2013-12-13; 8:35am, Friday. Overcast and not warm, or mild or nice.


Diary:  Mandala colouring completed and explained.

~~The last parts are now coloured in and I explain the process that took so many years, but is now complete.~~

Last night I completed the colouring of my mandala!  As I came to the last few ‘tongues’ I discovered in some cases a new way of blending them in with the surrounding seasonal colour theme.  As a final inspection I want to check the other such ‘tongues’ for the same possibility, as well as check for some overlooked detail that should be coloured, but is not.
	However, those activities are no longer part of the completion process, but rather a tuning and balancing of the composition of the given doodle geometry by Moira and my colour scheme.  

This completed mandala stands for integration I thought last night as I looked over my handy work.  I started in1973 and then left it with the center and the inner six satellites done.  That portion stands for my life’s integration thus far at that time.  Now, forty years later at seventy seven (77) in completing the rest the mandala, I have added the second part of my life’s experience to that earlier part.
	In the 1973’s yearend colouring I did not know how to proceed further with the colour choices.  The question I had then, was whether I should proceed to a brighter perimeter shining a light as it were, or become darker towards the rim, meeting the unknown?  I could not resolve this dilemma and left the colouring for what it was.  
	And yet, always keeping the paper rolled up and semi cared for as I moved from place to place, first as family by myself later.  Then last year Christmas I looked at this big rolled up affair once more and just knew its time had come to be completed and so it is.

The colour scheme that I could not decide on back in 1973, now emerged as I studied the coloured in centre portion, which amounted to no more than one third of the entire circular mandala design, which measures twenty (27) inches or seventy (70) cm across.  
	I took my clue from the work I had done back in 1973 and extended those present colours from that done center portion out.   I continued in that manner applying it to the protruding tongues, but not to the leaf type design that dominated the sections between these ‘tongues’.
	The in between sections were leaves green, if necessary, but not necessarily green, to paraphrase old former and late PM King.  And so slowly the idea of the seasons emerged with the top - the red tongues - as North and winter, with the spring to the East, summer South and the left West as fall.
	This fits in with the old human tradition going back to Ancient Egypt that death and life’s end is in the west!  The cowboys too ride into the setting sun, when leaving town for the next adventure!  
	The most challenging part proved to be the choosing of colours for the flower rosettes which I wanted to blend with the transition between the seasons and bridge the strong  colours of the interior with the seasonal ones of the perimeter.  In this I succeeded according to Jennie, my helpful colour advisor at Kensington Art Supply.

Lunch with John today, while yesterday’s with Herman and Don was an affair of friends, with a card and decorated tree photos from Don.  Late last night I sent an email to Joan K. and am curious to see whether it was accepted.  I also got an email from Howard for our annual Christmas coffee some time next week.  This is always a bit of a negotiation process with the four parties here in Calgary.
<9:32am and 9:50am with the edit.



Writings:  

~~None.~~