Mandalas Make Me Happy

I was looking through an old portfolio and found a series of pen and ink mandalas that I drew back in 2010.  (Truthfully, I was cleaning under the bed in the guest room).  I hadn't looked at the drawings in quite a while and I wondered what my inspiration was to draw so many mandalas.  They were mostly 20 x 16 or 14 x 17 sizes and very intricate.  I must have spent hours on each drawing and I had an entire portfolio of them! At first there wasn't a clear memory or intention that I recalled to start a series of mandalas or try new pens and techniques either.  Here is a example of one larger mandala.

As I looked at the details in the lines,  the memories all came flooding back.  2010 was a very challenging year, I had experienced some significant loss and had a huge career change.  No wonder I had blocked it out and the drawings were under the bed.  I tend to retreat to my art when I have problems that need to be thought through.  The drawing helps me to go within and to listen to my inner wisdom I guess.

I remembered sitting for hours on end drawing, with my attention completely on the lines and how they connected.  I had control over the lines and with those lines as my focus I had a task for my "thinking brain" and the solutions I desired could surface on their own unimpeded.  The time drawing was my meditation during those tough months.  It worked and I successfully maneuvered into happier times.

I feel so lucky to have a creative outlook for both the happy and difficult times.  These forgotten drawings are now out in the light and remind me that I'm strong and can handle challenges.  To you it may look like a bunch of lines, to me I see the details of my story.

Do you have a story?

Keep creating.....

It starts with a line...........

I've been doodling with Micron pens forever. It's relaxing to take a blank page or piece of fabric and start with one line, no rhyme nor reason. Just wander along and pretty soon something shows up.

The lines begin to work together, communicating and coordinating until they have come together into something that was never there before. I just love that! Every drawing is a surprise. Occasionally I attempt to doodle with a specific purpose but the free form is most interesting to me.

I’ve been experimenting with s style of drawing and free motion quilting called Graffiti. I saw a video of Karlee Porter that really inspired me. Here are a couple of my examples of pen on paper.

                                     

                                   

Recently I participated in a  quilt challenge with the theme WORDS. This is what my WORD quilt looked like. I really had fun quilting this and it flowed in much the same way that the lines on paper flowed, this was just with thread. I think I’m going to keep exploring graffiti and thread for awhile.

                                    

OK now I will admit that I struggled emotionally to create this little quilt since it was outside of my experience.  Lots of self-defeating thoughts followed me around but I persisted and sent those negatives away.  You know, "I don't think I can do this!  This is dumb! Everyone else will have a masterpiece!"  I don't think I am alone in this thinking either.    Maybe I'll talk more in the future about the idea of "I Can or I Can't -One of those is probably true!"

Keep creating....

Check out this blog for some great ideas!  http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com