“Bangles” Day 75

Today I finished 3 of the last 6 sections of orange on the “Bangles” mandala.

Painting these frames takes a while for me.  Because I’m wanting to have a smooth look to them, it takes me longer to paint an even blend of the cad. yellow medium, dioxazine purple, and cad. red medium.  I also painted the smaller orange diamond with is just outside the photo to the lower right.

Close of orange frames

Here’s the full view thus far:

Full Vie

Happy Coloring!

Maureen, The Mandala Lady

“Bangles” Day 72

I finished 4 more sections of orange today.  It’s taking me a lot longer to paint the orange sections than I would like.  The cad. red medium tends to overtake any other colors I uses, in particular that yellows.  I have to put gobs of yellow on because if even a touch of the cad. red touches the yellow, the power of the yellow diminishes rapidly and turns into orange.  That’s okay if I’m trying to make more orange; it’s a problem when I want more of the yellow to show.  Anyway…it’s showing me where I need to practice more and learn how these paints work together.

These two areas are opposite the triangle frame and chevron I painted yesterday.

Close up of orange frame and chevron

It took me about an hour to paint these two orange frames.  Now that I’m wanting a smoother texture to these areas it takes longer to get a good blend between the cad. red medium, cad. yellow, and dioxazine purple.

Close up of orange frames

Here’s the full view.  Of the oranges, the upper right section of orange is now done as are the two orange triangle frames and chevrons.   I’m expecting to complete the 6 orange sections by day 74.  That’s the plan anyway.

Full View

Happy Coloring!

Maureen, The Mandala Lady

“Bangles” Day 71

Yeah!  I’m back!  I took back my power of the fear of continuing to paint this mandala.  It was one of those things where I let myself lack confidence in my ability to paint.  When I realized that even if I “ruined” it, I could just paint over it…acrylics is wonderful that way.

Okay so today I continued in the orange sections.  When I painted the first layer of orange, I mostly just dabbed the paint on giving it an impressionistic look.  For some reason, I feel the need to paint a smooth clean layer of paint for the second coat.

In this photo you can see the smoother looker to the diamonds and the impressionistic look to the bottom orange frames, which have yet to be re-painted.   I’m using cad. red medium, cad. yellow, and dioxazine purple.

Orange Diamonds

And here’s the completed orange frame around the blue triangle along with the orange chevron (book) shape.

Orange triangle and chevron

And the full view.   Tomorrow I’ll continue with painting some orange sections.

Full View

Happy Coloring!

Maureen, The Mandala Lady

“Bangles” Days 60 – 70

I hit a painter’s block for days 60-70.  Mainly I let myself be intimidated by the color orange and the apparent change in brush stroke from the first layer of orange that I painted early on in this process.  Logically I know it seems ridiculous.  Emotionally I’ve been afraid to ruin the painting.   Then I have to ask myself, what’s the worse that could happen?  I ruin the painting.  Okay so what if I did ruin the painting, then what?  It’s the end of the world?  Time to move through this.

“Bangles” Day 59

I took a few days off from painting the “Bangles” mandala. Partly it was a timing issue and partly/mostly I was intimidated with painting the orange frames. I actually started them on day 55 and stopped half way through painting the first orange frame.

The left and bottom sides looked completely different from the top and right sides style-wise.  It looked as if two different people painted it.  It freaked me out because I felt that I was clueless as to what I am doing.

Today I took the advice from a title of one of my favorite books:  “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.”  After a few tries at it I all started to fall into place.

In this photo you can see the two orange frames I painted on the left and parts of the two frames yet to be painted on the right.  This gives you a good idea of the fine tuning that was done today.

Close up of orange frames

Here’s the full view photo.  Tomorrow I continue with the orange frames.

Full View

Happy Coloring,

Maureen,  The Mandala Lady

“Bangles” Days 55-58

I took a mini hiatus from painting the “Bangles” mandala.

“Bangles” Day 54

Today I finished the 6 blue diamonds by cleaning up the outside edges and adding a glaze layer of pthalo blue.

This is a before image of 2 of the blue diamonds that I worked on today.

Before fine tuning of blue diamonds

I need to work on my photography skills or invest is a new digital camera.  While this photo is  a bit blurry you can still make out the cleaner outside edges of the blue diamonds and the overall richer blue color of the diamonds.

After fine tuning

The completed mandala center.

Mandala Center

Full view showing all of the blue sections.  Tomorrow I do some white touch-ups on the blue diamonds and the on to the orange sections.

Full View

Happy Coloring!

Maureen, The Mandala Lady

“Bangles” Day 53

I did a major portion of the blue areas…I was able to fine-tune all of the stand-alone blue rectangles and triangles.  For the first layer of blue paint that was added around day 7 or 8, I used ultramarine blue and dioxazine purple.  For the second layer I’m mostly glazing with pthalo blue and dioxazine purple.  In simple terms, glazing is using a thin, watered-down version of the paint.

This is a before photo.  Even though it’s blurry you can still make out how the edges are messy and two of the sides of each of these blue shapes is rather flat.

Before fine tuning

The after photo.  You can see that the edges are cleaner and the blue has a richer tone to it.

After fine tuning

Here you can see all four of the rectangular shapes that have been fine tuned today.  The two blue triangles (out of this view) and the other grouping of blues that are in the lower left section of the mandala (out of view here) were also completed today.

Blue Section

Full view.  Tomorrow I fine tune the six blue diamond shapes.

Full View

Happy Coloring!

Maureen, The Mandala Lady

“Bangles” Day 52

Today I finished up the red areas: the red diamond shapes across the horizon of the mandala.  Much like the rectangular shapes, I used quinacidrone red and dioxazine purple, with a touch of titanium white for highlights.

These days I’m doing mostly clean up.  So to help you see it a little better, I cleaned up the left side of the red diamond frame, the right side is waiting to be done.

Close up: red diamond frame

Here you can see the cleaned-up red center diamonds and the middle red diamond frames.

Close up of center

Here’s the outer red diamond frame…all cleaned up and ready to go

Close up of outer red diamond frame

Full view.  Tomorrow I start with the blue sections.

Full View

Happy Coloring!

Maureen, The Mandala Lady

“Bangles” Day 51

Today I’m back on track and painted quite a bit of the red areas; mainly the red shapes on the right side of the mandala and the two red triangles (top/bottom).  For the red areas I’m using quinacidrone red and dioxazine purple, with titanium white for the highlights.  The painted the under coat with napthol red around day 6.

Since these days I’m mostly doing fine-tuning work, it becomes more difficult to detect the difference.  So I’m providing a ‘before’ photo of the red areas I painted today.

Before Painting another layer of red

The fine-tuning includes straightening the edges and add more depth/shadow to each red section.

After adding another layer of red & fine-tuning

Here’s a view of the four red rectangular shapes I painted today.

The four red rectangular shapes

I was having so much fun with painting today, that I continued on and painted to the two red triangles.  This is the upper one.

Upper triangle

And the lower red triangle (the photo is a tad blurring but you get the idea).

Lower red triangle

And as always, the full view.

Full View

Tomorrow the plan is to fine-tune the red diamond shapes.

Happy Coloring!

Maureen, The Mandala Lady