When I was ‘all in a whirl’, of rushed understandings, I doodled this.

On very nice, round handmade paper from India.

Using a variety of black marker pens scoured from around the house.

It seemed interesting and a friend said she’d like a card of it.

So I thought I would develop the idea.

I had been playing around with digital mandalas, of macro, flower pictures, for a while. Even forming a small business around them, called ‘Argyll Mandalas,’ for which I had seasonal, ‘flora’ mandalas printed as greetings cards, selling them locally.

It proved very restrictive and unsatisfying as a process. Almost clinical.

I wanted to have more physical input into the design itself.

So this was the first experiment.

I decided to re-do it by hand-drawing a segment and then, digitally, ‘mandalizing’ it using Adobe Photoshop 7.

Segment created, I set about making the ‘whole pie’ on the laptop.

Not entirely accurate, but I could get a sense of what could be possible.

So I began drawing a new segment, bearing in mind what I had learnt, and refining the process.

After a significant amount of time spent devoted to calculations and compass, I had a template of the correct size to fit in our scanner. As big as I could comfortably get it.

Then I realised that I could, in fact, simply use this photo. So I did.

In future experiments I would like to use the scanner and compare results.

And, after processing the segment, it all came together…..

Ta Dah!

universal connection mandala

I am very happy with the results!

Now I cannot wait to carry on experimenting with this culturally fascinating, mindfulness related , ancient, universal form and see what happens!