Mandalas and Materials Maketh The Madhouse

Rainy days make for good art making as long as grey skies don't make you depressed, mad or bad. My two cousins Gwendolyn (from Melbourne) and Elaine (from Waipukurau) came along to the Otane Art Group to spend the morning. Gwen brought along a book on mandalas as she is currently reading up as much on these as she can. I find them interesting, their designs are very balanced and each has a different spiritual meaning. I'm afraid I chatted so much I didn't get much work done apart from a commissioned pendant which I was putting finishing touches to.

When I arrived home there was a huge parcel sitting at the back door. It was full of materials I had ordered from The Learning Connexion several days ago. Always feels like Christmas when I open a parcel, even when I already know what's inside. In this case I replaced a few of my acrylic paints whose tubes had reached the soft-at-the-far-end-but-hard-in-the-middle-so-you-can't-get-the-paint-out-unless-you-stab-it stage, oil pastels, pastel pencils, pastel papers (black and shades of cream- yes women are able to tell the difference between tones of the same bland colour), two sketch pads, four canvases including one that was 30" long, brushes, brushes, and brushes, a big fat glue stick which hopefully doesn't lose its "stick" like my last one, and beautiful Cotman watercolours- eleven tubes to replace the ones that turned to concrete years ago. Ah heaven...sigh.