Day of Creating Prayer Flags...in process

In my Medicine Art Womens Expressive Art group, we began creating our own Prayer Flags this week. Only 2 people came to group this week, but we all were so engaged, that it was nice having the space in the studio to work.  All I can say is what fun we had.. Here are some photos of our ongoing process.

 First we cut unbleached muslin into the size and shape we wanted.

Then we painted washes of Jaquard fabric paints on them and put them in the sun to dry.
Horray that it was a sunny, warm day.
The next step was using stencils of both letters and images, that we pounced onto the fabric...and wallah!  amazing things began to happen.

 Here you can see some of Roberta's in process.  We all got about 2 of them kind of done that day.

 This is Marcella showing off one of her prayer flags..

 These last two are the ones that I did that day.

 This will obviously be about a 3 session process, and with the other members of the group joining it
who knows how long we will be at it.  So many ideas are brewing in regards to this process.

Even my own entreprenurial mind is spinning, and I am thinking of doing a day long prayer flag workshop for others it was soo exciting and fun.

These are inspired by Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags, which monks hang so the prayers printed on them (traditionally in sanskrit with an image of the Buddha) can be whisked into the universe with help from rain, wind, sunshine. When we are too preoccupied to hope the best for the world at all times, the flags are a constant prayer. They're even left unhemmed intentionally, the quicker to disperse their  prayers.

New Years Mandala Retreat Day Process Photos to Share

On January 9th we had our annual, New Years Mandala Retreat Day, "Mandala as Visual Prayer".  We gave it that title, because, the act of drawing a mandala, or for that matter doing any artmaking with intention, is a visual active dynamic prayer.

The workshop was absolutely wonderful, with a very, lovely group of 10 engaged participants, plus myself and Patricia Waters.  We co-facilitate these mandala workshops four times a year, around the change of the seasons, and at the New Year.

The next day, however,  I got hit with a pretty virulent cold virus. It totally laid me up, and I have been in dream time ever since. 10 days later, I am on prednisone and still not too well.  I realized that I wasn't feeling good that day, because I didn't feel up to photographing the mandala's at the end.

So without further ado, here are all the photos I took that day.  Unfortunately,  my energy was very low at the end of the day, and I didn't photograph everyone's mandala drawings at the end of the workshop.  I haven't added mine here, either, I will do that as it progresses on another post, as well as Patricia's completed one for the day.

                                                             Working in the studio.

                                My good friend Vicki down from Mt. Shasta for the workshop.

                                     Patricia and Sanna Rose, looking at her mandala's progress.

                                                  Judy and her daughter Kaila.

                                        Hearts within hearts within hearts, wonderful

                                                  Allysa proudly sharing her drawing.

                                                                       Release

Patricia Waters in process mandala.

                                              Here is Sanna Rose's completed Mandala

                                               Sue Wiseman's completed Mandala.
I will be posting other completed mandala's as they are sent to me.  Enjoy viewing them.  More to come
Caterina.