How to make Flower Mandalas

21 April 2017

Happy Friday. Why not Make Flower Mandala this weekend?

Mandalas are blooming everywhere: coloring books, coloring apps, tear sheets in magazines and as a part of the doodle-craze.

My, go-to mandala, is the Flower Mandala (or Flower Portraits). As the weekend kicks off, I’d like to invite you to make Flower Mandala, too.

(In fact, join me and others. Last night, I had the opportunity to join a flower workshop with a flower artist I admire. I invited you to just us, too)

Since I’m using the term, Mandala, as an invitation to create, I wanted to look up an official meaning which calls a Mandala is a spiritual symbol in Buddhism and Hinduism. Mandala literally means circle and has magical qualities that are intrinsic to it — no beginning and no end.

– The most typical model mandala form is a square with four gates containing a circle with a central point. Mandala often has an outer circle. – This basic form can be found in many ancient mandalas but there are endless variations which all include flow.

Materials:

– Flowers, petals or leaves

– Flat work surface

How:

– You can adhere to the most traditional format, as described above

or

– Follow the flow of the petals and leaves:

I’m so infatuated with flowers and foliages that we always have a sprig or vase of something, somewhere in our house. (I’m often eying inanimate objects and animating them. (here | here | here as example.)

When clearing away dinner plates, my children will have many memories of their mother distracted by the dinner petals that have fallen to find their mother quickly arranging these in patterns or faces. As a mom, my interest have spilled over in to our kitchen with Mandala Vegetable, Fruit and Candy Mandala, too.

HANNA GRID_TOP

Last night, I attended a Flower Workshop hosted by Hanna Wendelbo for Mercedes Benz who’s an absolutely gifted flower artist.It’s been said that her hand has been in almost every floral wallpaper done over the past decade in Sweden. I’ve become most aquatinted with Hanna through her beautiful floral mandalas and floral art that she shares on Instagram (You can find more about the pop up workshop and Hanna here) Take a look at Hanna’s own Mandalas It was a really fun experience.

Hanna was generous and so warm; making everyone feel easily engaged. She started out session by explaining that she began making her flower mandalas as a Mindfullness Monday project. It’s a practice that she does to welcome the week. Isn’t that a lovely idea? Participating in a Flower Mandala workshop was a really fun way to meet and to also see different styles and experiences in the group within the group. Although we all had the same materials, the outcomes were individual and so very interesting to see; even the pace with which each of us worked varied. You can find many more flower projects here.

Working with flowers is so forgiving. They’re just so relaxing and a wonderful way to be creative: solo or together — or to create a center for mindfulness.