19 Large Mandala Stones

18 of my first 19 large Mandala stones have now been given away.

I kept my favourite, (the blue gradient, second row from the top, second from the left), to use as a reference for future attempts at something similar.

All of the others made a trip north with my husband and were given away to family members.

Mailing them would have been expensive. Rocks are heavy!

I hope everyone was able to choose one they particularly liked.

 And now I can make some more! The great thing about this hobby is that the rocks don't have to clutter up indoor space. They can be left as accents in the garden since they have been treated to be UV and weather resistant.

I Surprised Myself!

I didn't know I had this in me.

When I started this mandala I had no idea what direction it would take. I drew guideline circles and divisions in pencil and hours later this had emerged. 

It's not perfect, but I find the imperfections add a certain charm and a human touch often missing in a world where so much is mass produced by machines.

Structured Doodling

Oh no! Another hobby in the making! 

This one is an offshoot of the mandala rock painting, but it also seems to be every bit as addicting! I sat down yesterday with the intent of spending "just a few minutes" playing with a Helix Angle & Circle Maker to experiment with dividing circles evenly for mandalas. The next thing I knew I was drawing a mandala with little doodles. 

I thought I was finished after a few minutes when I got this far, and I left it sitting on the kitchen table.

But as the day wore on, and in between other activities, I kept coming back to add "a little more". It gradually got more and more detailed and a little larger in diameter. 

Those penciled concentric circles and wedge shaped divisions provide a guide for placement of repetitive yet simple doodles. resulting in a more organized structure, symmetry, and a look of complexity that really was not difficult.

Here it is before I erased the guidelines.

I don't even know what I would call this activity. It's not "Zentangle" which, according to my brief research has rules that are followed, recommended tools, and set patterns. It's not strictly a "mandala" in the traditional sense either. I've come across "ZenDoodle" in my research but ZenDoodle is less structured. I'll call this ZenMandala until I find some word name that is a better fit.

Unusual Specimen Stand

My eldest grandchild found this dragonfly lying on their lawn and saved it for me. It's in excellent condition, but with the wings raised he can't easily be placed under glass. 

My solution was to prop it in a weighted plastic aquarium plant so now it can sit undisturbed in a doll's roombox. 

My Favourites So Far

I've lost track of how many mandalas I've painted on rocks so far, but of them all these are my favourites.

They are by no means perfect and there isn't much special about the layout so I think maybe it's the colours that are calling to me.

The shiny sealant makes the finished rocks difficult to photograph. I'll have to remember to take photos before adding the sealant that allows the painted rocks to be left outside in the garden. 

Rock In Red

Today's effort at dotting a mandala on a rock. I've done quite a few mandala rocks in the past couple of weeks. This one is not one of my best pieces, but I wanted to show my struggles.

There's numerous things about this one that didn't go as well as I would have liked, "swooshes" being one of them. I keep giving in to the allure of adding swooshes since they add so much to a mandala -- usually. But in my case they turn out so terribly that they end up disappointingly irregular.

Here's what swooshes should look like!

https://youtu.be/-XKxQ4nkdAY?t=33