A Mandala a Day for 49 Days

In honor of my being 7 squared, I have decided to color or create an average of one mandala a day for 49 days, beginning with July 1. Some days I may do more and some days I may not do any, but at the end of the 49 days (which will be August 18, I think - correct me if I am wrong!) I will have completed 49 mandalas of one sort or another. I think I can do it.

I began by coloring in some mandalas from Julie Keefe's Mandala Mondays contest website. N did one with me the first day, and when we uploaded them, she wrote back to say we were the first ones ever to participate, so I'm trying to spread the word about her mission. Visit her site and try out one of her lovely designs. It's a very relaxing activity. Here are the ones I've colored so far, beginning with "Luminosity":

This one is N's:
Here are two more I did yesterday. I call the first one "Golden Atom" and the second "Desert Yantra." It's the first yantra I have attempted in any form.

My sister-in-law C did this one and titled it "Chocolate Truffle." I love it!
And this one's by my niece S. "Starry Flight." We enjoyed coloring together!
Z and I went to Dick Blick this afternoon and bought the materials for our summer courses. She's taking Drawing I and I am taking Painting I. We had a whole lot of fun - it's not often we spend that kind of money on art supplies, but we had to this time, right? ;-) Good thing my class was free, since I spent over $100 in supplies, geez!

I've skipped two of the lessons in Clare Goodwin's course, and gone on to her lesson on chakras. I know very little about chakra theory, and after coloring these three today I have determined that I need to find a book on chakra theory. I'll finish this series of mini-chakra mandalas, most of which will become cards to send to people, and then I will do a more elaborate, creative, expressive series. I find that I really like doing the small, close work of these miniature pieces; I think doing more elaborate ones this small would be a challenge I could really get into. Here are the first three, starting from the base and working upward:

The root chakra, which is traditionally associated with red:
The sacral chakra, associated with orange (I plan to keep this one, as orange is my color right now - the color of movement, change and experimentation):
The solar plexus chakra, associated with yellow:
I did these on vellum with colored pencil and gel pen (mostly gold and silver), then mounted the vellum on colored paper. The rubber cement shows, and you can't see the vibrancy of the yellow, but you get the general drift. I'm having a good time with it.

So it's the end of Day 5 and I've done 6 (yes, I know I started early - I'm letting myself cheat; it's all part of the "be kind to myself" plan, thanks to my cousin K). I plan to go out tomorrow to buy a book on chakras, and then to do at least a couple more in the series. And yes, I've fixed the date on the camera - it reads day/month/year. Very European. So it's correct - it just doesn't look it to folks in this country!