- Research
The first part of my research I did was looking up what is a mandala and finding the meaning and what it represents. I found various types of mandalas and the symbolism in mandalas and learned that mandalas are not always circular. For this project, I researched ten pictures that are man-made like a shoe, umbrella, or hat, and also researched ten nature-made things like a flower, fish, or fruit. Using those twenty images I created a chart separating the ten images into two different charts and created abstractions using proportion, scale with shape, direction, components, and value and color.
Exercises/Activities*
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- Exercises and activities I did to lead up to my project are going through my chart with man-made items and my other chart with nature-made items. I picked one nature-made item and one man-made item and I took those and created a couple of different patterns in three-inch squares and created a nine-by-nine pattern grid for the two items I chose a fish and a key.
- Iterations
I had many ideas for the final project, I searched for many different mandalas templates and created different ideas I had for my final production. First I chose my 5 different abstractions which were a hat, a fish fin, the outside lines of a basketball, a snail shell, an umbrella, and the circular part of a key. Then I took a simple template of the mandala which was the basic circular pattern and divided it into parts which made it easier to create a pattern and use the same patterns in each part of the mandala. I decided to start creating my templates and I wanted to make a different kind of mandala instead of circular ones. The first one I created was a flower mandala. I created a mandala with half circles that spiral and get smaller and smaller as you look at it. After I chose to use my half circle spiral template I decided to start playing around with different abstractions from my man-made and nature-made chart, and I started adding value to the mandala, using black, white, and grays. After reviewing my mandala I went back and took notes of what I wanted to change and focused on the focal point of my mandala and how directional movement is used. After finishing the black, white, and grey version of my mandala I used the color wheel/chart to help me figure out which colors would look best based on the colors that were already used in the black and white mandala.
- Production
For my final production, I felt monochromatic was the best way to use color because I chose to use directional movement and I wanted it to have movement not only within the abstractions but also with the color. As you look at the mandala the abstractions get smaller and the color gets lighter on my value mandala and also the color mandalas. I tried using many colors and different compositions to try for my final production. I chose to use the pink and red monochromatic and the split complimentary greens and blues for my two final mandalas. I felt using monochromatic and split complimentary gave the most effective directional movement and the colors went well together.
View detailed project post at Mandala: Color and Pattern