Making Mandala's (A Tale of Glitter and Glue! )

"Back on its golden hinges, the gate of memory swings, and my heart goes into the garden, and walks with the olden things." - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I was just going through some old discs when I found some photos of a forgotten project. It was about ten years ago that I got lost in for a couple of days in the making of these mandala's.

I started with 4 pieces of hardboard cut to 12 inches by 12 inches square, which I then painted with an undercoat and left to dry. While they were drying I raided the kitchen cupboard for some round things in a variety of sizes, I think I ended up with assorted small plates, a can of tomatoes and a small lid borrowed from a bottle of vitamins.

I carefully carried my haul back to my desk and with my various 'circles' a soft pencil and a ruler, I set about making my designs.

I tried pretty much to go with my first attempts, as too many alterations could start to make my nice white squares look grey and confusing.

So after I had completed the first design I was hooked! I still had other ideas that I wanted to try, so moved quickly on to the next. By the end of the afternoon I had all four pencilled out designs.

The next morning I began to fill in the flat colour, I worked on all four at once to save on brush washing between colours.

I had no plan in mind just kept working with a quite basic colour scheme so that all looked right together. Once the base colours were finished, I added some shading and texture with pastels.

Then came the messy bit! I have never quite got over my childhood obsession with glitter and sparkly things.

So with my pots of glitter in a multitude of colours, lined up in front of me and the little round mirrors (three of them have a mirror in their centre) layed out on the newspaper covering my desk - I reached for the glue!

Much later, there before me, were four beautiful sparkly squares, and they and my glue and glitter covered self! were finished.

I eventually turned them all diagonally and hung all four on my bedroom wall as shown in the main picture.

They are now languishing in a box somewhere but it is nice to remember the fun I had on the day - and the clean up operation afterwards. :-)

"Happiness...it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt