Making My Mandala Series

Well hello again! I know I have been absent for a while! ...Life gets crazy and things don't get done unless we make them a priority!

INSPIRATION

Needless to say things have been busy around here, but what I'm most excited for currently is this series of Mandalas that I have been working on for about a year now. I kept seeing these beautiful zentangle and mandala designs on artists' pages and Pinterest around this time last year. One of my favorite BuJu inspirations, Kara from BohoBerry, was at the time doing a Mood Mandala in her bullet journal and that just blew me away. So I took a try at it for myself.

I created my first mandala as a mood tracker in my bujo as inspired by BohoBerry, and I quickly became addicted. I created a few more designs in my sketchbook, but I wanted to figure out a way to incorporate color because...well I live for color. 

PROCESS

I attempted to color in one of my sketchbook mandalas...but that pretty much ruined my aesthetic. So I tried a different approach, instead of adding color on top of the design, I decided to try to add color behind the design. 

So I grabbed my bin full of acrylic paint and chose a few colors to slop on the canvas. I wanted a gradient but hadn't yet settled on a style. My first few from this series have a very blended gradient background. I painted a few canvases like this, then started sketching out a mandala on them. I made 3-4 like this, then got distracted with life and moving and had to set aside the series for a while.

I picked it back up a few months later when I was getting ready to visit family in California for my Abuela's 80th birthday celebration. I wanted to make her something special but I was running out of time before we set out on our cross-country road trip. I took one of my large canvases and a few colors and just started painting. My painting approach was a little more rushed and less blended because I could feel pressure from the crunch time. It was less blended and more textured, you could really see where the colors met, where some blended and some remained a little more streaky. I kinda fell in love with the visual texture and decided this was going to be my process for the rest of the series, how every many that series would end up including.

MATERIALS

At first I was using my favorite Sharpie pens to draw my mandalas on my canvases, but I noticed that the tip of the pens were wearing down significantly because of the texture on the canvas. I loved the precision of my design details with the sharpie pens, but the rate at which they were wearing away was not sustainable, they're not bank-breaking expensive but they're not cheap either. I made a few using a white gel pen to see how changing up the color would effect the aesthetic of my mandalas, and I liked the visual, but they were even more stubborn on the canvas. The tip wasn't wearing down because it's metal, but the pen mark was very inconsistent and was super frustrating to work with on the canvas.

I knew I needed to find a better medium to create my designs, but I didn't know what, so I shelved the series until something came to me.

I mentioned earlier about moving, well it was while I was unpacking my art supplies and reorganizing my new art set up that I found a jar of india ink I had bought back in community college for an art class. I opened it up to check the consistency and it was still smooth and jet black, so I tested it on a canvas with a tiny detail brush and my mandala inspiration was reignited!

A SERIES COMES TOGETHER 

Since summertime I've been making mandalas in batches. I'll take a few canvases of the same size, lay out some newspaper to protect my countertops, and 4-7 acrylic paints. Then I just paint. And paint and paint and paint. Sometimes I've sketched out designs in my sketchbook beforehand, but even when I copy one from the book onto a canvas, it's always different. That's something I've enjoyed about this series. The process has been so organic. I could impose my ego-centric need to control by measuring and multiplying and scaling it precisely, but why? 

In the most simplistic description, mandalas are circular designs with repeated patterns. They are seen throughout many religions, usually in some kind of representation of the universe or the cosmos, metaphysically or symbolically. I am way over simplifying this element and if it's something that speaks to you, please by all means, explore, learn, share! I have personally become inspired by them simply for their aesthetic. I love the simplicity that is endlessly versatile. I love the separation between layers juxtaposed by the connection and co-dependence between layers. I love experimenting with line patterns and embellishments.

Maybe some of these fascinations can also be reflected on in a metaphysical discussion as well, but not today. Today we're celebrating this series of mandalas that I have poured my love into with every brush, sketch, and keystroke. I hope you enjoy them as well. 

Artist of Life in my Bullet Journal

I found the Artist of Life workbook at the end of 2016, when Aileen Xu announced it on her YouTube channel, Lavendaire. I had been following Aileen for a few months and loved her airy, passionate, and artistic aesthetic and perspective. This workbook caught my attention because I was on a research mission for year-end reflection methods. I found a lot that were great, and so many that were the same thing over and over. I was drawn to the Artist of Life workbook because of the wide array of life that was covered, the goal formation and accountability, and of course, the emphasis on creating and pursuing life artistically.

So, after re-watching Aileen's video about how she created it and everything she included in it, I bought the workbook PDF. Still loving and experiencing benefits from that decision.

She included some awesome exercises—saying goodbye to the last year and hello to the previous, designing habits and self care routines, creating a bucket list for 2018, and others. There's also a very in depth goal-setting series, and an apparatus for planning & accomplishing those goals individually and on a monthly basis. It had a good mix of things I'd seen a million times before, elements I 'd seen before but she either simplified of specified them, and things I hadn't ever seen and was so excited to complete! 

As soon as the download completed, I started perusing through it page by page, noticing how much I was already planning out what I wanted to write in each tidy little box. But I wanted more control over the layout...and I had just recently started exploring bullet journalling. So naturally, a fusion ensued. I decided that instead of printing it out and filling it in, or typing everything into the dynamic PDF—that felt way too removed from the process of reflection for which I was yearning. 

I started by labeling in pencil how many pages I needed to mark out for each of the Artist of Life exercises. Then really just, went for it. 

Positive Self-Evaluation

I rearranged the exercises to make a little more flow sense to my mind. After setting a theme/word for the new year, I decided to start the series with a couple of exercises from the Self Care section in the workbook. 

Pondering My Major Strengths and Things that I Love about Myself at first seemed like a redundant practice, but I'm glad I took the time to think about the distinction. I showed the natural overlap by writing those things around the middle, although I definitely wrote "creativity" on both sides of the spread. I used words and phrases that captured my skills, inclinations, and characteristics. I tried to use mostly black with accents of color, but that went out the window right away—hence the phrase, "compulsive incorporation of colors".

Opening One and Closing Another

Something that seemed so natural and obvious, but I hadn't seen it put in such a way that really struck a chord with me, was the Goodbye 2016, Hello 2017. I loved the way Aileen broke down the year into important moments categorized into positive as well as constructive frames. I gave each salutation its own 2-page spread so I could fully explore the exercise.

I found the space in the so-long to 2016 to help me remember the year more positively than I had been, it was a rough year in a lot of ways. But I made it through and after completing the "goodbye" I felt empowered and exhilarated to say my "hello" to the new year. I enjoyed the simple components of the "hello" exercise because they made me focus my general goals that were more like broad-strokes at the point. 

Designing Habits and Routines

I had seriously high hopes about this section, but when I starting following this particular section, it felt lacking for my specific method. Designing habits and routines is something I've struggled with for a significant portion of my life. I'm always trying to find a better way. This section in the workbook would be sufficient for many, I'm sure, but it fell short for me in space more than anything—I'm almost certain that was one of the deciding factors for completing the workbook in my bullet journal. The general approach is excellent though, simple and to the point, but thoughtful. This approach actually reminds me a little of the KonMarie method of decluttering. Basically, the task is to evaluate habits as either those you want to keep and those you want to release. I would add a section for habits you want to flourish or implement. For routines, Aileen discusses habit stacking to think of routines as a stack of habits, great tool. Still use it, check out my post about designing daily, weekly, and work-flow routines.

Setting Goals

This section was one of my favorites in the workbook. Aileen divided the Goals section up by areas in life—personal growth, career (which I changed to professional), creative, health, relationships, home, spirituality (which I changed to personal balance), money, adventure, and ultimate life goals. I also added a section for civic and community engagement because that is an important area in my life that I used to exercise much more and had lost touch with since graduating from college.

What I really enjoyed about this section was that each life area had specific questions to reflect and evaluate priorities and then set specific goals to meet or push those priorities to a new level. I tweaked an added some things here an there, but my favorite part of re-creating the Artist of Life workbook in my bullet journal was reflecting the need of the questions for each area with the format of the spread.

The Goal Book is at the end of the workbook and provides a space to basically house the list of action items needed to complete a goal, to indicate priority, and to set deadlines for each goal. This is one of those simple,yet tremendously useful features in the workbook. There are also Monthly Reviews to check-in with each goal. I added a number rating system to give me an immediate evaluation of how I've been progressing towards my goals.

Current Me—Future Me

OK, so Aileen calls this exercise "Current me vs. Future me". Now while I LOVE this exercise, I don't love the language. Personally, I think that using the "vs" form connotes a competitive perspective or approach, which can hinder a positive growth-centered approach to self-evaluation. I would just use a long-dash to show a point of comparison without ranking. Gloria Steinem once said, "we are all linked, not ranked," and I think that can be applied in self-reflection and evaluation. 

In my 2-page spread for this exercise, after completing each side, I spent time looking at each item on each page and finding the links, the behavior transitions I will need to make in order to reach the goals and vision that I see for myself in some undetermined, open time-frame and place. I love coming back to this spread and seeing what's changed and how I have moved towards my Future Me.

Moving Forward

I love this system. It provides such a malleable but deeply reflective structure with which to create meaningful and focused goals, AND to keep a record of actions an accountability to envision and create a more meaningful, fulfilling, grateful, and artistic life. I will continue to carry these exercises with me through my bullet journals, blogging, creative, and entrepreneurial visions and ventures.  

Let me know in the comments below which of these exercises you're most looking forward to completing, or enjoyed creating the most. 

Note. The version of the Artist of Life Workbook that I bought and adopted was the 2017 edition, starting in January, ending in December. At the time of this blog post, she has not yet released the next version for 2018, but I'm sure she will have that later this year. Keep an eye on her site to stay updated.

An Introduction

I've always been an artist. I've always been obsessed with balancing function and aesthetics, holding both in the highest regard. My notes in school were always color coordinated, whether taken in pen or on my macbook. Color helps me organize life, but it also engages my interest. In fact, one of my favorite discussion topics is the variance, shades, and names of colors...

I've wanted to start a blog for a long time, but made endless excuses and avoided committing to an idea. One of my most common was that my interests are too vast. I mean, that is what everyone in my life has told me for my whole life. Pick something.

...I don't want to. My interests, passions, and talents are vast and diverse. When I get too narrow for too long, I get bored. So bored. So unstimulated. I have to keep it busy...sometimes a little messy. I LOVE that. But that's how and why I've developed such great organizational skills along the ride.

Anyway, I'm here now. I have so much to share. I hope you'll join me. 

Enjoy the ride!