Mandala

Wikipedia: term used to refer to various objects. It is of Hindu origin, but is also used in other Dharmic religions, such as Buddhism. In the Tibetan branch of Vajrayana Buddhism, they have been developed into sandpainting. In practice, mandala has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the universe from the human perspective. A mandala, especially its center, can be used during meditation as an object for focusing attention. The symmetrical geometric shapes tend to draw the attention towards their center. Psychiatrist Carl Jung saw the mandala as "a representation of the unconscious self," and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.

Basically the objective was to create your own personal mandala, for meditation. Thanks to various projects, such as the junior thesis, I spent very little time working on this... actually probably only about a good 3 hours (the assignment was given about a month ago). Not that I care, but I'd like to at least try to pull something a little more crazy. But shit, its only Asian Philosophy class.

References were taken directly off alchemy and mysticism images... don't hate.

Animal illustration project (2 of 3) --incomplete

Just a couple of portrait studies from Greg Crane's painting sessions. As you see I'm not really a big fan of oil paint but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Graphite & gesso on TH Saunders