hiii love! have I told you before that I love your art? I LOVEEEEEEE YYYOOOUURR ART!!!!! you are so goddamn creative and the way you compose your designs is just- aaahhhh! I had a request, could you try black, pink, white and turquoise next? or you could do any of your fav colours and id still stare at it :)
@arachneofthoughts asked for a krishna themed mandala. (i can't post their screenshot coz image limit alas)
@arachneofthoughts asked: Hello!! I have never interacted with you before but your mandalas fascinate me so much. They are just absolutely BEAUTIFUL ❤️❤️❤️. If it's possible, could you make a Krishna themed mandala.
let me begin with, HOW DARE YOU op
im so so full of joy when i see y'all love my mandalas the same way i put my love into them. this means so much to me. thank you for this.
but oh thank you so much for this. this literally made my day yesterday and today, i have been thinking of this and only this for the last 24 hours. krishna, my dear lord, HIM. this was such a blissful and teary experience for me.
i couldn't stop once i began, i made you two mandalas.
story and step by step journey behind these two mandalas under the cut. and i know i say these almost everytime, but this actually is the most special, heart touching, emotionally invested arts that i have ever put my heart in. 10/10 shall definitely recommend. i loved every moment of making this.
the first thing i did as soon as i opened this ask was open my music gallery and play songs from the movie meera (1979), sung by vani jairam, prayers composed by sant meerabai and music by pt. ravi shankar, because i have been trained well. i have watched only and only this movie atleast a hundred times as a child. the emotional attachment i have with this movie, with meerabai is just out of this world. my love for krishna has been nurtured from a very young age and has grown from and with my family. meerabai and her songs for krishna resounded in our household as the years passed. every single time i play these, i cry. i cry like a child who longs for a mother's embrace in a world of chaos and running away. i remind myself of my real purpose. i am reminded of the love that sustains me, you and all of us. the eternal, magnificent and complete love that krishna has for us.
i tried drawing my love for him and my love for his art in these two designs. first mandala has the music from meera on it. allow me to demonstrate.
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below mentioned are the coloured/ highlighted sections of different whorls and layers of the first mandala.
1. the first innermost whorl is the first song from meera, my absolute favourite, and one of her most beloved bhajans, mere toh giridhar gopal. i drew tiny little peacock feathers, because "jaake sarr mor mukut, mero pati soyee"
2. the second whorl is jaago bansiwale. meerabai sings this as she cleans the temple in the morning and wakes the lord up. "jaago more pyaare, rajni beeti, bhorr bhayo re, ghar ghar khule kivaare" i drew the sun rising from the horizons and the flute opening up to the rest.
3. the third whorl is bala main bairagan hoongi. meerabai's song as her hand is given in marriage to rana of mewar. she has already considered krishna as her only husband. "praan humara wahaan basat hai, yahaan toh khaali khod," she says as her bride procession takes her away. i drew a lamp, a lamp of faith that never died. i tried to draw a forehead of her as a bride with decorations and her jewellery. i drew krishna's peacock feather too, because he is always on her mind, my poor heart cried hard.
4. the fourth whorl is my absolute favourite part of the mandala. to put it in abstract words, in my most insignificant and insignificant way, i drew three ways to approach krishna. love. i drew little symbols of radha (pot of butter), rukmini (a letter), meerabai (a tanpura) symbolizing their love, admiration and devotion respectively.
the fifth whorl is jo tum todo piya, main nahi todu by meerabai. she sings this beautiful song as she tells krishna with absolute faith that even if you break the relation with me, i will not. who else will i give my love to if i break the love with you? "tum bhaye chanda, hum bhaye chakora,, tum bhaye moti prabhu, hum bhaye dhaaga", she sings to say that krishna is like the moon and she is the cakora bird, that yearns in its light. you are like a pearl, i am the string that holds you close. in everyway the lord completes her and she is nothing without him. she is entirely surrending herself to him.
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should i go for mandala number two??
okay so let's go. i hadn't completed all the songs from meera and my mandala one was completed. i couldn't stop. i began with badal dekh dari
as i drew a very abstract form a bordered cloud formation plis. which then reminded me of the day krishna was born. on a dark, stormy night. i actually continued to draw like a regular mandala until maybe a few minutes later i started seeing patterns lol, as i should. let me explain how they looked otherwise i shouldn't sound like im going somewhere else and you don't get me at all,, so things started to look familiar and i very abstractly made it look like i drew little krishna wrapped in yellow cloth and put on a basket as the waters of yamuna parted ways and yamuna tried touching the feet of krishna
then second whorl,, i drew the usual flower and it's fold until it wasn't. well now that i drew newborn krishna on that stormy night, he needed ananta sesha too, so i drew lord ananta with his multiple hoods, sheltering krishna from the torrential rains and clouds above
the last whorl was a drawing of my boy krishna and his beautiful lotus feet and him standing on his tiptoes (probably to steal a pot of butter hung with ropes) with cute little anklets and his pitambari dhoti,, and then i ended it with just a little peacock feather detail there
thank you so much for this opportunity 🥰 deeply deeply grateful
