One of the strangest feelings in the world for me has to be the time I watched a group of young artists paint the logo, that I had designed and come up with in my head. Watching the sign that they painted being mounted on top of an art gallery store front is also right up there with the painting. I watched as they printed a copy of the image out on sheets of paper and carefully took their time with every stroke of their brushes to perfectly capture the original doodle I made for Create To Learn, and couldn’t help but be surprised out how everything turned out.

I was amazed at the level of care and talent they had in mixing their paint colors to match the bold child-like hues I selected for the finished logo. They kindly told me that they enjoyed my work and that they were having fun painting the drawing that had once just been an idea for a grad school project.

It’s one thing to view the images that were once in your head on a sheet a paper, but it’s another thing entirely to have your art physically displayed up high on an art gallery store front for large amounts of people to see.

I had to take a step back to think about all of things that were going through my mind this time last year when my professor told us to choose a non profit to work with for our final projects. I was nervous that I wouldn’t get anything accomplished, and that whatever I did come up with wouldn’t be implemented in the organization’s changes.

Now I look back to all the young faces that have painted so many amazing things to be displayed in the art galley, with a large sign that proudly displays my logo on it, a year later and I smile. What started out as a school project turned into a budding non-profit organization supporting arts education, and a wonderful new art gallery for Southern California students to claim as their own.

For more information, visit Create To Learn’s Facebook page.