I've been a long time gone...

...so I'm going to keep it short and simple, mainly to get myself back to blogging!  I've posted previously about doing mandalas.  Recently I shared this with some friends and a couple of them decided they wanted to try their hand at it.  Their results were breathtaking, in my opinion.

First, here's my mom's:

She told me what each of the elements means, but I'm going to leave it up to your interpretation, just for fun.  There is not enough mystery in our culture.

Here is my lovely friend Alicia's.

It is as vivid as her personality and she took great delight in breaking the "rules" by going outside the circle.

My own artistic endeavors have been mainly of the literary variety here lately.  I have a really cool idea for a book, perhaps a series, and I've been working on that a bit here and a bit there for a few weeks.  Today's bit was the first really solid writing I feel like I've done so far (as opposed to just shaping the concept).  I won't be posting any of the actual writing here but I'll keep you up to date on my progress.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the above artwork, so feel free to comment!