mandala madness

Please tell me I'm not the only one who wakes up full of energy, bursting with ideas of things to try, the day ripe with possibilities ...

... and then find myself leaning against the kitchen counter for a half hour, mindlessly shoveling animal crackers slathered in nutella into my mouth with nothing started.

At least they were organic animal crackers.

So it's been that kind of a day. In fairness to myself, the day began at 3:30 when a thunderstorm brought Cowgirl into our bed; an hour later I roused myself to carry her back to bed and at 7 am she shot herself out of bed Evel Knievel-like because today was Dads and Doughnuts at her school. (She enjoys my joke that the school had to use doughnuts to lure the dads inside.)

And that brief glimpse of sunshine? Gone with the dodo and it has been a soaker of a day.

this and the following page when done after watching Flowers are Fun and Decorative Leaf

But what I have been doing this past week - obsessively I might add - is playing with mandalas and doodles. I cannot get enough of them. I need practice to build my repertoire of forms and practice I am doing. I admit, I've browsed the zentangle and zendoodler sites and dabbled some but now I have a fever for the mandala and the only cure? More mandala!



















I'm liking the looser approach through watercolors, although the Pigma Micron pen drawings are very soothing and meditative to do. I love my pens so much, I even created a zipper case for them. How's that for love?








I did write my poem for the day - 12 days in a row! I promise to share some soon. In the meanwhile, I would love suggestions for poetry books for kids as I would love to instigate weekly poetry reading/writing sessions with Cowgirl this summer. Perhaps accompanied by some watercolor mandalas?