Mandalas

Mandala: Mandala (Sanskrit '' "essence" + "having" or "containing", also translates as "circle-circumference" or "completion", both derived from the Tibetan term dkyil khor'') is a concentric diagram having spiritual and ritual significance in both Buddhism and Hinduism

I've always been interested in mandalas. They are pretty little geometric things that are not only spiritual, but meditative and something pretty and abstract you can have in your home and not be criticized by people who have no idea what a mandala is.
Mandalas can be made with a variety of techniques including hand drawing, painting, sand art, etching, carving, and in modern times with photographs arranged in a program like Photoshop, or on programs designed for mandala creation like Mandala Painter.

Some of us, however, lack the imagination to draw our own mandalas, even digitally.
I am one such case.
Instead, when I want to work with a mandala, I’m going to use my knowledge of colour magic to colour in blank mandalas, either by hand or on Photoshop. It’s some focus, at least.
Eventually, I think I’ll try my hand in programs like Photoshop to create a mandala using a picture.

Pagan Blog Prompt: Creativity

Taken from Pagan Blog Prompts:
“How does your creativity level relate to your spiritual path? Have you gotten more in touch with your creative side because of your journey (perhaps out of necessity for ritual items)?
Or, if you've always been the creative type, has your 'portfolio' of creations changed a lot since you started your pagan journey?”

I have never been the most creative. I enjoy writing, and I would always mindlessly doodle on paper during classes, but when it comes to real arts and crafts, I downright failed. Literally.
I would always try though, and be dismally disappointed.
Luckily, in the digital age, I’ve managed to learn a couple of things on my favourite medium: Photoshop

My graphic designs are fairly basic and fan-oriented and are in fact gathered in a folder called “The Boy Collection”.

However, I enjoy photo-manipulation; cutting and pasting of various elements of stock photos to create a new image. I work primarily with fantasy images, in a gothic/romantic setting. So, think pretty princesses mournfully locked in towers overlooking dark waters with nebulae hanging in the sky.
Okay, so, my early pieces were terrible; this isn’t even an understatement. They were so bad...
I gave up on them for a while, but got into them again recently. My newer works were simplistic in nature; copying from “The Masters” on deviantArt.
Recently, I’ve started considering works of art based on different things in my USBoS folder, from Gods and Goddesses, to Gemstones.
Though I’m not sure if this idea will ever come to fruition, they are still a source of ever growing and continuing inspiration.

The best artwork is layered with symbolism. Now that I study symbols, including meanings behind planets, metals and colours, I’ve learned how to incorporate all this into my art. This gives more layers to the pieces. You not only have your basic image, for example a princess in a tower dreaming of her prince, but you can incorporate bright oranges into the nebula, as a promise of hope, or digitally carve ankhs into the castle walls to show life. These little details will bring the image from a standard photo-manipulation to something that makes the viewer say “wow”.

I guess you can say that all this learning has helped me immensely in my art work. Because every say I learn something new, each lesson is a new photo-manip waiting to come out. Not only am I learning about my spiritual path, I can share these feelings with the world through art. Though I may not be the best at photo-manipulation (yet), the wanting to honour the gemstone I turn into a beautiful woman, I’ll strive and push myself to the very limits of what I can do, and try new things, because I will want the spirits to be proud of me, and I want them to love the piece as much as I do.

I hope this made sense!

PS: I finished my dream catcher; I'll let you know how it works sometime next week!