Mandala How To!

A little earlier than the usual Mandala Monday
I just finished doing a one minute presentation showing a mandala being created -- one line at a time...
If you are in the area come join me at Mid-South Doodlers, Tuesday September 3, 2013. We meet from 7pm - 9pm at StudioNysha in Bartlett.
I will be doing a full demo this month. Then you can try. No need for supplies I will have some you can use!

Questions. Just ask!

Mid-South Doodlers meets the 1st Tuesday of each month. Join US!

from this

to this

Connection

014
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

Somedays I think I am connected to those around me and other days I feel alone.
I start with an intention and most days I feel I have met my intention and have connected.
Then I listen to peoples' response and find that they are having an all together different experience.
And how many times do you have to hear the same thing before you are confronted with the truth of it?
"When we try to describe the truth with words, we distort it and it's no longer truth -- it's out story. The story may be true for us, but that doesn't mean it's try for anyone else." Miguel Ruiz

What does it mean to connect?

How do you try and connect with others?

What gives you the sense that you have been successful connecting with others?

Moving Days

013
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

So Mandala Mondays look like they will be relocated to Tuesdays.
Monday will be my new Sunday - the second day of my weekend.
A consistent day off is a good thing. Something you can plan around, count on.
I foresee that Saturdays will be busy at StudioNysha. And while not specifically a day in the studio it is a day spent doing quilt related things as there are three bees that meet on Saturdays.
It is also a popular class day.
While I relish routine there is something to say for flexibility. I am working on that one!

Whaaat?

Ever have one of those days? The kind where nothing seems to go according to plan. They are not always bad -- sometimes the unexpected is better then what we planned. Too often we are so attached to what we want to happen that we fail to see the miracle in the present that IS happening.
This has been my week. Work crews scheduled then not coming one day and showing up another time. Plans for one day moved to another due to those schedule changes. And time being made for the  forgotten...
Except that I forgot to post the Monday Mandala yesterday, Monday! Although Tuesday is not Monday is it not Friday either.
Enjoy the miracle that comes unexpectedly to your life!

012
Mixed media on paper
6 x 6

Endurance

011
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

Sometimes the only way to finish a chore it to plow ahead and how for the best. Dividing up the tasks into more manageable bites can be a good approach.
So many times when a mandala is underway it seems to be going the wrong direction; those colours don't look good together, that pattern is [dull, too dark, too similar...]. I find that if I keep going that the end result is always better than I expected at that moment of doubt. More often that not the problem area is no longer offensive.
Keep working and the result might surprise you!

Mandala Monday Could By Yours

Bullet Mandala
SAQA Auction Square
12 x 12

SAQA, Studio Art Quilt Associates is a great organization devoted to promoting the fiber and quilted mediums in the Art world and the general public around the globe. Each fall they have an auction event and hundreds of 12 inch by 12 inch quilts made by SAQA members are auctioned. This is the biggest fundraiser of the year for SAQA.
Check it out.

010
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

Things are starting to bloom at the studio. I started hanging some of the art I have either collected or created. Most of the contractors work is finished; hanging the track lights, electrical and plumbing for the washer and dryer (dying fabric here I come!), installing a hanging rail around the space... even the addition of a refrigerator for my lunch, keeping dye concentrates fresh and chilling the wine for the opening...
I hope your summer is off to a great beginning as well.

Too Much!

010
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

Sometime you get overwhelmed, behind, exhausted. The past week was one of those times. Moving the studio from the house to the new space, preparing for renovation crews at the house. Workmen, deliveries, decisions, inspections, permits -- just all too much! And then today, spent waiting all day long with anticipation of one more thing to get put in place so everyone else can continue...
I will be glad when all the dust settles and we settle into the new normal.
Whatever that might be!

009
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

Sometimes the dark creeps in around the edges and all we have is holding onto what we know is the light at the end of the tunnel. This week has been full of deadlines, start dates as well as festivities. Everything has gotten accomplished properly and effort was absolutely applied. So here is to another week!

Mandala Monday Moving along...

008
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

Some weeks are super productive.
Some weeks less so.
Some weeks are lessons in patience. This is where I have been stuck. Waiting for this. Stalled without that... and yet things seem to move forward.
The wall was erected at the studio. Picture rail was installed.
Next up the painter does his thing and I can finally unpack and get to work!

Mandala Monday, Twins!

006
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

007
6 x 6
Mixed media on paper

One of the great things about working in a series is the idea of duplicates or flushing out an idea. Here are two mandalas that are the same outline treated individually. I wanted to know how distinct I could make them look. In addition to their own colour schemes they follow distinct programs of value and contrast.
In '006' the highest contrast is in the ring toward the center. In '007' it occurs further out and the tips are darker in value. Also there is more contrast in the patterns in '007'.
In working on these I tried to push the differences yet they have the same feel. Perhaps because I did them both. My use of graduated colour, dots and hatching gives them a similarity.
What similarities and differences do you identify? Have you tried something like this, trying to make multiples look different? What was the result? I would love to know.

Mandala Monday

005
6" x 6"
Mixed media on paper

Mandalas by nature have a radiating quality. In illustrating or Zen Tangling these mandalas I am trying to give a greater sense of radiating or pulsing. Some are more successful than others. Some, like this seem to take on another feeling altogether. I like it. Calm with a hint of heat, just like the weekend was.

Just another Mandala Monday

Wish it were Sunday...

Cause I could use another day. How about you?

So many things happening in my world and everyone with a deadline!

004
6 x 6
Mixed Media on paper

One of the things I anticipated in doodling or ZenTangling 144 Mandalas was repetition and boredom. To conquer that would be a feet worthy of the doing. Also to use several of the same outlines and make them look completely different -- not just in colour scheme, no to use colour, value and pattern to make them look like different outlines. THIS is much more challenging than I thought! And yet I love the challenge.

Mandala Monday

Can you wrap your head around the fact that today is the 3rd day of the sixth month of 2013? The year is half over. Christmas will be here before we turn around twice. (Yes, I did go there!)

Spring has been nice - a little wet here in Tennessee and yet with all the rain I did not see a rainbow. I created my own version...

004
6 x 6
Mixed Media on paper

For those of you who do not know about Derwent Inktense Pencils -- can I say THEY ARE THE MOST INCREDIBLE INVENTION! They go onto the paper like coloured pencil, but then you wet them and they are ink and are insoluble. I love the range of intense to muted they can achieve as well as the layering and blending available. Here I started filling in one shape with the yellow. Then I filled in the next with orange, etc
Try them out!

Mandala Monday

Another Mandala Monday

even if a day late.

003
6 x 6
Mixed Media on paper

Mandala Monday

Welcome to the second installation of Mandala Mondays
I have just returned from MQS (Machine Quilters Showcase in Wichita, Kansas) where I learned a lot from several different classes and saw many fun and innovative things.

Back to the mandala... again this is mixed media on paper. That means I used more than one thing, not just graphite like here. I used Pigma MicronPens, Sakura's; Souffle, Glitter, and Glaze pens along with Derwent Inktense pencils

"002"

6" x 6"

mixed media on paper

Mandala Monday

I have long been mad for mandalas. Even before that I was crazy for circles and fell to pieces over great pattern.
All my loves are beginning to come together in a rather grandly scaled project, a six foot by six foot installation of six inch square mandalas.
Let me  back up a bit...
I designed several dozen (six or so) mandalas as a reaction to violence (see previous post here) I printed a few before attending the Studio Art Quilt Associates Conference in Santa Fe at the end of April to use during the 'Artist Speed Dating' event. (Great Fun!)
While at the conference I heard a talk by Pat Pauly and was inspired to begin this project.
Thus begins Mandala Mondays... I will share what I am doing in the creation of one hundred and forty four of these illustrated mandalas. (Yes! Your math was correct. I have a ton to do!)
Here is the first.

"001"

6" x 6"

multi media on paper

Trying Newly -- Again!

I love blogs and Tumblrs. I subscribe to around thirty, so thank goodness most people don't post every day!
Several of my subscriptions are Tumblrs. For those of you who are not familiar with them they are mostly visual blogs - a place to post images that you like or are inspired by. I think of it as a virtual scrap book where I can pull from millions of other people's tear sheets.
Mariët is one. She is a Zentangle fan, calligrapher and bookmaker. Much of the time her posts are written in a language I don't read, but her work is inspiring. Then yesterday I was really inspired. So inspired I downloaded a Zendala Dare string and did a tangle.
If you are wondering what a tangle or Zentangle is -- remember the doodling you did in school when you should have been paying attention to the teacher, (or yesterday in that meeting?)? A version of that is a tangle approached in a meditative manner. The string is the outline you begin with, like the ruled lines on the paper were. This is the string for the mandala below.

Mandala Dare #56

The challenge here was to create with only pencil.

I began with a 7H lead - that is a really hard lead that is easy to make a really light mark with and will not get very dark. I traced the outline (from a printed copy) and further delineated the spaces and began to add patterns.

I needed some dark so I grabbed another pencil with a 6B lead. This is a lead that is very soft and makes a really dark mark (the dark triangles). I filled in the middle with some 3B lead (nice mid softness)

Each lead has a different softness and will give you a different level of dark. The softer the lead the darker it will go. The harder the lead the lighter is can be. Word of warning though -- the hard leads almost inscribe the paper so erasing is not always possible. (Thankfully the marks can be so light that you can really plan ahead, change your mind and it will not show in the final result!) With the softer leads sometimes erasing will only lighten a certain amount off the paper leaving it a little hazy (which can be a nice effect if you wanted it).

I have been doing work on paper much more lately though with ink and coloured pencil and markers. Going back to the basics of graphite was nice. Amazing how fine or a pattern can be rendered in pencil!

PS! If you are thinking I am crazy to follow that many blogs perhaps you don't know about the RSS feed option. If you go to the bottom of this page you will see "Subscribe to Posts (Atom)" link. Click on that and then the link on lower right subscribe in mail. 

In my mail program, "Mail 4.6" that came with my Macintosh there is a folder where subscriptions automatically go. While my unread e-mails are currently 8 it is not counting my unread blogs (over a hundred). The thing I like about that is that it connects me with things I am interested (I don't have to bookmark and  remember to GO read... it just shows up in that folder, but not tallied up in my unread messages taunting me to urgently respond.

Discourse

"We Believe the Children are are future..."
Or so says that one song and many other sentiments like it.
And yet in the three months since the Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting there were more than 2,000 gun related deaths in the United States. These deaths range in age from 6 months to elderly.
And yet the discussion has stalled on Capital Hill. Ok - good for them that they had a discussion and not a filibuster. Small consolation, but the threat of one was disgraceful and childish.

See names and statistics here

My manner of dealing with it is to become totally obsessed with Bullet Mandalas. I have created several dozen design outlines, illustrated a couple, made a book, and stitches a couple. More are on the way. I thought it was time to debut a few...

First Mandala, Doodled with names of Sandy Hook Victims
Ink on paper, 8 x 8

Second doodled mandala
Ink and pencil on paper
8 x 8

First Illustrated Mandala
ink on watercolour paper
13 x 13
Shown against black fabric. Will be mounted on matt board.

Second Illustrated Mandala
ink on watercolour paper
13 x 13
Shown against black fabric. Will be mounted on matt board.

 My objective to not to take a position on guns. My desire is that we have an actual dialogue on the issues. And they are plural. We can not just have more control or less. People are the ones who hate, but the guns and people pull the triggers propelling the bullets toward someone's end. There are so many issues that need addressing, responsibility, education, poverty, mental health and illness, second amendment, etc.
We can not solve all these issues at one time, and yet people are dying.
Dyeing in their schools and workplaces, in their homes, on the streets and on the battle field.
Can we at least talk about it?