composition and clay: mandalas and nesting bowls

This assignment to make a mandala with four textures from nature and four patterns ought to have been easier than previous assignments as I’ve previously enjoyed drawing Zentangles and then coloring them in pencil, but I’ve now discarded 2 almost completed paintings. Here’s my latest attempt.   

I actually painted a previous mandala with the hand and compass, but ripped the paper when I tried to paint the sunburst with painters tape as a resist and lifted paint and paper when removing the tape….and primary black is so jarring in contrast when it’s predominant in the composition.      

Painting is so hard! My composition is completely drawn, but I can see that the paint has bled beyond my drawing lines. I need to use less water as this is gouache and not watercolor. And not stress and embrace the wabi sabi of my drawing and painting.                  

I am liking the concept. I plan next to mix up gouache to make some kind of indigo shade to suggest the cosmos emerging from the void. I'll use my fine brush to paint the lines in the 4 different patterns and will probably use the micron ink pen to draw the lines in the medallion but color the background of fire, water, air and earth in gray.                          

Okay, so I've painted the images in the circle with primary black gouache and my thinnest paintbrush. I fucked up on the spiral pattern, and so the plan is to paint white gouache over that and start over with the spiral SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO START OVER AGAIN, but we'll see if I don't fuck up the black around the rainbow and between the sunburst's rays. And maybe I'll skip swimming and sketch YET ANOTHER mandala in case I fuck this one up.

 

Yeah of course, I fucked up and started ALL over AGAIN. I decided I didn't like the purple or the blue backgrounds of earth, fire, air, water. I went with gray instead. And yeah back to black outside of the rainbow or ROYBGIV rings.              

I picked up library books on drawing modern florals and geometric patterns in Islamic art and art nouveau patterns. The next mandala I’m drawing and painting will be for me and reference and encompass those design inspirations. Yesterday clay was spent in the glaze room to which I had brought nesting red clay bowls and pondered for the longest I’d ever pondered what glaze to adhere to a clay body.        

These are all the before photos of littler bowls and will post the after photos next week because I’ve yet to glaze two bigger red clay bowls when I see how these smaller bowls turn out. I’m also going to make a bunch more slab cups to be canvases for sgraffito work of modern florals.