Sacred Geometry Chakra Mandala...and a Blog Hop Too!

One of the first things I thought of when I unwrapped my package of Artistcellar Sacred Geometry 2 Stencils was—wow, these would make great mandalas! A few years ago I did “lunch time mandalas” where I took a CD, traced around it with a pencil, and filled in the circle with color and shapes. Some of the designs became fabric, which I used in art quilts, and some were used for other fiber art creations.

I experimented with all four Sacred Geometry stencils in my journal, trying soft inks, graphic black on white, assorted colored markers, and white inks on red paper. I tried them with acrylic paint beautiful scrapbooking paper, and on thin deli paper. The results were good, but not inspired.

Then I noticed a pretty piece of paper that had been hanging around my art bin for a while. I had painted some watercolor paper a soft pink, and then printed a circle texture over it using white printmaking paint and bubble wrap.

I liked it, but didn’t know what to do next. It sat in the box for about a year. Inspired by the Sacred Geometry 2 stencils, I decided to try using a round, flat stencil brush, and pounced my favorite shade of turquoise (I mixed white acrylic with turquoise Dina Wakley acrylic) through a sacred geometry stencil. It looked pretty good, but I put it to the side to dry and thought “what next?”

I used the same turquoise shade and printed several stencils on white cardstock. I was wishing that the stencils had a positive/negative image, but since they didn't, I flipped the wet stencils over and used them to get the opposite image, carefully pressing the wet stencil down on the paper with a paper towel.

I got a little creatively reckless and began overprinting stenciled images with different colors, and then I got even more reckless and began printing one stencil over another. I ended up with a whole bunch of multicolored pastel prints.

I also incorporated my Artistcellar mini chakra pocket stencils here and there. Again I thought “what next?”

The lightbulb went off in my head, and I realized two things: the mini chakras could go in a circle on top of the pink and aqua bubble wrap/stenciled paper, so I carefully used a blue mini ink pad to apply color through each small stencil. I did not measure, I just “eyeballed” the placement of the chakra stencils.

I decided that the multi-colored/multi-stenciled paper prints would make a good background. For many years I sewed and made art quilts, so cutting the paper into 3” squares seemed like a natural next step. I pulled out my green cutting mat, ancient long metal ruler (that I purchased in 1978!) and an exacto knife, then sliced the multicolored printed papers up carefully.

This paper print uses most of the set of 4 Sacred Geometry 2 stencils,
as well as the Chakra pocket stencils.

The sliced printed paper using multicolor prints of
Sacred Geometry 2 with Chakra pocket stencils.

I chose the squares I liked best, arranged them as a border, alternating lights and darks and varying the color, then carefully taped them together on the back.

Before adhering the center piece to the border, I “aged” the edges using a combination of sepia Adirondack ink and a brown chalk ink. The 12” x 12” piece is currently hanging on my living room wall, above my art table, and it is a constant reminder to me to remember to regularly slow down, breathe, meditate, and rest.

Here's the really cool thing: if you leave a comment on this page of my blog, you might just win a free set of stencils. All you have to do is leave your name and a comment. Easy peasy!

And please visit all the other artists who are part of the Artistcellar Blog Hop celebrating the release of their new stencil series: Sacred Geometry 2. You can leave a comment on their blogs for a chance to win the free stencils...plus, they are all awesome artists and worth a looksee.

February 29th - Lisa Cousineau/Artistcellar
artistcellar.com/blogs/news
 March 1st - Stephanie Gagos

http://www.stephaniegagos.com/blog/ 
March 2nd - Lisa Chin

somethingcleveraboutnothing.blogspot.com

 March 3rd - me!

March 4th - Sarah Trumpp

http://wonderstrange.com  

March 5th - Effy Wild

http://effybird.com    

March 6th - Guadalupe Brizuela Cabal

http://guadasartplace.blogspot.com  

le Pain Quotidien Journal Collage

Coffee is the stuff that keeps many of us running. My weekends often begin with a trip to my very favorite place for my morning latte--le Pain Quotidien. The hard part is which one to go to--one is closer and but has no outdoor seating, and the other is a few blocks further but has a sidewalk cafe where even Coco, our Maltese, can enjoy the coffee klatch with us.

I picked up one of their catering brochures thinking that I liked the beige paper it was printed on, and that I might use it as part of a journal page. Somehow the word Catering emerged as the central element. The rest of the collage is bits and pieces of my textile designs, photoshop collages, a hand carved stamp, some stencils and stamping. The words in a circle are a line from a Goo Goo Dolls song, a leftover part of some mandala designs I made a few months ago.

I also used the tiles on the walls of their 49th Street@2nd Avenue location for my Indigo Girl paper dolls a few weeks ago. http://lindaedkinswyatt.blogspot.com/2014/06/indigo-girl-dolls-geisha-tags-and-alice.html

Fuscia Zetti Self Portrait

Back in 2000, I was an emotional mess. I had very bad panic disorder, and was trying many methods to rid myself of it—from traditional medical treatments to all kinds of alternative therapies. I decided to spend a lot of time doing art in order to heal. One of the first things I did was an oil self portrait. True, it doesn’t look exactly like me, but I painted the way I felt, which wasn’t pretty. Needless to say, no one but me liked the portrait.

However, it was a starting point. I decided to scan it, alter it a little in photoshop, then digitally embellish it. I called the first variation my Picasso Self Portrait. I later used a variation of it to do one of my first art quilts, and it was used to illustrate an article I wrote for Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine called Painting Out the Panic.

I decided to add my favorite yellow fabric design behind the Picasso Self Portrait, and use that image for my business card and also for some of my mini quilt Art-O-Mat blocks.

Recently, I had an ATC trade with my Arts in the Cards group. This month, the color prompt was fuscia. I drew a blank on the color fuscia, so I started looking through my stacks of fabrics and papers and unfinished artwork for inspiration. Nothing really struck me, so I decided to revisit an old theme: self portraits. For reasons I don’t fully understand, I keep coming back to my first self portrait. I have painted other self portraits over the past 12 years, but this one speaks to me the most.

I took out the yellow background and added several other fuschia designs—a scan of a page from a journal that I painted with beet juice, a fuscia mandala that I drew during my lunch hour, and a photo of a wet leaf on a sidewalk that I manipulated in photoshop into shades of fuscia. I also changed some color on the face.

Since I have been enamored of the Zetti trend, I added, in photoshop, the black and white harlequin band at the top. After printing the design, it seemed to need something extra, so I added inspirational words printed on Extravorganza, along with some ribbon and seed beads.