Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve created. That’s not something I feel often, but it feels right to attribute it to this. If I were to change anything, I think I would add more detail to my colored mandala. I like it the way it is right now, but I would love for it to be the sort of piece you can look at for hours, to get lost in the result as much as I got lost in the process.
I took joy in the process of creating the mandalas. Just draw shapes and lines until something starts to make sense. Abstract, but not quite. It reflects my own style of drawing. I’m far from an artist in the traditional terms. I’ve never had the patience for an elaborate piece of art, and I’ve never had the drive to hone a style of my own. Most of my drawings are doodles in notebooks when lectures get boring and I allow my pen to wander. Both of my mandalas are the result of a restless mind and a wandering pen, and I think there’s something beautiful about that.
When I first started this project, I had an idea in mind of what I wanted to create. I saw every shape in my mind, every single pen stroke. But, as it often is with unpracticed artists, those images were unattainable. There’s something about seeing something in your head, some sort of perfection that disappears when you try to make it tangible, like a thought you can’t quite put into words. I grew frustrated with my own work. Then, one evening I pulled out my drawing tablet and began to draw. I had nothing to do, or I was procrastinating, or I had an anxious thought that just wouldn’t go away. But I drew. The lines flowed out of my pen until it became something. In the span of an hour I had created something better than I had planned. It was because I had let go of expectations for myself and my work and just let it be.
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