More FLOWERING MANDALA'S

I am posting the rest of the photos that I took at the Mandala Workshop.

I love watching as they evolve into such beautiful pieces of art.

Each so unique and expressive of the artist's flowering essence.

I am hoping every one sends me the completed images so I can post them here 

for the world 

to view.

The process of creating them was a meditation and a joy for each person.

The practice of creating mandala's helps us to find our center in a graphic way.

 Creating mandalas is like creating a map that allows us to orient ourselves to our 

own inner balance. 

Here we are working from the flowers in my studio. What a lovely day it was.

And so for me it is time to move onward, and complete the mandala I began that day.  I will post its progress at a later time.   





Our next Mandala Retreat Day will be on Saturday June 20th, on the Summer Solstice.  Our focus will be the Four Elements.  Get in touch if you are interested in joining me and Patricia in this wonderful meditative and healing art practice.  

Mandalas- From Spring Blossoming Retreat Day- in the begining

The Spring Mandala Retreat Day was a wonderful, meditative, and nurturing experience.

I am posting photos from the morning part of the workshop, so people can see the evolution of the mandalas that people created. Here the mandalas are all hung on the studio wall, so we could stand back and look at them from a distance.

In the begining........

The second day of spring, was a rainy day in Northern California, perfect for a long idyllic day of drawing, slow and meditative mandalas.  After spending part of the morning doing smaller mandalas on black paper, we began our larger pieces.

The studio was filled with flowers, which were both inspiration and visual prompts for our blossoming mandalas.  I am always amazed at the uniqueness of each person's expression.

We applied the metaphor of blossoming to our lives as well, with our mandalas being external expression of the seeds of personal transformation that were being set and opened in the spring.

Several people used the Calla Lilly as their jumping off point.  

I took many photos of the evolution of the mandalas.  I will post more of them later.  Since very few of the 8 participants finished their mandala's on Saturday, they plan on sending the images to us later.  I will hopefully post them all together at a later date.

Getting Ready for Saturdays Mandala Workshop

Today we are organizing and rearranging the studio to get ready for the Illuminated Mandala Workshop that we are doing on Saturday.  In honor of the Spring Equinox, we are focusing on flowers and the experience of blossoming and flowering into our fullness of experience.  

So I am posting images of both flower mandalas and flowers that I have drawn.  

Each of these Illuminated Drawings, based on Judith Cornells process of drawing the light from within, were created by drawing the images first with white pencil on black art paper.  
By creating scale of light drawing with white prismacolor pencils as the foundation, we bring our inner light out of the imaginal world of the black paper, and let the light of our intuitive, creative selves shine through onto the paper.  
This drawing, The Flower Deva, was drawn during a weeklong retreat at Esalen in Big Sur, that Judith taught, using the inner essence of the flowers to guide us.  We visualized each flower internally, as we working with the real flower, and asked the flower what it wanted from us, and how to express it visually.  This  small   Flower Deva appeared at the very end of the drawing in the lower left hand corner of the drawing.  By the end of the week, I was seeing aura's around all the flowers, and everyone I came in contact with.  What a powerful experience.  

I will post photos of the mandala's and the workshop after the weekend.  HAPPY SPRING!

MAY BALANCE AND HARMONY BEGIN TO FLOWER AND BLOSSOM ALL AROUND US!!!

FULL MANDALA - Finally Finished

I have finally finished the Full Moon, Growth mandala, that I began at our New Years Intention Setting Workshop.  Interestingly, last night was the full moon, and on Saturday March 21st, we are facilitating our Blossoming into Spring Mandala Retreat Day.  It usually takes me about 3 months to get around to finishing a mandala.  Doing these retreat days gives me an opportunity to begin a mandala, as well as set the energy for the intention that I focus on.  

This mandala was about opening  to new possibilities.  I love how the roots sink deep into the earth, and parallel the extending branches into the night sky.  The work of creating intentions is both inner and outer.  I can see that in my life as I begin to network and set seeds for new direction in my work life.

We will be holding this workshop in my studio on the first day of spring and drawing our inspiration from the flowers of spring.  Join us if you are in Northern California.  For more information you can link to our website at the Creative Arts Studio.

More Photos from Weekend Encaustic Workshop

Here are more photos from the Encaustic Weekend Workshop.   

 Here's are more photos of the encaustics.....

Cheesecloth and voile fabric dipped in beeswax has  amazing three dimensional possibilities
                                  This is a photo transfer piece that I did.
This little encaustic was a sample piece I did incorporating collage, lace and metallic string dipped in beeswax and some scraffito texture..
Another piece incorporating the magic of voile fabric ( tutu material) and cheesecloth
Photo transfer is the basis of this piece with alot of carving done into the wax. 

Another photo transfer piece done from a zerox of an original drawing by Patricia Waters


Mystery abounds in this piece with  lots of cheese cloth dipped in medium.


Heres Liz sharing her process and the story behind this mixed media encaustic painting.





And last but not least, this one has much dimension created by flowers dipped in medium, but it doesn't quite show in the photo.  There were quite a few more pieces that the group members did that I didn't photograph, most of these were done on the first day. I was so into the process on the second day that taking pictures slipped my mind.    I am looking forward to getting back into the studio myself and completeing some pieces I began...but this week is all about taxes and cleaning up my studio for my Friday Medicine Art Group.  I will post more of my work in a later post.  Whew...