Studiousness
“diligent study”
I love studying and learning…about stuff that sparks my interest. I love learning so much I’m embarrassed to tell you how my classes I’ve signed up for on Udemy.com. Slowly but surely I’m working my way through them.
That being said, here’s something weird I just realized. I love mandalas and creating them. And yet, I haven’t really studied them…in the traditional sense. I have a shelf full of mandala-related books that I open on occasion and yet have spent little time reading them. Why is that?
In early 2000 when I began co-creating mandalas with my Team of Guides and Angels (ToGAs), I conversed with them and asked if I needed to study and learn all I can about them first before creating any. They said to only create mandala designs that sparked my interest..ideas that I thought would be cool, pattern-wise, to create as mandalas. In other words, they wanted me to spend my time creating mandalas rather than studying them. So that’s what I did. In the beginning I mostly created Egyptian-based mandala designs, then moved on to flowers, nature, architecture, snowflakes, and so on.
Then in 2015 my ToGAs guided me to start creating traditional-styled mandalas like the ones from Tibet. I resisted at first and said (whiningly) I thought I didn’t have to do that. To which they replied, you weren’t ready until now to create them.
Since I didn’t feel ready to create a full-size Tibetan-styled mandala, I started with this mini version. It’s appropriately title: “The Gatekeeper”. It was my entry into the latest phase of my mandala art journey.
It took me seven years to create my first full-on Tibetan-styled mandala (the big one on the left in the image below), and a 1.5 years to do the second one (the big to the right). I’m about to start my third one…which I may be able to finish by the end of this year.
So my team was right…there’s no way I would have been able to start with this style back in 2000. I needed to studiously work my way up to these by doing mandalas in symmetry, asymmetry, and hyperbolic tessellation. So sometimes being studious means studying by actually “doing”. What a concept!
How about you? Is studiousness a core value for you?
BTW…here’s what it looked like to begin with…
joyfully,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
inspiring and encouraging creativity, curiosity, and play through the art of mandalas
About the 2024 Mandalas of the Day
Each day I will create and post a mandala inspired by one of 366 “value” words chosen randomly. The objective being to discover for myself which ones would best represent my core values…and by doing so, I hope it inspires you to determine your own.
Mandala of the Day 