Mandala Complete - Process Photos

I recently completed the mandala I started at the Spring New Beginnings Mandala day that I recently facilitated at my studio.

I am such a sucker for show and tell, perhaps because, I loved it as a little girl, showing off my art to others. However, my training as an art therapists, enamored me with the stages of my process in creating as well, so here follows a series of photos of the stages of my mandala.

 As it takes form new directions are  showing as possible directions I can take the drawing. I love how the scale of light drawing, seems to sculpt dimension and form, through the contrast of the white on black.

 Although I could have taken more photos in the earlier stage, here is my mandala with just the beginnings of color coming in.  The central image of this mandala really stands out in this photo. The holding/ honoring of the iris in the center, which to me is about opening and holding a space within for the new the emerge and flower in my life.

And here is the completed mandala.  Often time in this drawing process, the image changes again and again.  I have a tendency to be a bit heavy handed with my pencil and it affects my ability to lay in more color, so I have lost some of the gradations in the center.  But I still love how the holding energy stands out admist the opening mandala.  Holding Possibility, Dwelling in the Possibility of New beginings, new opportunities, beginning again and again.

After spending quite a few days working on a mandala, I am almost bereft that it is complete, but I also am trying to stop sooner rather than later, to avoid over working and allowing the mystery of the black, the unknown powerful mystery of the procreative darkness, to be part of the image. Without the dark, the light is not as bright.
Now on to the next mandala, or???? Ciao.