Creating Mandala Re-invented

Description: Mandalas literally means a circle and have existed in traditional art for almost 12000 years, Sri Yantra being one of the earliest examples. It represents the universe and the inner self and its self symmetric designs are pleasing to the eyes. They are known to reduce stress, anxiety, depression and help one calm down.

Artist Sujata Tibrewala takes them to another level and uses modern symbols and water color techniques to represent the modern world we live in today. In this class you will learn the examples of basic traditional mandalas, modern water color techniques to color them and your own unique symbols to represent your view of the universe in these circular artful creations.

Week 1: how to create the basic mandala grid with compass, scale and protractor. This simple grid forms the foundation of all mandalas and makes drawing anything within it very easy, and the symmetry makes it forgiving. You are then free to chose any design within one grid and we will learn how to copy it throughout the whole mandala to reveal the beauty of a basic mandala 

Week 2: we will experiment with creating depth and perspective within the mandala and how the basic mandala grid lends itself to create the illusion of realistic depth.  

Week 3: we will learn how to find mandala patterns in nature and draw them on your own, we will start with simple tree mandala and snake mandala 

Week 4: mandala pattern in nature continued, and explore making fractal like flower mandala 

Week 5: we will learn some water colour techniques and use it to create another nature mandala featuring deep sea creatures 

Week 6: continuing the nature mandala we will explore landscapes within the grids of mandala and make a water colour four seasons and day and night with sun stars mandala 

Week 7: we are now ready the explore complex traditional temple art mandala with yet another technique in water colour 

Week 8: we will end the session with learning how to draw the most complex and most ancient mandalas of all, the sri yantra, a mandala which existed 10000 years ago and yet still remains a mathematical wonder due its complex measurements. In this class we will look at a very simple technique to make this complex mandala 

The student should have an idea of how to use a ruler, compass and a protector to measure degrees.

Recommended age is class 3 and above.