Drawing Every Day
For many years, I have wanted to publish a coloring book. I have many ideas, but I would like to share some seeds that others could use to create their own paintings in collaboration with me. It would also be a tool for my workshops and classes in the future.
This idea mostly comes from visiting my grandmother and discovering that she would rescue the coloring books discarded by my little cousin and spend time on her porch coloring with crayons. I realized that these books, meant for little kids, were a source of joy and engagement for my grandmother, who almost never left her home in the countryside of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico.
I know many people have strong feelings against coloring books because they feel these prevent children from using their imagination. But for me, coloring books were the gifts I got to feel better after a visit to the doctor, and I loved them. I think my imagination survived!
I worked on a series of drawings and gathered other pieces I had created over the years. Little by little, the coloring book started taking shape as a sort of "Achieve Your Dream" manual. It’s really the process I am using on myself to get me started so that I can break away from the routine I have followed the last seven years, and use my time wisely to grow and evolve toward the life I envision.
I have come to understand this period of my life as a challenge to practice the lessons learned in the years when I built my dream life and used the time to create, build deep friendships, develop projects, and travel with my art wherever I was invited. Most of all, I learned every day and practiced and applied what I was learning.
This is how I started painting Mary Magdalene because I was so excited about what I was learning with Margaret Starbird’s book, The Woman With the Alabaster Jar. It is so rich in symbols and stories, and it fed me so thoroughly that I needed to transform that energy into something colorful!
Here is today’s drawing. I did it while running my art club at Pan American International High School, where I work. It’s a wonderful school, and I like to think that my job ultimately is really about helping create a school where kids and families feel welcome and feel joy. The concept of the art club is for kids to be able to drop in during lunch and just enjoy and create. I have all sorts of wonderful materials in a cart, and they are free to use whatever they want. I usually don’t do art myself, but today, remembering my commitment to drawing every day, I decided to draw a little Mary Magdalene.
Committing to writing and drawing every day has started to liberate my soul and mind. I started a little before the New Year with the drawings, in the same book where I first drew the seeds of the Spirits of the Forest series in my grandmother’s house in Guayanilla, Puerto Rico.
A big tree can grow from a small seed. And that’s what drawing has always been to my art. So in my future coloring book, which is no longer just a coloring book, I want to share how to gather the seeds, how to cultivate them, and hopefully how to turn oneself into a seed, grow roots in the earth, and expand towards the sky.
Hello Tanya,
I am so inspired by your intention to draw and write every day - how this is your spiritual practice and a way to connect to Mary Magdalene and from that space allow the life you envision to emerge.
I wish you many blessings along your path!
Much love,
Seema Khaneja