The Watching Mandala

All things in cycles

My dad linked me the other day to a video of someone making a complicated mandala in just minutes digitally using an app.  Said app turns out to be iOS only and only works well if you’ve got a fancy iPad and Apple Pencil and all that.

In the comments, however, someone linked to some Illustrator templates for this kind of thing.  Not free, but at such a reasonable price point that I decided to toss money at a possible solution to my current struggles with my current solutions for radial symmetrical designs.

Spoiler: it is magic

Seriously, I do not know how they work but they are smooth.  My only regret is that they don’t have any with 8-fold symmetry, so expect a lot more 9-fold, 10-fold, and 12-fold symmetrical designs.

And that prompted me to go looking for a rabbit hole to go down about the term “mandala” and what actual historical and religious mandalas look like and how we came to call these other designs with radial symmetry “mandalas”, but I’m struggling with search terms so that will be another post.  Please comment or email if you have suggestions or links to research!

What you’re really here for

This is one of the new designs I made with these new templates (plus some Photoshop for the color gradient, which is probably now looking pixelly because I shrank it from the enormous version I made for RedBubble.).

Bonus SALE on RedBubble!

Today only, 20% off everything on RedBubble with the code perfect20-ninthcircle … and baby needs a new tablet. Just sayin’.

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