My Illustration Work with Mandalas

As some of you may know, I am an illustrator...I've explored many mediums in the past 40 plus years of my career. 

Lately, as a result of my extensive work on creative visualization & illustrations for children's issues, I've been studying Therapeutic Meditative Art, particularly the ancient Tibetan & Buddhist artform, the Mandala.  Mandalas are also a strong part of the Native American Indian cultures.  I have been creating mandalas for all ages.

Although you may not have heard of the word mandala before, you already know what it is. Mandala means circle in Sanskrit.

Circles are a powerful symbol found in every culture. We see them in halos, prayer wheels, and other religious symbols, architecture, and nature. Mandalas are sacred circles that have been long been used to facilitate meditation in the Indian and Tibetan religions. People create and look at mandalas essentially to center the body and mind.

Mandalas are entering medicine as a healing tool. An increasing body of clinical trials suggests that meditation can boost the immune system, reduce stress, combat depression, reduce pain, lower blood pressure, and stimulate the release of melatonin, a hormone believed to slow cell aging and promote restful sleep.

Mandalas are not just something to look at or meditate on. There are now mandala coloring books. Coloring a mandala using pencil crayons, crayons, paint, or pastels combines the benefits of meditation and art therapy.

To relax and to improve concentration, there are many things that can be done. One of these is, in peace or with soft background music, to colour in a Mandala.

Mandala more or less means "circle" or "centre". Shapes and patterns are added to a clearly calming centre point.

• Mandalas are healing mediums for the soul
• Mandalas are the merging of body, spirit and soul
• They uncover your own creativity
• You discover yourself and the real you
• You master your every day life and stress easier
• You become calm and gain trust and composure

 I'm always happy to answer any questions.

Nancy B

Nancy, I find this fasinating! I always noticed how the Aborigine flag looks like UFO designs.
As you can see I am quite elemental, but thank you.

PS, would you be able to post some of your work?

I wish I knew how to do that here, Linda. 

However, I am creating some e-books of mandalas VERY soon that can be downloaded and coloured. 

I'm also offering MANDALA WORKSHOPS  locally.

Being an artsy-fartsy type...lol... I have NO idea how to get my mandalas made into J-PEGS  although that's what I THOUGHT I was doing.   I'd better ask my two sons, the geniuses!!  How did someone like me ever have two brilliant engineers!?!

Nancy, you are such a sweetheart. If it is anywhere on the net,I shall find it! After just waking up from a nightmare about my ex, I could use something positive.I hate anxiety dreams. I lived in New Mexico for 14 years and came to know many American Natives, and visit some of their special places, which I was honored to be let into...smile.
I am a spritualist, and I believe coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous, I believe there is a reason I saw your post at almost midnight my time, through tears.
I love your new pic too, I looked at your profile, you have such a sweet face, a good aura for sure. Please excuse my spelling, as I am just waking up.
Hugs!

thank you for this info...it is very interesting! i , too, would love to see some of your work!
miss you - so glad that you are posting and so excited about infoDiva's success!

Nancy, this is fascinating to me also. I would love to see some of your work if your sons could help you to get it on here so we could share in it with you. This is just totally fascinating to me. I love seeing things like this. I too am a artistic sort of person and I just starting realizing it recently. I like to create things (but usually do not follow through on doing it) and I love to write. That is my secret passion. I do poetry, but just a few people have ever read them. I keep them to myself since the only thing I write about is my feelings on things that happen in my life. Please try to post some pictures of the wonderful things that you are creating. We would love to see them.

Nancy...

Thank you for posting this... I colored mandala's a long time ago when I was doing some healing around my sexual abuse issues.  I would love to see some of your work.. but in the mean time... I think I will buy one the mandala coloring books.

Helen

Great stuff, Nancy.  Keep up the good work.  I'd love to see more too.  
You can photograph them with a digital camera and download to your computer.  I think that automatically converts them to jpeg.  But how to post them on this site?  I haven't a clue.

Carmel Valley Linda

Hi  -  I would love to see your work, too.   Meditation is such a wonderful tool for centering oneself and slowing down the world and our thoughts.  I need to be reminded every once in a while of the power of meditating!     Margaret   PS  I love Niagara-on-the Lake.  I've stayed there a few times (at the Pillar and Post) and was to go back to the Shaw this summer, but I had too much to do and never made it.  Maybe nest year.  Lovely area!!