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!
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!
