Creating Mandalas

Mandalas fascinate me and I like creating them as you can see from a previous post HERE.

A friend told me about Margaret Bremmer's blog the Enthusiastic Artist.  Margaret teaches how to create Zentangles.  She posted What is a Mandala? and a great video on How to Grow a Mandala on her blog.  I drew the mandala below using her technique.  It reminds me of a childhood toy- a plastic, folding puzzle- that I used to like to play with.  I can't remember what it was called.

I used my favorite colored pencils (Farb-Riesen color giants by Lyra of  Germany) to color the mandala.  The whole process of  drawing and coloring mandalas can be a great meditative practice.

Inspiration for mandalas can come from many sources and are often found in nature.  A rose...

A bunch of lettuce...

or a peony...

Here's my finished mandala.  I hope this post encourages you to create mandalas, too.

Mandala Paintings

"Aztec Dream"

Six months ago, I started a series of mandala paintings. Several artists recommend working on more that one piece at a time. This process worked really well with this project. While letting one painting dry, I could start working on the next one. By the time I finished the process with each one, the first painting was ready for the next layer.

"Mandala Rose"

I covered each canvas with collaged maps, applied gesso, transferred my mandala pattern, painted it with acrylics, added gold leaf, three dimensional fabric paint, drawings, more background stamps and used amber shellac for the final coat.

"Blossom Meditation".

"Pyramid Mystery"

Working on these mandalas was very meditative with repetition of line, color, pattern. I plan to work on more series in this manner. It's very satisfying to complete several paintings by the end of the process. For more information about Mandalas go HERE and HERE.

Nature Gathered Elements Mandala

This weekend, I worked on my Nature Gathered elements piece. Mandalas inspire a spiritual aspect in their creation. An ancient art form used across many cultures and religions, creating a mandala is a meditative process, an act of devotion. Across Asia from India to Tibet to Japan, mandalas symbolize sacred art that reflects the soul or luminous consciousness. One can use mandala paintings to make a mind-body-spirit connection to heal and reconnect to our essential Being. Below is the process I used to create this piece.

the drawing-

Copied drawing using Saral paper to prepared collaged and gessoed canvas.

the painting-

addition of gold-leaf foil and pin lining with 3-D dimensional fabric paint. Then I painted three layers of amber shellac to finish the piece. I learned this creative process from Anahata Katkin.

Back from ArtFest

The ArtFest theme this year was Forest Walk. I made this PhotoShop collage for my journal before the event using photos taken the end of January at Play along with the
handmade little creature in the middle that someone gave to each of us.

Anahata's Mixed Media Mandala workshop inpired me to have fun with gold foil, paint and doodling.

I collected a variety of plant leaves from Marianne's garden on Vashon and used them for gelatin prints in Dorit Elisha's workshop Nature Imprinted. At the end of the day, we made collages with our prints.
Theo Ellsworth's workshop Mystery Play Inside inspired imaginative drawing- what he calls imaginary performance art. He led us through several exercises to deal with the inner critique. The drawing below represents my secret language drawn with eyes closed and translated later with eyes open using my imaginary detective.
This drawing uses the awkward hand to explore the inner-child out on the playground. His way of delving into and exploring our imaginary world offers a deep well of creative inspiriation.ArtFest offers the chance to see old friends, make new friends, learn new techniques, feel the creative energy and the bounty of imagination in all the inspired projects from each workshop. It's creative adrenaline for my art.