Category Archives: mandala

So Fancy Mandala

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Put that on your hair ornament and wear it. 

There’s a nice string of pretty fancy mandalas coming up. I must have had a great run of calm focus and serenity a couple years ago. Trying to remember what that’s like.

I thought I’d start a Tumblr to promote my blog, but not that I’ve poked around Tumblr, I realize that I should have just started the blog on Tumblr. Oh, well. Too late now. Still, having your own website is useful, too. Twenty-six dollars a year isn’t that much.

It’s full-on springtime, edging into summer, around here. Winter usually breaks by mid-February around here, but still. This el nino global warming weather is getting ridiculous. The man commenced to showering outside in the unheated garden shower last week. Anyway, with springtime in the desert comes an explosion of wildflowers, which inspire a lot of macrophotography. You can see some of it on Imgur: here’s a tiny fleabane wearing a tiny insect as a hat, and here’s a red poppy stamen.

That’s about it for art this weekend, although I scripted some comics. Not really feeling the Wacom tablet right now. Maybe it’s time to switch to pencil and paper.

 

Buzzy Bee Mandala

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Bees: not shy about anything at all. 

I very much like bees. That is all there is to say about that. The colors are nice too.

Been working on a longer comic all week. Took quite a while to nail the script down and hours to do the lettering, even though the original idea was about two sentences long. It needed fleshing out. I typically do the lettering first, but not always; the tighter the artwork needs to be, the more important it is to get the words in beforehand, or you might end up without enough space for the text. The artwork is going to be pretty complicated, because I need to draw a lot of famous people, and obviously, it’s harder to draw famous people because they have to be recognizable as specific humans rather than just being circles with dots for eyes and a parenthesis for a mouth.

It’s a funny, one, too. I hope. I’ve never done a funny one this complicated.

So I should probably go work on it instead of on this, since hardly anyone ever reads this blog on Mondays anyway.

Fruit Salad Mandala

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Grapefruits and cherries. They’re grapefruit and cherries. Get your mind out of the gutter.

I have this dilemma regarding how political I want to go; in the last week, I’ve been involved in a few really interesting conversations about democratic socialism starting with randomly telling the Girl about FDR and the WPA. Then I made a throwaway comment–a joke, really–on someone’s Facebook page, and a mutual friend who I think is actually a poly sci prof or something like that challenged me to define socialism.

Man, I was actually afraid. Who wants to get spanked online by a guy who’s probably 10 years their junior but way further ahead in his career? I almost just copied the entry from the giant OED in my desk. (Aw, hell, who I am kidding? I just love pulling that thing out of my desk. It weighs about 50 pounds and comes with this crazy hemisphere magnifying glass.) But then I thought about what the word meant to me and wrote something kind of thoughtful and intelligent that wasn’t exactly about what “socialism” means, but about what it means to individuals, what it could mean under certain circumstances. And more-successful-than me professor guy gave it a like.

Anyway, it could also be a comic. It would have been super cool to have it ready now, just in time to kick off caucus season (ug) but those serious comics take the most time to lay out and I was getting punched in the guy by my monthly dudebro and also The Man had to play a klezmer concert for a mock Jewish wedding at a Hebrew school north of here, and that sounded more interesting than not attending a klezmer concert for a mock Jewish wedding. Maybe I can do it tomorrow. Although I might have a tattoo consultation tomorrow.

So many comics to read and write!

Amusing anecdote about people who don’t understand socialism:

In 2002 or 2003 I was standing in this interminable line at the Walgreen’s pharmacy counter. I don’t even think I was getting my own medication; it seems to me that I was picking something up for a friend, and this line was WAY past the toothpaste and didn’t seem to be moving at all. And there was a guy in front of–old white guy wispy white hair and a fierce voice–and he had opinions. Lots and lots of opinions.

Well, complaints, really. His medications were so expensive. His doctors were so expensive. He was getting ripped off on all his pills. Everyone was profiting off his misery. It was just terrible, terrible, everything cost so much, medical care cost so much money. This dude was telling me (well, everyone in the vicinity, but I was the person behind him so I was the most trapped) about how much his healthcare cost for like 10 minutes.

Finally he took a breath for air and looked at me expectantly.

“That’s why we need socialized medicine,” I said.

“Well, YOU’RE a COMMUNIST,” he replied, disgusted, and mercifully turned his back on me and shut up.

People are unclear on the concept.

Green Machine Mandala

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I love it when a mandala comes together.

This is pretty sharp mandala, good symmetry, complexity, and layers. It’s based on a principle of 12, which gives it a powerful foundation. There’s so much repetition and less variation. It’s easier to not make a mistake in proportions, especially when you’re mostly dealing with triangles all going the right way. It looks complicated, but it’s actually a little easier than some mandalas with fewer layers.

If I am a green machine, I am a worn down one that requires recharging. Friday and Saturday night were each strenuous in their own ways, and it catches up, even though today all I did was write an article about Lost Girls and cook and clean. There is a bit of a comic in my head but it would be funnier if the joke were expanded, although it could still work in a simple form.

Someone else told me how much they loved the Rapunzel comic from last week. Everyone I know personally who read it thought it was hilarious, but strangers on the Internet didn’t seem impressed. However, my David Bowie tribute was randomly trending somewhere for almost 24 hours Saturday and Sunday so traffic was up all weekend.

No more art news. Only sleepytime news.

 

Red Diamond Mandala

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Just slightly askew. Hopefully in an aesthetically pleasing fashion.

Earlier this week someone made an interesting comment about civil rights that I tried to spin into an MLK Day comic, but every script I wrote sounded tongue-in-cheek or off topic so I decided not to chance it today. For now, I have standard boilerplate for Martin Luther King’s birthday, which I used to tell my students when I taught college freshman. I would basically suggest to them that, on their day off, they make a good faith attempt to increase the overall level of tolerance, equality, and love on the planet, and, if they couldn’t manage that, to at least stay inside and not to talk to anyone so they wouldn’t make the situation any worse.

In fact, a lot of years I choose the second option myself.

People can be very hard to love sometimes.

Reddit has been a real mixed blessing for me; my traffic has increased tenfold since I’ve been there, but part of promoting your work on Redding involves being part of the community on Reddit, and a lot of being part of the community on Reddit involves dealing with people who use their anonymity to express massive bigotry, the kind of thing that most people don’t say out loud anymore because they know it’s not OK. But it’s apparently very OK in certain forums. It’s certainly the only arena in my life where I know I will be castigated for espousing a feminist viewpoint.

So, while I like to believe in the overall goodness of humanity and the concept that most people are basically decent, it’s hard to talk myself into that in an election year, when I can see that there are thousands and thousands of people who feel personally threatened by the concepts of tolerance, equality, and love.

It’s too bad, because we could be living in paradise right here, right now. It would be so easy. That’s really all that any civil rights activist is saying: let’s not hurt each other. Let’s just allow everyone the same rights and freedom we want for ourselves. It’s nicer that way.

It’s weird to me that it’s so hard.

Instead of my off-kilter and possibly offensive take on freedom and equality, I started a much sillier comic. “It’s probably stupid and not funny,” I told The Man, and then I showed the sketch to him, and he said it was very funny. So, possibly, tomorrow you’ll laugh, if you read this page tomorrow, and also if you have a sense a humor that’s similar to mine or The Man’s, and, of course, if life flows smoothly enough that the comic gets finished and uploaded before that. The Rabbit used to say, “Man plans; God laughs.” But we don’t really have much choice but to keep planning.

Dotty Mandala and Macrophotography

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It’s a bit spotty, isn’t it?

That was another breakneck weekend. And now it’s over.

This mandala is stark and cold, like the snow icing the mountains, making the desert look like Denver. It being somewhat threadbare, here is some macrophotography to fill in any gaps the white space may have left in your visual pleasure receptors.

Humans have visual pleasure receptors, right? Feast your eyes on this:

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What else are you missing?

This is the bud of an aloe flower. Tiny and pretty!

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Twisty!

This is a detail of a small garden sculpture my mother bought me at a street fair. It happens to be the curly hair of a little fairy, a very specific fairy, in fact: the first year dance fairy. You can tell by how she holds her feet. It’s a long story. But a small detail.

There ya go. Happy Monday.

New Year, New Boob Mandala

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Breast cancer turned my friend into a comedian. “Last year, my boob tried to kill me,” she says, “so I killed it first.” Then she makes a kind of ninja sword slicing sound–“Wah-CHAA!”– while whipping her hands around and everyone laughs. Because the alternative is worse.

I seem to average about 2 friends surviving breast cancer a year. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t beaten it yet, but it’s a rough year and people keep doing battle with the monster. This mandala was actually drawn in honor of my mother-in-law’s victory, which was several years ago, but I probably know 10 people who’ve dealt with it since then.

It’s a good thing a strong mandala came up today, because I don’t feel wholly prepared to start up another year of webcomics and art blogging. This is because I had what I think of as a “mom vacation,” which means that everyone around me is on vacation and my workload actually doubles because everyone’s around all the time and everyone needs things from me and by the end of the day I’m too intellectually worn out to actually create anything, which then enervates me even more. So, since I can’t afford to go away for a couple days by myself and sit in absolute silence without taking care of other people, my “vacation” will actually be going back to business as usual.

Maybe I’ll draw a comic about it. Or maybe I’ll use the ridiculous gag my brother sent me yesterday, because who doesn’t like lame, esoteric puns?

I’ve also got a New Year’s bulletin board to hang. And about ten thousand other things to do.

So it’s even odds as to whether tomorrow you’ll get a comic or some macro photography. It’s such a massive surprise even I don’t know.

 

 

 

Keep Mum Mandala

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Some mandalas are too big for the paper to hold them. 

Just putting the finishing touches on tomorrow’s comic, which is a big serious one that I spent all weekend on. The artwork is top notch. And if you disagree, I’ll try not to take it personally. Some people don’t appreciate awesome, and that’s OK for them.

This mandala is kind of crazy. Not sure why it’s so difficult to center them on the page without metrological help, but the size of this one really highlights how askew it is. Not really wild about the colors, either. What I do like about it is how much it resembles a chrysanthemum.

Well, happy Monday. It’s the last week before winter break for the kids. We have Star Wars tickets for Friday and our 4rd holiday event of the season Saturday. I’m too cold to really plan things. My body’s instinct is to curl up and hibernate until Groundhog Day. And yes, I know that 43° isn’t that cold in the grand scheme of things, and yes, it’s better than 21°, or -2°, but I’m still cold and ineffective.

Broken Pieces Mandala

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You break it, you buy it.

Ooh, menacing mirror reflects all-seeing evil in shattered shards. And that’s about what there is to say about this mandala. It’s really deliberately off kilter, smashed fragile things not tending to break in really reliable ways.

This weekend I folded some more cranes–I’m up to 60 now–so it seems like 1,000 won’t be impossible. I just have to keep the paper at hand and can make them when I’m on the phone or doing things that don’t require my hands. Have some ideas about stringing them all together, too. Folding 3 or 4 at a time is vastly preferable to folding 37 in a row.

Photo on 12-6-15 at 7.49 PM #4The Girl liked the rainbow of cranes so I showed her how to do 1, and then she wanted to do some other things: she chose the sanbo, which is like a little tiny box, and a rabbit. She would have liked to learn the lotus flower, which is the only 1 I remembered from childhood–had to look all the other stuff up and puzzle through the directions, which, as any American who’s done origami from a book knows, are always bizarrely confusing–but it was a bit too complicated for her.

Working on one of the “pretty” comics for tomorrow, meaning using photos for source material and getting a very particular style that is still very cartoony in terms of color but maintains some photorealism in terms of shape. The comic itself is still pretty nerdy.

Top Leaf Mandala

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Yeah, I know what it looks like. My lips are sealed.

I’m back, and I have acquired 3 POUNDS of polymer clay for all your teeny tiny viewing pleasure. There’s one specific project I need to complete in the next couple weeks but after that, who knows. It’s 3 pounds. I could create a grocery store full of teeny tiny produce, or a teeny tiny city for the polymer Dragon to stomp through like a friendly blue Godzilla, or a garden of teeny tiny flowers, or more teeny tiny figures to wander through fantasy landscapes.

Today, Mrs. Kitty and I took a walk in the desert with the new Macro lens that Fox gave me, and we took giant pictures of teeny tiny things. I foresee a hilarious comic that involves little cartoon adventurers and a large cartoon spider, set against a backdrop of a series of landscape images that actually comprise about 6 inches of rock. Had some other comic ideas, but now it’s late and my fine motor coordination is probably compromised. I don’t think either Mrs. Kitty or I were really prepared, physically, for this particular hike.

This week, I have a paying assignment to write about pediatric cancer research and funding. Pretty sure there’s something else I’ve forgotten about, but it will definitely come to me, hopefully before the person I promised to write it for asks me when they can expect it.