Botanical Mandala
08152020: 4th Mandala
These are so much fun to make. A challenge every time! I really want to try a different kind of paper. This is a hot press watercolor paper so it is smooth, but it is soft so the line isn’t as “solid” as I would like it to be. I love getting into the weeds with details and I may make one and then paint it. We will see...
07272020: 3rd Mandala
These are getting increasingly complex! I did something at the very end that I regretted not thinking through and had to go into fix it mode. As a result the outer most layer got darker than I wanted it to be.
07232020: 2nd Mandala
I was so excited about my first mandala, I decided to make another larger one. The first was only 5 inch diameter - this one is 7.5 inches. It was another balancing act and it may not be quite settled yet but I need to live with it. I approached it differently than the first in that I started to fill areas in as I went along when an idea came to me - in pencil!
Is it too over the top? : ) It has so much movement in it that my eyes are whirling around.
07182020: 1st Mandala
I watched the class about a week ago and decided not to watch it again before I made my first mandala. Now that I am here looking at other projects, I see the simplicity of the one I did compared to the details of the what was presented in the class.
That said, I loved the process of doing mandalas using this method and was actually quite inspired by the continuing 10 degree lines that were going off the page as a possible follow up mandala.
I have been doing mandalas in Chris Carter’s classes - totally different approach with the aim being to learn about color in the context of mandalas. It was a kick to discover this class and enjoyed it immensely.
Now to get out my watercolors and use some color...hmmm...or maybe add some botanical details first.
On second thought...I checked out the worksheet provided and decided that I was thinking too much about painting the mandala - and I have been painting a LOT of mandalas over the last couple of months! This second image is a result of getting more into the spirit of black and white with patterns defining gray. It was really fun to take the mandala I did as a starting point for further exploration. I am really pleased with the results. It was a bit of a seesaw effect when I would change an aspect in the design to get more darks into it and have everything else shift to not quite working. I went through this process more than a couple of times to achieve a balance.