Mandalas and other things

I had lunch yesterday with my aunt and some cousins - mine and my father's - to celebrate my aunt's birthday (number 88). I had my great grandmother's photo album with me and we were able to add some names to faces, which means that I will be able to add photos to Dad's side of the family tree on Ancestry. I haven't done much work on my trees for a while - maybe I'll get motivated if my Dale cousins organise this family get-together they keep talking about.

Since the last time I posted, I have done a free online course on making mandalas - drawing them and colouring them. It was really interesting and I enjoyed the short lessons and was quite pleased with what I achieved. I posted some on Facebook and I think I got my niece interested - I know she spends lots of time with her partner's daughter doing colouring in and is really interested in art in general. You can see other courses at Julie Gibbon's website (http://www.juliegibbons.com/).

As well as learning about mandalas, I have completed a couple more mixed media challenges.

Lotus Mandala

The finished mandala followed by the coloured in version. I found my brush markers too dark for this, but you can see the flower structure clearly.

Concentric Circle Mandala

This was fun to do and would work well with Zentangle patterns. I'm going to try more of these, but I need a better compass first!

Hamsa

Julie showed us a really good way to draw this symbol of the hand. I think an eye in the palm is usual and after that you can put whatever patterns you like. I tried to keep it simple. This was coloured with a new set of markers - a better range of colours, but the tips were not as nice.

Colour Me Positive Week 47 - Enthusiasm

I love this one, especially the image which I found in a BBC History magazine - the article was about nudists in Germany!! I started with Distress stain over a mask and then glued on the b & w image. Using one of my favourite techniques, I painted in the scenery surrounding the girl and extending out from the photo. I did some outlining in pen to highlight the boat & the girl before writing the words on the opposite page.

Journal 52 Week 47 - #ARTISTSFORLOVE

I also love this page and am very pleased with it. The base is yellow oxide with phthalo blue, some magenta and a little phthalo green on top. I used one of Julie Balzer's stencils (a 6x6 TCW with 4 faces on it) and wiped off paint with a baby wipe. I did the same using a heart stencil and then used gold paint to stencil some butterflies on the page.

In my enthusiasm, I forgot to gesso the page so tore a bit of the page off when I was wiping away paint. To cover this I just cut a heart shape from a magazine picture & glued it in place. Then I just had to write out the manifesto with a white paint pen.

I've had a great week or so - done some good (I think!) pages, learned about a new art type and had a nice visit with some cousins. The cleaning lady came today so the house is clean - all I need to do now is tidy up. Getting the house into shape has been a long process and is still continuing - but I'm hoping to have everything shipshape by new year.

Keep well and ciao for now.