MANDALA MANIA CONTINUED

And now here is a review of the stages of the second mandala I did with Ann Grasso's mandala creation technique.  A few of these photos have been shown in previous posts, but I haven't yet showed the entire progression of this one, which I just finished today.  Here's the development of this mandala.  (New photos are at the end)

The original plain-vanilla version, but this second Zendala® was done on a Renaissance (tan) tile and so requires different techniques.

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Next, I added some light shading.  It made a big difference.  I had made a copy of the tile above, so this was done on inexpensive copy paper.  I really liked this version.

Using another copy from my original (on more cheap copy paper), I did a fully-colored version and really liked that too, but I was realizing that cheap copies were not holding up well and after all that effort, I began to re-think using this type of paper.  I was reminded that I could make copies using a much higher quality paper, and I'll do that from now on.

Creating this version still left me with the original un-colored Renaissance tile.  Time to color that one next...

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And so, I did color it yesterday, and on the rich tan printmaking Zendala® paper, I could really "go to town" in a way that the cheaper paper couldn't handle.

And of course, I could not let well enough alone at that point, so I got back on my iPhone and played with my Mirror App again.  I can't help it. Must. Try. It.  Below are two results.

Next in this series will be the creation of a Zendala on a black tile.  I haven't worked all that frequently (yet) with the black tiles.  I enjoy never knowing how the drawing is going to turn out--what twists and turns the mandala shape will take as I work on it.

I notice I am petrified every time I begin to work on one of these, and yet working on each one, at each stage, has been incredibly calming.  The fear is all in advance, and dissipates as soon as I touch pencil to paper.  I am immersed in and enjoying this meditative practice, as well as the results.

Let's round this off with another Mae West quote: 
"Anything that's worth doing is worth doing slowly."
I am going to bet she was NOT talking about Zentangle there.  Ya think?