Category Archives: mandala

Eternal Flame Mandala

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Where love blooms, there is a flame.

Most of my weekend, including Friday, involved cleaning (meh), but I did also attend a klezmer concert in the suburbs (The Man plays the trombone), and work on my Thanksgiving project, which is adorable. Planning on finishing (at least the part for the website) tonight.

Honestly, I thought making a cornucopia out of paper bag would be simpler.

I like the vividness of this mandala, and its Georgia O’Keefe secret-yonis-everywhere quality.

Now the holiday is upon us and only a small percentage of what I wanted accomplished got accomplished. It would have been nice to have a publicity plan in place to promote my store before Black Friday. As it is, an email blast may be all I can manage. Not sure I have a budget for paid advertisement, and time is sort of limited, since my family is coming, which is why I wasted my entire weekend de-grossifying my house (to the best of my ability; it still has some qualities of grossness). The Man says we’re 41 years old and don’t have to explain our lifestyle to our parents. Still, I don’t personally like wallowing in filth, my own or anyone else’s.

Now I go in search of some double-sided tape.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral Mandala

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Ooh...dimensionality through texturization

Ooh…dimensionality through texturization

There came a point at which I realized that the mandalas were starting to form patterns, which allowed me to deliberately mix those patterns up. I had mandalas with crystalline structure, and mandalas that look leafy and flowery, and mandalas that had creature elements. This one combine all the three. In the center a sort of garnet-y thing in purple and red, surrounded by a sort of a green lily pad, with a feathery blue edge that reminds me of a sea creature.

Been tinkering with the same comic all weekend. It’s closer, although I still don’t have the last panel. The illustrations are coming together, at least. So I’m drawing these pictures and trying to figure out why the ones that are supposed to be kids look like adults. And then I realize that kids have great big heads on their little tiny bodies. If you don’t give them enormous heads they just look like thin adults.

Anyway, I would have gotten further but The Man wanted to watch Boyhood with me. It’s a very long film. The concept is fascinating, though. Not only could then have no way of knowing what the child actors would look like at the end of the movie, they couldn’t have written certain scenes (like when the main character rants about Facebook) before they actually pitched the film. Not to mention the music. I neglected to take any of the vast quantity of OTC medications that have been keeping my sinuses from back up into my brain, so now I have a headache, too. Still, I’m going to try to get this comic at least 50% finished tonight. Otherwise tomorrow night I’ll going nuts either scrambling to finish it or to dash out some kind of filler comic.

Man, people better appreciate.

Hip to Be Square Mandala

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If you've got the curves, baby, I've got the angles

If you’ve got the curves, baby, I’ve got the angles

Gentle pastels, like the ’80s when the ’80s weren’t flashing eye-gouging florescence as they so often did.

This weekend I probably had too much fun. Party on Friday, party on Saturday, long nature hike with the Fox on Sunday. Obviously, I got nothing accomplished. My new T-shirt design remains in my head, as do numerous comic strips, graphic novel panels, short stories, and novels.

I wrote a sonnet in honor of a friend’s birthday. A sonnet is something I haven’t written in years, but that’s what the Fox does for special occasions and it seemed appropriate. Constrained forms are actually easier for me. Then, I thought, why not write it out with pen and ink? But it had been so long since I’d used the materials that it didn’t work out as planned. I ended up doing 3 drafts, none of which were especially pretty. The best version still ended up with fingerprints and smudges all over it, and the handwriting was nothing special. Also, there was ink all over the floor, and all over me. My friend loved the poem–I knew he’d rather have a personal present that I made–but after thanking me for it, he said he was going to frame it. So now everyone will see my lack of command over my materials.

Everything requires dedication.

More space than time mandala

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Things fizzle

Things fizzle

I had a lot of big plans for the end of the year, art-wise, but maybe they were too big. Or maybe I’m not equal to the task. Anyway, there’s a strong possibility that I’ll take a few days off from the blog to focus on the T-shirt shop. I’d like to add at least 3 new designs before Thanksgiving, and possibly figure out some type of advertising scheme to help me sell a couple of them. Lately I have multiple ideas for comics every night, but drawing them seems daunting and time-consuming and they’re hard to realize, ultimately. It’s easier if I get started earlier in the day, but lately The Man has been staying up late and I don’t sit down to work until close to midnight. It’s not conducive to great art.

This weekend could have been the ideal time to catch up, but instead some friends decided that it was actually the ideal time to party like it’s 1999.

Yesterday’s Mandala…Today!

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Fancy and off kilter

Fancy and off kilter

This one skews a little to the right but features a nice sense of depth. The center is pretty symmetrical but then it just sort of meanders off to the side and starts ballooning. It features a lot of my favorite colors, too.

This might be kind of a lean week. There’s some family stuff coming up and I’m not sure how much time it’s going to take up. Today marks the 9th consecutive day that I have sworn to myself I will clean my office and failed to do so. Washing the floors seems far out of reach. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in a weeks. Tonight we went to see The Martian instead of doing anything remotely useful, and now I have a headache. So, mandala.

Fractured Imperfection Mandala

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Sometimes you've just got to slam it out. With a baseball bat.

Sometimes you’ve just got to slam it out. With a baseball bat.

I actually like how off kilter this mandala came out, like broken shards reassembled, some pieces shattered to powder, never to be seen again, the remaining chunks exhibiting some semblance of organization. Fractured. Imperfect. Also, the colors remind me of pastels, rather than crayons.

Today I finally got a hold on that comic I’ve been mulling around for weeks. It’s no Legoceros and Arasquid, but it’s something. And it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Of course, while I happen to find it amusing as hell, the odds that any individual will get all 5 references that contribute to the joke are fairly thin, because I am obscure. Anyway, you can not get all 5 references tomorro

Found Objects Mandala

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Art supplies are expensive. Found objects are not.

Art supplies are expensive. Found objects are not.

Owning a flatbed scanner and having the ability to make convenient facsimiles of 2-dimensional drawings is great, but admittedly, I find the actual act of scanning pages so annoying that tonight I spent and hour constructing a mandala out of rose petals, almonds, glass stones, the spent casings from a nail gun, and plastic Buddha-shaped toothpicks instead of 2 minutes scanning an old design.

My object choices please me. I considered other object, like pennies, quarters, screws, nails (we are doing some work on the front hall), spent glow bracelets, silverware, and cashews, but this feels right. The little rainbow heart in the bottom right is something I made in my Trickster’s Hat period, out of leftover bits of construction paper from a bulletin board. I thought if I started doing more of these, making them more complex, that could be like a signature.

I also thought that what I really want to do a 3-d mandala out of is M&Ms. Well, the Candy Year* is about to begin, so it could happen.

The first cold of autumns appears to be upon, which is wholly unfair, considering it was 95 degrees today. I am not one of those white girl who pumpkin spices everything and loves autumn (regular readers of this blog know I am, in fact, a blue dragon). I freaking *hate* autumn. The changing of the seasons from summer to not-summer depresses me. Cold weather bothers my body and disturbs my spirit. The only thing that I want pumpkin spiced is pumpkin pie, and I only want maybe 1-2 slices of that in October and then however much pie I can eat Thanksgiving weekend. Anyway, I’m sneezing all over the place and really unfocused. Boo.

Today I wrote a rough draft of an article entitled “Powerful Women of Webcomics,” 9 book reviews, and copy for The Man’s new business website, but it doesn’t feel as if I accomplished much. My only other daily accomplishments were taking a 2-mile walk and cooking a delicious dinner of gluten free macaroni and cheese, shrimp scampi, and mushroom and spinach pakoras, all from scratch, obviously. I am not so far gone as to consider making a box of Kraft dinner a daily accomplishment.

I have some more writing to do, and then I will be taking this Nyquil and, if the heavens smile upon me, passing out.

*The Candy Year refers to the period from mid-October to the end of April when people, regularly, every other month, keep giving you treats: as soon as Halloween decoration are up, it begins, with little miniatures and Hershey’s Kisses everywhere; no sooner have you consumed your Halloween candy then you are called upon to help finish up this Thanksgiving pie; the pie being digested, out come the chocolate Santas, Christmas cookies, bouche Noels, and fruitcakes; all this is cleaned up over New Years, and then everyone makes New Year’s resolutions to stay off the sweet stuff until Valentine’s Day rolls around, when you’re offered fancy chocolates and terribly candy hearts; which you still have when you’re suddenly confronted with all those jelly beans and creme eggs in your Easter basket. The candy year ends when people suddenly start considering their summer plans and thinking that they might want to put on a bathing suit again.

Crystal Power Mandala

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Feel the power rising within you!

Feel the power rising within you!

For once, I’m ahead of the game! Here’s Monday’s mandala, all sparkly and intense, rosy and blossoming, like the gem of wonderment from a cartoon quest for the empowerment of little girls in 1984. Gotta love it. Plus I’ve just finished Tuesday’s comic, and I managed to sketch out another page and a half of the big black and white story in the spaces in between even though I spent the rest of the weekend immersed in my typical rarified debauchery. I didn’t quite accomplish as much as intended but a good time was had by all.

This is a sweet design.

The only other art news is that, as the end of September appears, my mind tends toward thoughts of–my Halloween bulletin board. I’m thinking: black cat. But who knows? My schedule is so relaxed right now I could probably spend 10 or 12 hours, at least. Maybe something 3-dimensional? The need for something powerfully good seems apparent. You don’t get that many thrilling ways to celebrate Halloween once you’re old enough to buy your own candy.

Blue Lotus Mandala

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Sometimes you just have to lay it on thick.

If you are interested in reading the unvarnished truth about my spiritual beliefs, someone has been inquisitive enough to interview me about it and industrious enough to type up the interview and post it on her blog. The timing is great, because it’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and a lot of the interview is about why I don’t practice Judaism even though I was raised in a traditionally observant household. Or perhaps because I was raised in a traditionally observant household. There may be a comic in there somewhere, although that might prove even harder to write about than the chronic pain disorder.

Clouds are my religion. Mountains are my religion. The bulletin board in the breezeway of the elementary school where I hang my cut paper projects is my religion. All these mandalas are my religion.

As for other people’s religions, there’s really only one thing that interests me, and that is their mythology. But there’s only one thing that’s really important, in the long run, and that is whether or not you follow Wheaton’s Law. If you think your divine creator is telling you it’s OK to be a jerk, you might want to examine whether your beliefs are spiritually uplifting or merely self-serving.

Just Another Mandala Monday

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Although I do favor certain colors, I also have this weird thing about using the crayons equally. It’s hard to incorporate white crayon into anything. 

Happy Monday, mandala lovers (and all others who grace my page with their clicks).

This mandala feels very balanced. I like the sunny feeling, as if light is streaming in through a rose window. It’s full of lemony sunshine goodness.

We had a busy weekend with nonstop excitement. I thought I would work Saturday night but I ended up spending it all with The Man, who thought he was going to work Saturday night, but ended up spending it all with me.

There are more comics in the works for later this week, thought!