Tag Archives: Mandala

100 Day Project Wrap Up

03 Monday Jun 2024

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I finished the 100 day project again this year and felt it was my most successful one ever. This amazing set of torus mandala and seed of life mandala blocks and some coordinating center blocks will entertain me for years to come. Would you be interested in playing with one of the different sized sets? What size? Which combinations do you like best?

Here are the prints I made using these blocks and a page of sampler prints of my medium sized torus mandala. To see the development and samplers for the small and large torus mandalas and the seed of life mandalas see my previous post.

Still life pieces made by mixing and matching gelli printed papers and book pages snuck into all the mandala printing. I carved leaf and flower blocks and a block print template to make the different components. I plan to teach this as a class that can be easily modified for differing ability levels. I’m also thinking about putting these samples up for sale in a local gallery for $25 each. (details to follow)

I love to make cards with my blocks and here are some quick thank you cards I made. One of my goals was to print on fabric by the end of the 100 day project and I was successful in that I did make an attempt. It was a good learning experience and shows that I have plenty more to explore with block printing!

Let me know if you have a favorite piece or want prints of something from my Fine Art America product on demand shop. I don’t have everything uploaded so just let me know what you’re interested in and I will get it there for you.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mandala Exploration in the First 50+ Days

16 Tuesday Apr 2024

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Here is a selection of prints from the first 57 days of my 100 day project this year. I am exploring different mandalas. I started this exploration before the 100 day project started but I am really getting into it. I am having so much fun playing with block variations and enhancements.

I am specifically playing with torus mandalas and seed of life mandalas that are the basis for a lot of sacred geometry. The vesica piscis shape (the central overlapping portion of 2 circles – think ven diagram) that is created by the intersection of 2 seed of life mandalas provided an interesting design challenge. I also merged 2 seed of life mandalas without creating this shape in the blue print in the upper left corner.

You can see that I could not avoid my studio assistant. Apparently she really likes these prints. Her name is Soho. The upper left and middle photos have some prints that are only the vesica piscis portions of the seed of life overlapping block sets.

I’m going to create another set of blocks that are in between the big mandalas (4 inch radius of central circle) and small mandalas (2 inch radius of the central circle). And I hope to start printing on fabric.

My First Solo Exhibit

31 Sunday Mar 2024

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My first solo art exhibit is currently open at Oakwood Village 5565 Tancho Drive in Madison, WI. It will remain open until April 30,2024. I had a reception and gave a talk on March 29. It was well attended and there were a lot of great questions.

My 100 Day Project for 2024 February

02 Saturday Mar 2024

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I am continuing my exploration of block printing for my 100 day project. I have been so excited about exploring torus mandalas and now I’m playing with the seed of life mandala.

Torus Mandalas and Color Schemes

06 Tuesday Feb 2024

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I have continued my pattern play and have carved a variety of blocks to use in small and large torus mandalas. I have been having a lot of fun on Instagram following along with the Printer Solstice challenge hosted by Susana McDonnell. She provides a color combination prompt and I use various combinations of blocks and colors to create examples of the color scheme. Here I have posted some of my monochrome blue mandalas and some analogous yellow, green, blue mandalas. These are my favorite colors schemes if I have to pick, but I am enjoying all of the interesting combinations!

I am slowing uploading them to my Etsy shop as digital downloads for an extremely reasonable price. The larger mandalas are about 18 inches in diameter and the smaller ones are about 9 inches in diameter, but you can print them whatever size you want!

Big blue torus mandala

Yellow dahlia large torus mandala in analogous colors, yellow, green, blue. My followers on Instagram appreciated the photos with the blocks laid out to help see how these are constructed.

I have quite a few more printed but printing is a lot more fun that photographing and posting them. I hope you will check back in my Etsy shop to see if some new combinations of blocks and colors are available!

A Year in Review: 2023

02 Tuesday Jan 2024

Posted by in Art, Art on Exhibit, Zentangle Inspired Art

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This year has been a productive year for art, but not as many big pieces as I have made in the past. My most recent larger piece is Garden Party Mandala that is an experiment for a larger piece that is in the works. This one is going to be on exhibit at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in January of 2024. Keep reading for more information on this exciting opportunity.

It was a really great year for me on Instagram. I reached 1,000 followers and successfully participated in the 100 day project and Carve December. I just finished up Carve December and I’m really excited about it so I’m going to show pictures of it first.

Carve December is an Instagram challenge created by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer 11 years ago. I have participated for a few years but this year was something special for me. Julie provides a prompt for each day and this year I followed the prompts. I was exploring hexagons and ogees from a pattern design class I had just finished (description and photos below). I threw in some other shapes and also carved a few larger stamps that I have big plans for in 2024!

Carve December 2023
Stamps from Carve December
Smaller prints from Carve December

I took a deep dive into repeat pattern design with Ali at 3dottedpenguins. The class was so excellent. I have so many prints! There was a very inspiring and supportive community and the instruction was fantastic. I think the progress in my carving, printing and designs show the impact! It was also very helpful to have so much carving to do so no one block became too precious. That really allowed me to experiment with design and learn so much in the process. Playing with art supplies really is such a learning experience.

Ali challenged us to create a final project and I created 3! I was exploring integrating block printing into my mixed media art and also took one design bigger.

The 100 day project is another Instagram challenge that I participated in. The idea is to make art every day for 100 days. It can be whatever you want and I chose to create a small collage that included stamps, Zentange and collage papers and ephemera every day. It was an excellent exercise in creativity and I am happy with what I created. I have sent many out as cards and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with those that remain.

One of the reasons I got back into making art 10 years ago was that I hoped to see it in medical facilities when I went for appointments. This dream came true in 2023. I had 2 pieces exhibited at the University of Wisconsin Hospital last year and I’m scheduled to have 2 more in January. I joined the Wisconsin Visual Artist association and the Madison Art Guild and they each exhibit art in the hospital for one month every year. This piece, Abstract Waterlilies, was one of the first ones. The other was one of my flower mandalas from 2022.

I’m excited to see what 2024 holds.

Peace

EcoSquared Exhibit

12 Wednesday Jul 2023

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Stop in at Hatch Art House at 1248 Williamson Street in Madison to see these and other small works of environmentally friendly art.

“Join Hatch Art House this July and August for the 2023 EcoSquared Art Show! Hatch showcases a curated selection of various artworks by over 75 Wisconsin artists most of the year, but opens the front two walls of the gallery to all Wisconsin based artists for the EcoSquared show nearly every year since 2012. EcoSquared (Eco for eco-friendly, Squared for square art) focuses entirely on square works of art made with upcycled materials by local artists. This year marks the biggest EcoSquared exhibition yet, with nearly 90 pieces of square upcycled art by over 25 Wisconsin based artists!”

Pandemic Art 2: September 2020

07 Sunday Feb 2021

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Over the summer I created a series of small canvases as part of a fundraiser for our local art association.

I had so much fun with those that when I got my new stencils from Stencil Girl Products I made another 8×10 piece.

stencil club

That started a series of 8×10 collages in September of 2020. My lofty goal was to create a collage a day. My realistic goal was to make art almost every day. And I did. Most of these have since been gifted, bartered or sold. Send me a message if you’re interested in one. The butterfly one is sold.

 

Pandemic Art 1

30 Saturday Jan 2021

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Hello again. Since I have started posting to Instagram (and it is so easy) I have neglected my blog. I want to do some catching up. When the pandemic started I bought a large sheet of hot press watercolor paper and started making a very large Zentangled mandala. I still have not finished shading it, but this year I want to finish things. I have developed a daily art practice over the last 10 months and would like to share what I have made with you.

The piece on the left is called Illuminated Journey and is a large (24×36 inches) mixed media collage that I made for a call for art. The call for art was a presentation to a hotel chain that was looking for art by local artists. Our art association didn’t have anything else going on, so we put up a show with a lot of different styles of art. It turned out that they were looking for landscapes and traditional representational art, but it inspired me to make this piece so I’m happy with the outcome. I put a lot of work into it and didn’t have an end in mind so it kept evolving. The inspiration for it is a book I got from the high school library purge that occurred while I was in my residency at North High School. The book is called Victorian Inventions by Leonard de Vries. If you look at the details in the close up pictures you can see a wide variety of transportation related inventions.

The backgrounds of the six small mandalas include vintage book pages that I wrote over with a blue pen. I saw an old journal with small blue writing in it that really looked interesting. I’m always on the lookout for interesting ways to write in my journals and art without it being legible and this is a new favorite. The mandalas that have black circles as a background include an unusual textural element, a circle of chipboard covered with black gesso and the netting that vegetables come in. It was kind of tricky to do, especially in a circle, but I love the effect and plan to play with it in the future.

I hope you have some beauty in your day.