to tell me what animals to draw for their parents. Some they knew, some guessed, some went home and asked.

As I drew each animal I simply thought about the parent and sent love and gratitude through my heart and hands. My goal was to have energetic frequencies of love flow through the drawings. I’m really proud of how they turned out and for how I felt when complete with my project! This overdose of gratitude for others made my life increasingly happier each day. As I gave, I received. It’s beautiful.

 

The Most Challenging

To me, horses are the second most difficult animal to draw after humans. Their snouts and faces and body proportions have always been challenging for me. I decided to opt out of drawing their bodies so I could focus my practice on getting the eyes & nose placed well.

 

This one blew me away…Elisha was browsing animal drawings with me to copy for the lion. She chose this one for me to copy (I am not at the point in my artistic career to draw without an image to copy from). I told her I thought it was too hard, but then ended up really loving how it turned out! The kids seemed pretty amazed by this one.

The cheetah was another animal I was worried about getting right. My attempts look very different from one another, the first being a little more cartoon-like and the second more realistic.

 

The Surprising

I had never drawn realistic sheep or many realistic dogs before (but plenty of cartoon versions) and it surprised me how much I loved them!

   

The Power of Lines

I am amazed at how just many little lines together can show changes in fur texture, feathers, and create the shape of an animal. These animals show off this power really well:

 

As I drew each hawk I was thinking about the specific person I was drawing them for, as I did with each animal. Interestingly, before I labeled them, the children of these parents came up and saw them and identified the hawks correctly as being for their parent, saying that that the first one looked more like Kristen and the second like Jim.

 

The Sea

 

When I got the sea animal request in, I wasn’t sure how to make them look smooth. I was feeling pretty good about the fur and feathers, and had to use the power of the line differently for these creatures.

 

 

 *There are a couple of animals I didn’t get pictures of before sealing them up in their cards, and two more I need to draw for a family that is out of town! I just want to note this for parents noticing a few missing 🙂 

Love is Something If You Give It Away

There is song I sang a lot with kids at the Friends School where I previously taught that continuously ran through my head during week two of my gratitude drawings:

Love is something if you give it away, 

     give it away, give it away

Love is something if you give it away,

You end up having more. 

I ended this project with having even more gratitude for the families choosing Mosaic than I did in the beginning. Thinking about each individual parent through the drawings led me to hold sacred and honor each of them uniquely for the commitment they have made for their child(ren). Without them, I wouldn’t be blessed with this school and the life I am currently living.