Summer Zen Art Practice

My summer zen art practice is beginning this week. Yesterday I packed the needed supplies, and today I will head out to the garden for 15 minutes of art meditation! I'm going to make a mandala each day; a mandala represents wholeness; it's a cosmic diagram of the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds.

Agenda:

1. Pack supplies

2. Prepare myself

3. Make a mandala

4. Read the Creativity Book

1. Pack supplies:

Pack a pad of watercolor paper, colored pencils, watercolors and palette, brushes, and a container for water into a basket.

2. Prepare myself

Set up a chair near a table in the garden. Set a timer to go off at 8:30 a.m.

3. Make a mandala

My plan is to create a series of mandalas, painted quickly in the garden, one new paper each day. The practice:

1. Create an Intention. Sit quietly. Pay attention to my breath. Call to mind that quality or feeling that i most need right now (calm, centering, energy, peace, humor, surrender...). When my intention is clear, focus on that word for a few breaths, and imagine that through my art-making today, I will receive that quality or feeling.
2. Paint a circle. Imbue it with the quality I am seeking.
3. Choose motifs. Look around and find a shape that embodies my intention (a leaf, petal, bee, stone, seed...), and draw or paint a pattern around the circle using that shape. Elaborate on this theme and add more shapes and lines.
4. Fill with color. Use watercolor or pencils.

4. Read the Creativity Book:

Last year I re-started this book by Eric Maisel (one of my favorite writers). The subtitle is "A Year's Worth of Inspiration and Guidance." Who doesn't want that?

I'm on Part 4, EXPLORE, and his second prompt is to ask one question, then try to answer it.

"As simple as this is to say, it is anything but easy to arrive at deep questions worth our devotions or to answer them adequately once we get them framed. ... We may ask a question that has no answer, or that has several competing answers, or that was framed just incorrectly enough that we can't get started answering it."

It is by asking questions and then discerning if they fill me with a desire to answer them that I will find my best creative projects.