Mandalas and more

I have been truly remiss in posting here.  My life has been filled to the brim, with new work, creative endeavors and more and more SoulCollage® experiences.  So where to begin, with Mandala's of course.  A week ago,Patricia Waters and I facilitated a Gratitude Mandala Day, at the  Journey Center in Santa Rosa. It was a  sweet, small group,  and we all moved very deeply into the healing aspects of creating Mandala's.  None of us completed our mandalas, but everyone got  quite a bit done and loved every minute of it.   So to continue with  my usual love of   sharing  this process  I am posting the photos that I took of that day here.

 Scale of light practice drawings...

 Small mandalas

 Here is Elizabeth with her absolutely magical mandala that she started at our 

Fall Mandala Day and recently finished.

 Here is a close up of her stunning mandala.

Stay This Moment

 Heart Energy Abounds as we focus on gratitude.

 As the day drew near to an end, almost everyone started to add 

the life energy of color to their mandala's.

 Patricia flew in from the big island the night before our workshop, and swam with a turtle  so this experience was reflected   in her wonderful healing mandala.

 This final one is my mandala, which is obviously just in its beginning stages.  

I will post this again as it progresses.  

Focusing our intentions, and awareness on what we are grateful for, while being present in the 

moment for whatever came up, was a very powerful experience.  

I am really blessed to be doing and sharing this work with others.  I am truly grateful for more life.

Tree of Life Mandala Completed

It has been almost a month since I last posted anything here.  I've been busy, playing around with making paper dolls, cutting out images from magazines for my SoulCollage® workshops, experimenting with more CitraSolv backgrounds, and finishing this mandala...among many other pursuits.  

                                                                  Tree of Life Mandala

I struggled with this mandala quite a bit, as I worked on it,  feeling that the sun color wa too dominant....and at times wishing I had just left the drawing in black and white, or at least left more black in the drawing. But Patricia suggested I bring more of the orange of the sun into other parts of the image and in so doing I finally came to resolution with it. Unfortunately, none of the other participants from the Fall Mandala Retreat, sent me any images, so I am posting this alone.

By the way, we are doing a Gratitude Mandala Workshop on Novemeber 12th in Santa Rosa, if you are in the area and are intrigued with this wonderful art process.  Contact the Journey Center for more info.

Paper Dolls anyone????

While I am at it, I mentioned that I had been playing with making some paper dolls.  I do art mentoring with several little girls and since I planned a paper doll lesson, I pulled out some color copies of my art and turned them into my own version of paper dolls...just for the fun of it and as examples of paper doll possibilities.  The little girl I work with, of course took off on her own unique way of  expression, but I had some examples of my own to share with her.  Talk about fun.  Here are the ones that I did, all in differing stages of becoming complete.

 This one is not complete yet, and her face is collaged from a photograph of me as as little girl.

Again, all are still on process. It is so fun to do this and it made me remember how much time I loved to spend cutting out paper dolls when I was a little girl.  No wonder I love collage so much.

One final thing... here is a link to a clip from a movie called "Praying with Images"
about the art and life of  the amazing artist Meinheid Craighead.     .Praying With Images
If you don't know here work, this will be a epiphany for you.  Enjoy... Until next time. Ciao

Tree of Life Mandala Workshop

Here are the process photos of the Tree of Life Mandala Workshop that we led last Sunday.

I love to  the witness the process people go through during these mandala experiences.  This image is of our beginning small mandalas where we  practice the scale of light in a circle. We always stop and put them up on the wall, to get a better overview of what we have done, as well as to stretch, and rest our eyes.  It helps to stand back from one's work.

Here is an image of everyone drawing around the large tables in the middle of my studio.  It was  a wonderful group of people, with such good energy.

The following photos are a sampling of everyone in the midst of starting their larger mandala.

Although our focus was the Tree of Life, everyone had permission to go in their own personal direction in their mandala.

This mandala was an honoring of the hope of the one tree that was left after the tsnumani and earthquake that happened in Japan.

                                               Another Tree of Life Mandala.

                           Keeping the pencils really sharp really helps in this drawing process.

                              It is always amazing to see what emerges for people in their mandalas.

By the afternoon we did some color blending exercises to give people the courage to dive into color.

             Here are some more of the black and white mandalas......I am sharing the evolution of pretty much everyone's mandala's here.

I love to see how they change as more and more scale of light shading brings depth, light and life to them.

                        And now comes the color, vibrant, brilliant rainbow scales of color....

It is often difficult at times,  to add color to these powerful black and white mandala's... some people really hesitate and it is not uncommon for some folks to either love or hate these first tentative steps into adding color.

                                                                             Hope

It is amazing how different each one becomes, and how unique everyones use of color is.

Only one person completed their mandala that day, everyone else was in different stages of the process.
This is a slow and meditative process, about being in the moment with what is coming up internally, as well as how it is mirrored in the mandala that is drawn.

This is Doris's powerful healing mandala, here sharing was a rich and deep model for where the mandala process can lead.

This final mandala is my Tree of Life Mandala in different stages of development.

I am now just beginning to add color to my mandala and I will share it here when it is complete.

Hopefully, the mandala group will send me images of their completed mandalas.  If and when that happens I will post it here for the world to see.  Until the next time....Ciao

Tree's on my mind.... The Tree of Life...

This Sunday we are facilitating our yearly Fall Equinox Illuminated Mandala Retreat Day, at my studio behind my house.  By we, I am referring to myself and my good friend Patricia Waters, who is also a Mandala Facilitator of the late Judith Cornell's wonderful mandala process.  

Our focus for this workshop is the Tree of Life... and just thinking about it has really stimulated me and has made me pay more attention to trees, as well as the trees that have unconsciously emerged in my art over time.  Again and again, the tree becomes a central motif for me.  

  As I reflected on trees, my love of them and how important they are to me, I remembered that my earliest drawings as a child, were of trees.  I would spend hours and hours drawing trees with limbs that turned into little rooms and then created little magical areas in the roots systems, where little people could live.  There was always a knot hole at the bottom where the people, or elves or gnomes would enter the tree and journey to their little apartments under the ground.  Shamanic journeying.... as a child my imagination was fertile ground and I was always looking for a safe and magical place to reside.  How I wish I still had some of those drawings, nevertheless they popped up in my imagination as I started reflecting on drawing a Tree of Life Mandala this Sunday, and I realized how deep the tree roots were in my life.

Then I began googling tree of life drawings....and was astounded to see my Tree Mandala's all over the place online, on different peoples blogs, as graphics for articles and in many other settings, most of them gave me credit for the image, but many didn't.  It felt odd, to be so out there, and yet a bit invasive as well.  But that is all part and parcel of having my images on flickr, here and in the many shops I have online.  None  the less, I wished people would give to who drew the original image, let alone contact info, and dare I even mention copyright user fees.    The biggest issue, was when someone told me that this image was included in a Mandala Greeting Card Coloring Kit on Amazon. Now that is a different story.  So, it leads me to being much more aware of what I pull off the web and giving credit where credit is due.  

I am very excited to gather with others this week and dive into the Autumn and my unconscious and will post the photos from the workshop here for others to see.   Until then, here is a  quote to leave you with.

The Tree of Life is a universal symbol found in many spiritual and mythological traditions around the world. In various cultures it is known as the Cosmic Tree, the World Tree and the Holy Tree. The Tree of Life symbolizes many things, including wisdom, protection, strength, bounty, beauty, and redemption. This wise and holy Tree is like the Creator as it sustains creation with its abundant fruit, protection and generativity.                                                            From http://www.treeoflifeteachings.com/tree-of-life/

                               And some beautiful healing redwood trees from Fort Bragg California....


By the way, if anyone out there is interested in any of these mandala's I sell matted prints of them on my store on etsy, SoulArteEclectica, and I have  cards and all kinds of interesting products made with these mandalas on them on my zazzle store   ArteEclectica,  so please do check them out, the holidays are fast approaching and they can make great inspirational gifts.......there I did my promo.  Ciao. Caterina