A mandala is a geometric arrangement of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas are employed for directing the attention of practitioners, as a spiritual tool, for instituting a sacred space for meditation.
Mandala Art on Silk
To begin with, things required includes some silk and a basic frame. You can buy yourself pongee silk at any nearby store and 4 pieces of wood to nail together in a modest fashion to make a squared frame. You can join the silk to the frame.
You will also require a specific liner in a tube to form the material design for your mandala. This will function as a check for the silk paints and give the basic form. I would recommend getting little tubs of possibly red, yellow, blue, and maybe a purple silk paint. Ask in the store for these paints. With this selection, you can blend other colors you would like to have for your mandala. You iron the condensed fabric from the reverse and this fixes the paints into the silk.
Make sure you have a few spare watercolor brushes to paint your colors onto the silk and a broad palette to mix colors in.
So now you are primarily going to use the liner to form a line drawing of the mandala and you will use the paints afterward within the lines when the liner has thoroughly drained. It’s a bit like coloring in but much more imaginative.
First of all, give your silk a swift wash to remove any gummy sericin from the silkworms or other chemicals that might have got into the material. Next, spread it onto the silk, and don’t be hesitant to pull on the fabric. It should be really tight. Leave it now a bit to drain.
Next, you are going to put your line mandala. You can either draw through a mandala design you have designed for this purpose, or simply draw one on the silk. I suggest you mark the center and paint a few concentric lines as a guide for your mandala artwork.
Now take the tube of the liner and gently and accurately either trace along the lines of the drawing you have placed underneath the silk or start to draw freehand on the material.
Leave your finished design to dry for two nights. You can now color in your picture using the silk paints. Let your creativity run wild. Be inventive.
Again leave your artwork to fully dry and when it is, iron your silk from the reverse to fix the colors.
Your mandala painting is now equipped to hang.
