Healing Herb Mandala

I started this mandala last week and finished it yesterday. It is one foot square so my scanner was unable to pick up the entire image but this is a decent representation of its essence.  I’ve been feeling under the weather again, this time with a bad chest cold. Working on this painting brightened things a bit.  I was thinking about plants, more specifically herbs, and the healing powers they possess.  It’s very interesting and most likely intuitive that I gravitated towards this type of healing subject matter just before I got sick. Our subject matter choices are so broad and widely varied that what we settle on working with has the potential to deliver important messages, if we are open to listening. I worked with a compass, ruler and was heavily dependent on the French curve.  I have a large one and a smaller curve. I’ve been curious about them but haven’t used them a great deal in the past.  It was interesting to form an entire composition around the curve and its many possibilities.  Organic abstraction has a soothing quality and I have always gravitated towards circles and curvilinear shapes. There is something about this particular mandala that also reminds me of a Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign. Because I grew up close to Pennsylvania I remember seeing these signs here and there.  I think I will look into them more closely now and see how I can work their compositional style and meaning into my work as I move forward with the mandala as a form of healing and expression. Meanwhile, the plants making my life more comfortable are green tea, ginger and lemon. Honey is also very soothing. Though as I write this post, I am thinking I need to search out my pantry to see if I have any slippery elm for my throat or horehound for my cough.