Our work and your work
Lorraine specializes in teaching students how to construct underlying sacred geometry and mandala grids that form the basis of designs made of many layers. You will learn the mystery of grid constructions and how these are used to create a range of culturally diverse stunning circular designs that combine additional geometric shapes within them. These skills and design elements incorporate hidden meanings, symbols, philosophy, the beauty of numbers and planetary reflections.
Yet, they can be made for your personal use in which you make meaning from your experience of creating your design. Please see Portfolio and Photo gallery page for many more variations including the absolute beginners page.
"Sacred geometry as an Illustration of our inner life"
Some traditions propose that geometry forms and the images placed within them are akin to spiritual guides working within angelic realms and effect us on an embodied emotional earthly plane to promote balance, clarity, insight and wellbeing. A childs mandala has a childs pure energy and will work on their age appropriate level for them. An adult mandala in the Jungian sense can touch our unconscious and support healing and insight.
"Mandala"
Mandala designs begin with circular patterns but evolve according to the unique interpretation of the person drawing who is sensing a design unfold. They are rarely planned in full. We have a starting point and then it intuitively moves in its own direction and the surprising new skills, patterns or colour ways that emerge are part of the delight in creating them.
"A Grid is a blueprint rendering that leads to the finished design"
Sketching grid layouts (with some lines being erased in the process) and experimenting with loose pen work, patterns and colours are part of the learning, exploring and design development process. Permission to let go of perfection while learning is an important aid to relaxation and enjoying your experience. This featured grid leads to the 'Baba Nakassh' See the 'Portfolio' page.
"Workshops'
At a workshop in Forest Rowe, Emerson, (SAOG - see online). As a tutor, I also attend mandala workshops. When practitioners come together, under the guidance of a skillful tutor, (Daniel Docherty in this instance). We collectively bud fresh ideas, unseen visions come into play and new ways of drawing and their possibilities expand. The work I created because of attending this workshop and the deepening of my understanding of more complex grids could not have happened in isolation.
Art for anyone who enjoys some structure in their art and practice.
If you are in a hurry, this type of work may not be for you...or, then again, maybe it is, because you wish to become patient and kind to yourself about your work..
Developing the skills of technical accuracy, colour application and learning to make sense of the grids through analysis takes practice, some time and depending on how far you would like to go with this as an art form, maybe even a few years to be perfect. That said, you will reach a capable standard and have work you are very pleased with straight away.
"It is whenever you are ready to advance that you feel like a beginner again. But, the beginning is where we must always start.."
Sacred Geometry is a way of being
Sounds strange to say, but often there is nothing more to be gained from this art except to have created the work and to show it to other devotees. It is a selective albeit worldwide club. In which people appreciate hand drawn design, history, colours, and the joy of producing, painting and drawing.