Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to the
Mandala diary. I'm Dan Cora. I'm an artist, a
product designer, and an listic
health educator and a general lover of life in
all its glorious technicolor. Over the years, I've
kept many journals, but never a diary as such, even when I've been journaling, I haven't really had any
consistency with it. And as this year
is unfolding with all the incredible events that are happening in the world, I decided that I wanted
to have some form of self expression that marked
how this year is unfolding. Given that I'm a visual artist, it made sense for me to be able to do it in some
kind of visual form. And loving mandalas
the way I do, I decided that that
was a really great way actually to create
a diary as such. Now, my intention is that I will do something every month. I'm not going to put myself
under the pressure of doing something every week
or every day, even. But to be able to come
on a monthly basis and just express what's
going on in my life, over that month, that seemed something doable
that I could achieve. And I'm hoping that as
I share this class with you and share my technique
and my process with you, that you might find that it's a useful tool for you as well. It is really a nice tool
for self expression. And to bring us back to
that self centered place, that still point within
ourselves where we can just calm ourselves
back again, you know, pull ourselves in
from what might be happening in the outer
world, if you like, and just refocus again on
what's important to us, actually, and what keeps us calm and what
keeps us relaxed. And ultimately,
what brings us joy. I can't give you materials
list as such because it's entirely up to you
what materials you use. You might want to
create a mandala with food ingredients and
create a beautiful cake. You might want to go
out in the garden and dig a circle and plant
some plants in a circle. You might want to do like I've done and use paint onto paper. You might want to
embroider something. The world's your oyster, and
there are endless ways in which you can create your own mandala and
express yourself. I'm not going to give you a
materials list in this class, particularly because
it's really up to you how you want to express
yourself in a circle, the way that you want to do it.
2. Free - Flow Playing: Let me start off by saying that you cannot get this wrong. There's no right or wrong
way to draw a mandala. Basically, it's drawing
within a circle. So you need to just decide whether you're going
to do it large, whether you're going
to do it small, what you're going to
use to pop it in, and then start from there. So this is my color book. This is one of my a favorite
color reference books, and it starts off with
the color wheel in it, which, of course, is
itself a mandala. So it seems appropriate
for me to use this book to start my journey of mandalas as I go
through each month. Now, I've already chosen a ball. I don't want to do it freehand. I'm going to do it
around excuse me, I'm going to do it
around this ball, draw around this ball. So that fits this
page really nicely. And then this page here will be for my
written journaling. So any thoughts, feelings,
emotions, observations, inspiration will be written down on this page that
will have relevance, then to the visual image here. But rather than do it
directly onto that page, what I've decided to do is to
use another piece of paper. So this is just one
from an old sketchbook, and I shall be drawing
in that first and then cutting it out and
sticking that into there. And this is how I will then
carry on probably each month. As I say, I have
nothing here, you know, specifically in mind as
to how this is going to turn out because it's very
much an intuitive thing. So that's how I'm
going to start off. Let's see if that's
how it ends up being the same
format each month. My starting point
today is color. So what I want to do is to just go to my
watercolor palette, and I want to start
putting into this circle some springl colors
because the day outside here in our
northern hemisphere in Scotland is
beautifully bright. We've got some
gorgeous blue sky. I'm going to test
that outlook just to see if it's the color
that I'm after. And what will happen when I
merge those two together, of course, is that I'll get
a different color anyway. And look what's happening here. So do you see what I mean? It's like, just go intuitively, you know, be intuitive with the mark making
that you want to do. I think this is probably why
I often start with color because it's the easiest
thing, in a sense, just get some color actually
onto the canvas or the page, the paper, whatever it is
that you're working on. And that sort of takes away the pressure of having to create something else, as in creating an image. Now, I'm putting
this on here now. I have no idea at
this point in time, whether or not I'll like it
or not. I really don't know. So I'm just allowing myself to play and go
with the flow of this. Now, color, as you know, if you've listened to any of my other classes is
really important to me. It's important to
all of us whether we're conscious of
it or not because it has a very positive
or negative effect on our well being on
our nervous system, on generally how we feel. So when I play with color first, it's often a really
good indicator. Oh, look what happened there. That wasn't intentional, but
we'll go with it anyway. It's a good indicator
for me when I notice what colors
I'm choosing. I often is a reflection of how I'm feeling or how
I want to feel. That might sound a
bit contradictory in terms, but, you know, if I'm feeling a
bit low and I want to feel a bit more
playful and joyful, then I might instinctively
go for more joyful colors. Now, yellow for me always
represents cheerfulness. And this beautiful,
beautiful spring green, for me, is really
hopeful somehow. I think it's that
feeling that you get, you know, at springtime, when the first buds start to
show that you realize that actually we are almost through the end of winter
and spring is on its way. So that's how I'm starting off. I've got some color on there. Now, I need to let that dry before I do any mark
making on top of that. So at this point, it's like, do I want to add anything
else at this point? I think we'll just go
with this playful mood. And I got gifted
these at Christmas. It's the Derwent
ink tense pencils. They are fabulous,
absolutely fabulous. And I haven't had
a great deal of time or opportunity
to try them out. So why don't I
just bring them in right now and see what happens. So you can use them just like I did there by dipping
them into a bit of water. And just making some
marks with them there. Or you can use them like this, for example, I didn't
mean to do that. You can use them dry like this, and then you can add
the water afterwards. And that gives you this
lovely, watery feel. I could even go over that
look that I've already done. There we go. And you can
see already that well, for me, I'm creating interest there because I've started
bringing in some texture. So what I'm going to do here, it just happened to be this
blue that I pulled out, which is iris blue, which seems rather
appropriate for spring, and I'm going to make some
more marks into this blue. So you can see that I'm just instinctively mark making here. I haven't set out with any preconceived idea
in mind at all. And this is the absolute beauty of being creative with
mandalas because it's really just about expressing
yourself within a circle, which is why I say you
can't get it wrong. And also interestingly,
I can see some sort of mountains and
things coming up here. So I'm going to get
another ink tint pencil out, ink tint pencil out. This one is apple green, and I'm just going to follow that line through a little bit there because that's also
quite interesting look. You can see how quickly you can start to create something here. Now, I don't know what materials and media you might
decide to use. You don't have to
use watercolor paint and ink tins pencils
like I'm using, you can use whatever you like to just create
within your circle. I'm rather liking
this effect with the combination of the
watercolor and the pencil, so I'm going to carry
on with that and just basically go over
the same colors with a similar sort
of pencil color. And just play basically to see what different
effects I can get. So here I'm using
the pencil dry, but putting on quite a bit of deeper color in this area here. And then I may go over it
with water or I may not. We'll just see as I go along, again, using my intuition. So I'm going to go back
to my paint palette here and I'm going to
look at a softer pink. Now, because I already had watercolor paint paint in
that palette beforehand. The pink that I've put in there has kind of
mixed with that, which is quite nice, actually. D you love happy accidents. And this is what I
mean about. Try not to hold too tightly to this. Try and just allow
yourself to experiment. See what flows. Now, I'm
putting all this on, and as I allow my intuition to take over and literally
go with the flow of it, it might not look anything like this by the time I
finish because I might end up blanking bits
out, painting over bits. So again, this is the joy of
just letting yourself play. That's always what it's about for me, letting
yourself play, letting yourself
go, letting go of preconceived ideas of what something should or
shouldn't be like. I also treated myself to these beautiful new
rosemary brushes. They come from
rosemary and company. I've only just
discovered this company, and they are rather lovely, and as you can see, I've
not even used them yet. So let's see Oh, look at that fineness. Let's see what happens here. Beautifully fine. Oh,
they're delightful. If any of you have watched my very first class exploring
color contrast and pattern, you'll know that I encourage you to paint outside of the lines. So many of us were taught at school that we had to
paint in the lines. Otherwise, we were
doing it wrong. So I always encourage you
to paint out of the lines. Break whoever decided to
make that silly rule, break that rule and
just go for it. Interesting things
here happening. Let's go with it a
little bit more. Use this brush just now. And yeah, it's such
a soft day out there. A very soft day. There's even some rather
beautiful clouds, fluffy clouds with a little
bit of gray to them. So let's see if I can create
a little bit of gray to go in again without wanting
to make it feel gloomy. Does that feel gloomy? No, that's quite nice. I'm not trying to recreate the
clouds by any means. I'm just using what I can see
outside of the window as I paint as a little bit of
inspiration for color. Okay. The nice thing about working with a
watercolor palette is that I don't
have to think too hard about the colors because
they're there ready for me. So I don't have to think
too much about what do I need to mix in order to
get a specific color? Do I want to add
this anywhere else? I think I do. I want to add it. In that section there. Just a drop of it, not too much. Now, at this point, I
do feel that I want to let that paint dry
for a little bit. So at this stage in the game, I'm going to take this
opportunity to just think about this month and to
write down how I'm feeling, what will inspire me, what's happening in
the cosmos, the stars, the astrology this month, where the moon is
going to be what's going to be happening
with the solar eclipse, if there is one? I think there is a lunar eclipse this month, I'm pretty sure. So I'm just going to take
this time now and move on to this little bit here
where I'm just going to write down some yeah, inspiring thoughts
that will then hopefully inspire me to
do the next bit of here. Now, again, there's
no right or wrong way about this. I keep saying this. You might not want to
do it like this at all. You might want to write
down your thoughts, anything that you are
inspired by this month. You might have a celebration
coming up, anything at all. You might have a
holiday coming up. You might I don't
know, anything at all. You might want to
just write down in your notes before you
even start your mandala. So I'm just going with
my own flow with this, and this is what's feeling,
good for me right now. So that's where I'm
going to go with it.
3. Adding Thoughts & Reflections: So that's the base of
the mandala now dried. You can see I've done lots
of writing around it. I took the time whilst it
was drying just to reflect, do a little bit of research about what was
happening in the month. Just think about what the
month of March means to me, and it was a really nice way, actually, to be present and engage with the energy of
what's coming up this month. I actually put it
to bed as it were, and that gave me
time then to have a bit more reflection throughout the evening and this
morning as well. Of course, what I need to
do now is to just start doing a little bit more
detail on the mandala. But before I do that, I actually I am going
to cut it out. The reason for doing this is because with it
being in a circle, it doesn't really have
a top or a bottom. So you can actually cut it out and start
to turn it around. Now, the nice thing
about doing this is that you'll see it from a
completely different angle, and the expression of it will spark something
different in you. So this is what I always like to do to just
turn it around, cut it right around the edges, and then take the time
to turn it around and see actually
what feels right. Actually, not what feels right. That's not the
right word, is it? But just what feels more aligned with where you
are in that moment. What's clicking with you is a better way of expressing it. So by turning it around, you do get a different
flavor of it completely. So having turned it
around a few ways now, I've decided that that's
going to be the top. And, of course, you know,
it's my prerogative. I can change your mind on that. It really doesn't
matter, but just for the moment, that's
going to be the top. And what I'm also
going to do is to draw around this smaller
bull by putting it inside the outer
rim and draw around that because that's going to alter a bit of
the design as well. I think I'd also like to add a smaller circle
in the middle as well. So I just need to find a bowl preferably that doesn't
have any paint on it. Just let me see if I can
find a smaller bowl. There we go this dish will do, pop that in the middle or as near as the middle
as I can get it. It doesn't have to be
perfect and draw around that one and then see where
this process is taking me. Again, it's almost a
moment by moment process. You can see there that I just
need to rub that bit out. Let's see what happens here now. So I'm going to bring in some of my lovely gold
acrylic paint pens and start to do some
decorating around the edges. I just turn this over a bit. Then I can use that side
to do a bit of testing. It's always good to test these posca pens or these paint pens before you use them because they do sometimes bleed a little bit. So do a bit of a
test first before you do it onto your final piece. I'm going to start by putting a gold line right
around the edge here. And it's a very personal thing creating something like this, and it simply takes
as long as it takes. So rather than you have
to watch me do this, which really will be
like watching paint dry, I will do this next
bit off camera and then bring you in at some point to let you see
where I've got with it. So then you're not just
sort of, you know, hanging around watching
me play with the paint. As I said earlier, it really is a moment by moment process, and there can be
quite a few long gaps between making one
mark and another. Now, I bet you weren't
expecting that were you. I didn't really
expect it myself. I did start off by doing a kind of rope effect decoration
around the edge. But as the afternoon has turned
more towards the evening, and I was looking at the
notes that I had made, I was reminded of the beautiful
sliver of the waxing moon last night and the
bright brightness of the planet Venus that
was shining really, really bright in the inky
black sky last night. And I just felt more drawn and connected to
that in that moment. So I wanted to bring some
of that element into it, which of course is
what I've started to do now by bringing this blue in. I also decided to actually paint the sliver of the moon in the central bit as well and just soften that edge as well. Soften the outer edge, I mean. I'm going to keep doing
more work on this. I'll probably take it
to its conclusion now and then I'll bring
you back in so that you can see where
I've got with it and how it relates
to the wording.
4. Enjoying The Finished Mandala: And here is the Finnish mandala. As you can see, it's had
quite a transformation from the first playing around
with color that I did. The other day. And obviously, I rewrote a lot of
what I'd written on the bigger page onto
this page here, choosing as well to
do it in a circle. Now, as you can see, I
ran out of room here. I couldn't get everything
that I wanted to write in the circle itself, so I started writing
around the edges, and then I wrote in
the corners as well. I could have probably written
a lot more, to be honest. That's part of the process of understanding what's inside you and what wants to come out
and be revealed if you like. Now you can see why I couldn't really give
you a materials list before we started because as I said in the previous video, it really is a very personal. It's a very personal
journey making a mandala and it
happens in stages. It happens in steps. I didn't have a clue
before I started what materials I even
wanted to work with. But you can see here, I've used various
stamping blocks from different companies. That's the love
one. The word hope. I got this lovely little bird
stamp that I used for here. And then before I put
the stamps on there, what you can
probably see is that the background has ended
up being a lot more faded. I wanted to give it a kind of not slightly distressed look, but more of an older look as
if it had faded slightly. And the way that I
did that was by using some nickel azo yellow
mixed in with Mc medium. And again, you don't need to worry about the quantities of
what you need to be. It's just play around
with it. I basically by putting on map medium with
a tiny bit of color in it, it just knocks the whole
thing back as it were. So that kind of then gave
it more of this faded look. And I've then used heavy
body acrylic pewter. That happens to be Dalla one to create this
lovely silver moon. And as you can see, you know, from everything that
I've written down here, that then just continued
to inform what it was that I wanted to
put into my mandala. You can see that I've made
mention here that we've got International Women's
Day on the eighth, and I've put in there, I honor all women
past present and future that express their voice, however loudly or quietly to balance the skies of
justice will bring love, beauty, and compassion to the world through
their open hearts. And here you can see that I've referenced that in here as
well, love, open heart. They bring hope and you
can see here as well, the references that
are happening here. I've got Venus happening here. She is the planet of beauty
and the planet of love. Then of course, I've got the birds because I've
mentioned here that spring is the time when
the birds are now gathering all the bits and pieces that they want
for doing the nesting. We've got a little
celebratory bit of bunting at the top there because we've got a celebration
coming up this month. It's somebody's birthday. I've also made
reference here with this clock because I don't
know about any of you, but time for me right now is just I don't
recognize it really. I can yeah be confused as to what day it is and what
even time it is in the day. It's like Times doing a really weird and wonderful
whoopi thing right now. Hence the big question
mark around the time. So a gentle reminder, let yourself play. Go
with the floor with it. Don't hold onto it too tightly. Just see what wants to come out, what wants to be expressed. You know, try not to have a preconceived idea of
how it needs to look. Just let yourself play, and there's something
so freeing in this. Enjoy it. That's the main thing.
5. Further Reflections : I hope that you enjoy creating your mandala diary as much
as I've been creating mine. It's really brought
me back to center, which is really what it
was all about for me. And I'm really looking
forward to doing a little bit of research to see what might be happening in the
heavens next month, on the Earth next month, and also looking at what's happening in the family, again, what celebrations
you might have, what other things
to look forward to. In other words, keeping
my vibrations high, keeping my spirits
high, and, you know, bringing the focus of
the world back to me and what's important to me so that
I can remain joyful in it. That's the most
important thing for me. Because when I'm joyful, it means that I can spread
that joy around with others, and that can only be
a good thing, surely. So as usual, I would really
love to see what you create. So if you feel up to sharing your lovely mandala
with the rest of us, just hit the projects tab
underneath the video, and you can upload any images
that you've got there. I'd really love to see them. In the meantime, everybody,
please take care. Look after yourselves and do what you need to do to keep
your spirits high. Bye bye.
Dawn Cawthra, Artist, Designer, Holistic Educator
