Blue lines of society

"Everyone has a masterpiece within him from birth ... when we are young, society draws pale blue lines, as if your life were a paint-by-numbers kit. The message is: If you stay in the lines your life will be a masterpiece. That's a lie. You have to constantly battle to be nobody but yourself. If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted." - Gordon MacKenzie

This mandala demonstrates my creative process (or at least one of them!) It all started with the doodle on the back of an envelope that I posted 2 days ago. After ruminating on it for a while I decided to use some of the symbols and colour schemes, and that I would draw a mandala including these elements. Then I decided to take the concept of the 'pale blue lines' and drew my circle and the spokes with blue pencil. The inner circles are drawn with my compass, but the designs on the outer edge are drawn freehand, to reflect the desire to break out of boundaries set for us, but which may not be appropriate for our lives.

I like the way the colours sometimes run into each other, have fuzzy edges or are fainter in some places than other - it all gives the impression that this is all quite tenuous - society holding onto us, or us holding onto society - I'll leave you to mull that one over.

The art of creativity for me is a step by step process, that can evolve at any time along the way. I only thought of using blue to draw the mandala tonight after reading the quote - in fact I had only rediscovered the quote today as well - I'd decided to draw a mandala a couple of days ago, but the individual elements fused together today. The writing and designs around the outside of the mandala came into my mind as I was colouring the outer edge. Creativity is a continuous journey of discovery, a way to discovering who you really are.