La Mandala
I started the "mandala " at the Essentia Restaurant down the street from here, this morning. It is coming out very nice if I say so myself. It still is not finished, I'll finish tomorrow. Needed a few more colors in it that I didn' t have today. So I am showing the progression of it. These are two pictures #1 taken after finishing all of the drawing, 39" circumference. #2 taken after finishing just the center 3 hours in a very different light that will make it even more dramatic looking. It will look different in each time of the day, it has a chandelier next to it, so at night it will glow. The center depicts a dried flower found on a path, lavender flowers that grow in bunches and fall like wisteria, bamboo leaves, dragon flys and a border of waves. Colors TBD.
Definition: A mandala is usually a circle format illustrating a "personal world" in which one lives, the various elements of the mandala or the activities and interests in which one engages, the most important being at the centre of the mandala and the least important at the periphery. Depicting a personal mandala in pictorial form can give a good indication of the state of one's spiritual life.
I love painting mandalas and giving the assignment to students. I am working on a smaller one as well which was the plan for the big one.
Michael, another writer in colony came down to keep me company for a little while, he went in the jacuzzi and we also had a wonderful lunch "on the house" while I was painting the mandala. We got back to the colony and I sat outside at Susan's casita and painted the smaller one. Juan Camillo, 11 and his friend Estephano, 11 came by to say hola and we had a lesson in spanish and they had a lesson in english, really nice boys. They picked us some tangerines with a special fruit picker pole, I forgot the name of it, but it gets the ripe ones from the top of the trees. I went to Susan's because the grounds man are doing construction and making lots of noise around the studios getting another casita ready for occupancy and a community room. Some of the artists are very unhappy about the noise.
I am a bit dissapointed today too, I thought I was going to able to paint with Patricia Forrester, a watercolor artist who has comes every year since the colony opened. She has been painting a really, really large painting on a farm, a vinca. The owner has asked she not take anyone else on the property. Ticos are very protective of their land and he didn't want the colony to have thoughts of anyone else coming onto it for subject. So, hopefully before she leaves in a couple weeks we can go somewhere else to paint together.
Full moon tonight
Alice & Susan came over for potluck tonight and we are still reminiscing, catching up from a year of travels and tribulations. Because we three were here last year together at this time.
