Spirals and Labyrinths!

Stage three of the great round of mandala, Labyrinth/Spiral, is one where I feel completely at home! I have loved every moment of this month. I haven’t got round to creating a physical dreamcatcher yet…

…but I started the month by creating this image of one using Derwent Intense watercolour pencils.

I am still waiting for the experience of walking a physical labyrinth, but in the meantime I had great fun creating this hand drawn one and then walking my finger round its paths.

Spirals came next, and I’ve been having so much fun with these. This one was created using ready-mix paint…

…and I made this one by weaving some very thick wool in a spiral. It is absolutely mesmerising if you spin it! That’s all for now, but I’ll try not to leave it so long before I post the next instalment!

Into the Bliss!

I’ve just realised how long it is since I posted anything online. I’ve been busy keeping up with Julie’s Mandala Magic classes, I just haven’t got round to posting anything online. So here’s the first instalment – moving on from the Void to the Bliss…

… I created this page of symbols that are important in my life right now.

I found the bliss quite a difficult stage to be in, and had trouble with the shaving foam technique that Julie recommended. After struggling for a while, I gave up and decided to use a mixture of other watery techniques to create the mandalas on this next image.

I quite enjoyed making this page which has a background made from patterned tissue paper covered in water activated neocolour crayons. The free birth chart I used comes from the website astro.com. To complete the spread, I handwrote the poem ‘For A New Beginning’ by John O’Donohue.

Slightly apart from making mandalas, I’ve been playing with paint in a very free way and have taken a few of those images and created this blended mandala. Keep watching for the next instalment!

Over Half Way!

We’re over halfway through the void now, and the mandalas are still flowing. Journalling with words doesn’t come easily to me – I prefer to express my thoughts in visual ways…

…so I’ve been up in my studio for a while today responding to my thoughts. This is my first completed mandala painted with very wet acrylic paint in my mandala journal.

There are two more in process…

…this one is made with recycled cardboard, acrylic paint and crackle paint – the crackle paint is taking a long time to dry…

…and this one is made from a cardboard disc and moulding paste. It too is in the process of drying, and I will be painting it once the moulding paste has properly hardened. I’ll post more pictures of these when they’re finished.

Journey Through the Void

In between updating my website, creating mandalas and starting work on my next uni assignment, Ive been just a little bit busy – but the website and mandalas have been great fun to do!

Still travelling through the void, I made this ‘universe void’ mandala. While I was making it, I had a slight accident with my bottle of white acrylic paint. I accidentally knocked it over, spilling white paint all over my desk. Not being one to see anything go to waste, I quickly opened up another journal and used a paint brush to mop up the paint.

This is the result – a white, void mandala. I love the textures made by the thick ridges of paint!

This last mandala was inspired by a song called ‘The Dark’ by Mary Grigolia.

I just couldn’t resist…

I just couldn’t resist! There I was closing down my computer for the night, when I had this thought, “I wonder what the Swirls image would look like as a mandala?” And, being me, I couldn’t wait till tomorrow to try it out – so here are the results!

This is the first one…

…and this is the second one after a bit of digital blending. Do you like them?

And now I really am going to shut the computer down and go to bed!

“One Man’s Trash…”

You’ve probably heard the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. This latest mandala is made almost entirely from “one man’s trash”!

One of my workplaces have a large laser cutter which collects quantities of leftover bits from the work that people do on it. This mandala is created from some of those leftover bits, stuck to a circle cut from an old cardboard box with pva glue.

I couldn’t decide whether to leave it the original colour, or whether to paint it, so I tried adding some digital colour to help me make up my mind.

I decided to paint it and this is the result. Which do you like the best?

Playing with Mandalas

Thinking about mandalas, I created this hand drawn one in my small journal the other day.

But as usual, I couldn’t just leave it at that. I had to play with it once I’d scanned it. I started off by adding some ‘twirl’, then blended the two together to come up with the final version.

Once in the blending mode, I find it’s difficult to stop! This image is a blend of two paintings to which I added the Maslow quotation.

Guada’s Mandalas

I love Guada’s mandalas, and so was thrilled to have a lesson from her as this week’s Life Book class. Her instructions are always so easy to follow and even though I started out copying her design the end result is so totally different!

The background was created first using neocolour crayons on copy paper, blended using a watercolour brush. When the background had dried the paper was a little crinkly, so I ironed it flat (much more fun than ironing clothes!) and printed Guada’s template onto it. Then following instructions, I created the mandala and coloured it using my Rotring Rapidograph pen and Derwent Inktense pencils.

I just love the result. If you’d like to have a go, Guada is running a free course starting in October called The Seed of Life. Click on the button on my right sidebar for more details. Thank you so much Guada 🙂