MANDALA DAYS
Virtual Gallery Page Two
Sonas
Painted during an unusually blazing summer, this abstracted landscape was created as a juxtaposition to my direct experience at the time. For many years, I thought the Gaelic word for sun was ‘sonas’. It isn’t – the Scottish Gaelic-English Dictionary online translates ‘sonas’ as : good luck ; passion ; happiness – nevertheless, it seems fitting here.
Media: Acrylic paint by Liquitex
Surface: Cotton Canvas
Size: 40 x 40 cm
Against the Grain
In this mandala, the abstract shapes and patterns were inspired by the wood grain of the panel that it was painted on. All of the pieces fit together like a puzzle, while the outlines extend over the edges of the mandala circumference into the background. It speaks to understanding the whole by looking at the details, and how these parts interact with the outside world.
Media: Acrylic Paint
Surface: Cradled birch panels
Size: 25.4 x 25.4cm
Wind In Trees
That day, the winter sky hosted a mid-afternoon dance of stark and slowly swaying trees against a river of clouds, iridescent, floating and fast flowing. This was a powerful but slow and calm dance. When I asked the mandala why it gave me the distracting clatter of small and noisy branches criss-crossing the sky, she answered: “Sometimes you are the noise.”.
Media: Promarker by Winsor & Newton
Surface: Mixed Media paper by Strathmore
Size: 17 X17 cm
Creation Song
Surrender into Emergence
From the darkness emerges a spiral. Centre to periphery, and then periphery to centre.
Taking the outside in, and expressing from the inside out until its impossible to tell which direction
the spiral moves in. The soft emerging of the centre into space is held in sharp relief by bright and
strong colour.
Media: Caran D’Ache Neocolor Acquarelle crayon with Daler Rowney Acrylic
Surface: 300gsm hot pressed watercolour paper
Size: 30cm x 42xm
Personality Mandala Study
In love with life. This mandala bubbles over with enthusiasm as it weaves beautiful bright colours and shapes into a life tapestry. We are all living tapestries weaving our ways through life. Notice the star in the middle made up of two triangles that point in various directions. We can feel pulled about by life circumstances, but we always have the choice of what we integrate and what we leave out… There is a grounding wire as well as well as one going up to the ethers… we are held in between making our life into our art.
Media: Gouache, watercolour, metallic pen
Surface: Canson Torchon watercolour paper
Size: 32 x 41cm
You are key
Using the Concentric Circles technique, this Mandala is a visual representation of a nights dream. This was the 2nd version of this piece – the first depicting the true colour palette of each element. The strong imagery within this piece held bold and motivational messages for me.
Media: Letraset/Windsor & Newton Promarkers, Staedtler pigment liner
Surface: Cass Art 70gsm Marker Paper
Size: 20cm x 20cm
Divine Spark
Inspired by the quote from the Talmud:
“Every blade of grass has an angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow! Grow!”
All life is animated by a Divine Spark that splits cells, and gives us growth. We can heal when we heed the message of the Divine Spark and allow it to live within our body and soul.
Media: gouache
Surface: watercolour paper
Size: 21 x 21cm
Destiny Of All Living Things
The rituals of life and death are passed down the generations. It is this knowledge that keeps the traditions continuing in the modern age, even if they are slightly changed to accommodate modern practices and technologies. This is the creation of something new from something old. The two are intertwined; this is the living mandala of death.
MEDIA: mixed media (acrylic paint & paper)
SURFACE: stretched cotton canvas
SIZE: 35.6cm X 35.6cm
Spider Berry
An organic, sustainable spacecraft where silk makers feast on the fleshy berry while spinning gossamer silk threads around the 24-hour clock, day and night.
Media: Copic alcohol markers and pigma pens
Surface: Strathmore smooth Bristol paper
Size: 21.5 cm x 21.5 cm
Cosmos
Based on a pattern of creation found throughout the universe.
Media: Colored pencil, metallic ink
Surface: Mixed media paper
Size: 28cm x 21cm