Tag Archives: flower

Natural Geometry Mandala

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Classically beautiful...

Classically beautiful…

I’m in love with this elegant purple mandala. It’s really regular in symmetry and even thought it’s limited and color and shape, that simplicity opens up a greater complexity in the overall design.

Flowers are their own kind of mandala

Flowers are their own kind of mandala

Today was a nice day as far as being an artist goes. I read fairy tales to kindergarteners, repaired books for the school library, and took a rambling walk in the park, mostly for the purpose of take photos of roses. I also spent a lot of time swinging on the swings, for the purpose of giving little dragon some air. How many hours a week did I spend swinging when I was a kid? Jumping rope? Skipping? I mean, seriously, I probably jumped rope a couple hours a week, every week.

Here’s when I stopped swinging a lot: I was probably about 12 or so. I had a Walkman (children…it’s like an MP3 player, but it only holds one album at a time) and I was swinging with my eyes clothes and my headphones on and a toddler ran in front of me and I kicked that little sucker right in the head. I don’t remember the kid’s reaction, but I do remember the mom freaking out. She wanted to be mad at me for swinging with my eyes closed and my headphones on, but she knew it was her own fault for letting her baby run in front of the swings.

So today I didn’t close my eyes. A little girl came over and swung next to me. I could tell she wanted to strike up a conversation–I am a colorful person, after all–but she was too shy. Instead, she tried to swing as high as me. I decided that I was going to outswing this kid, that I would keep going longer and higher than she could. Trying to keep up with kids is better than a FitBit. So I ended up pumping for way longer than I would have otherwise. Eventually, the kid had what sounded like an asthma attack and stopped swinging. Which means I won!!!

Then The Man and I went out with the Missesses Kitty and ate a really unreasonable amount of West African cuisine, which I have been obsessed with all month. Fufu! Peanut sauce! Goat! Good stuff.

A Basic Workday Mandala

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What you see is what you get

What you see is what you get

This design seems plain to me; had I started it in Photoshop it would feel far from finished. Clearly it wants elaborate dotting to achieve its full sacred potential, but it goes about as far as it can go in its medium. Standard floral motif with a limited color palette. At least I managed to scan a couple weeks’ worth, and I’m pretty excited about some of the mandalas coming up in the next 2 months. There are some really stunning and elaborate designs I’d completely forgotten about.

My sickness is diminished; I can breathe fine and am hardly coughing/sneezing. My 2 straight months of being sick this winter has provided my immune system with a more effective arsenal, perhaps. I was too tired for salsa dancing though.

Not to tired to draw! Hooray! Let’s do that!

Love and Lace Mandala

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Symmetry is a many-petaled thing

Symmetry is a many-petaled thing

It sort of reminds me of the desert heliotrope (blue phacelia) with its cordate leaves and its projecting stamina. (I had to look that up; the plural of stamen is stamina, although stamens is acceptable. Except it’s not acceptable to me. Not when stamina is in the offing.) But it also looks like a rather complicated doily, something your great aunt would lovingly smooth over the back of an armchair.

I finally cleared the shmutz off my flatbed scanner, but I scanned so many mandalas before I realized it was there that there will be another couple weeks of smudged papers. That scanner is super useful, but I don’t like working it. There’s no convenient place for it in my office. Yesterday I spent a really long time trying to scan 3 pages from a graphic novel. Graphic novels don’t really fit in flatbed scanners.

If only, one day, I could be so successful that I could pay someone to do my scanning for me. Ha ha ha. Tired today. No further witticisms.

By the way, you can follow me on Twitter @QWERTYvsDvorak

Happiness is a Warm Mandala

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Apparently it has been 3 weeks since QWERTYvsDvorak has featured an irregular crayon mandala. This travesty cannot stand. I present to you: a golden brown flower themed mandala, a tempting treat for a paper honeybee.

A soothing 6-sided mandala

A soothing 6-sided mandala

Something kind of earthy about this one. The center part reminds me of the sunflowers The Man sometimes brings home, and the green circles in the middle remind me of malachite beads.

Not much art news to report, although I’ve been thinking about some recent projects that I haven’t touched in a while. Does the graphic novel need 5 parts, or is it now complete in 3? Can I possibly redo some of the work on Alphabet of Desire that I accidentally lost somewhere in my house? Losing this paper really put the brakes on the project, and due to its spiritual nature, I worry that I won’t get the same results if I do the work again, and furthermore, although I lost the physical sheet of paper, I know it’s somewhere in this house, that I specifically put it someplace that it would turn up again in the future, when I wasn’t looking for it. That seems to be the project my brain wants to get back to.

The Desert in Bloom!

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I was raised surrounded by cacti; although we lived in the midwest, my father always had a soft spot for the prickly plants. Their periodic flowering in such an unlikely climate was always a cause for celebration. Conditions being, as they were, so wildly inappropriate, we rarely saw more than 1 or 2 cactus flowers a year.

Now, as an adult, living in the desert, I’m surrounded by cactus blossoms from early spring to late autumn. The end of summer/beginning of fall is the time of the barrel cactus, both the native fishhook barrel and the ornamental (transplanted from central Mexico) golden barrel, both of which produce astonishing blossoms (red and yellow, respectively). I’d like to think I’ve done justice to the golden barrel. I wanted to do the fishhook, too, but I like to work from my own photos, and none of the ones I took on my last Botanic Garden trip felt quite right.

Without any further ado: The Golden Barrel Cactus Flower! This one is featured on a lovely throw pillow, but of course you can get it on any of my products.

If you think this is beautiful, you should see these flowers in situ.

If you think this is beautiful, you should see these flowers in situ.

If you do buy a throw pillow, be aware that RedBubble sells pillowcases with or without actual pillows inside them; you have to select the option of receiving a pillow, or you will just  purchase the case, as was the unfortunate discovery of one customer. Click to buy!

Too highbrow for you? How about a “Glitter” T-shirt from the Dragon Comics Collection?

You know what makes me feel like my house will never be clean?

You know what makes me feel like my house will never be clean again?

The T-shirt reads, in full, “You know what helps me feel more magical? GLITTER!” and features a cat throwing glitter in the air, while a dragon marvels at the magicosity. Perfect for magic-loving cats of all ages.

If You Knew the Things up with Which I Must Put

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Gourd out of my mind

Gourd out of my mind

The intention in writing a daily blog was to inject a sense of accountability into my art, i.e. the blog would serve as a motivation for creating art every day, depending on the vast backlog of mandalas and dragons for days when life made other plans. It never occurred to me to consider the weeks that life made other plans.

It’s been some dark times at QWERTY vs. Dvorak, but the end (or at least a respite) should be resolving itself shortly.

In the meantime, the following crude and unlovely surreal comic from days of yore (late ’90s? early ’00s?) basically sums up my attitude toward life as a partial result of the utter nonsense through which my mind has been dragged this summer.

I am an angry flower.

I am an angry flower.

Technically, this flower could count as a really off-kilter mandala, which is about what you’d expect from a rage-aholic flower.