“Whenever you should question your self-worth, always remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty.” Suzy Kassem
Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
“To see this mysterious existence, to feel it in the deepest core of your heart, and immediately a prayer arises—a prayer that has no words to it, a prayer that is silence, a prayer that doesn’t say anything but feels tremendous, a prayer that arises out of you like fragrance, a prayer that is like music with no words, celestial music, or what Pythagoras used to call “the harmony of the stars,” the melody of the whole. When that music starts rising in you, that’s what the Secret of the Golden Flower is all about: suddenly a flower bursts open in you, a golden lotus. You have arrived, you have come home.”
― Osho, The Secret of Secrets
“Be like a lotus. Let the beauty of your heart speak. Be grateful to the mud, water, air and the light.”
Amit Ray,
Nonviolence: The Transforming Power
“The mud represents an importance in the meaning of the lotus flower in Buddhism. All humans are born in a world where there is suffering. This suffering is a vital part of the human experience; it makes us stronger and teaches us to resist the temptation of evil. When we banish evil thoughts from our mind we are able to break free of the muddy water and become one with the Buddha. The mud shows us who we are and teaches us to choose the right path over the easy one.
Finally, the lotus flower represents rebirth, both in a figurative and a literal sense. The rebirth can be a change of ideas, an acceptance of Buddha where there once was none, the dawn after one’s darkest day, a renaissance of beliefs or the ability to see past wrongs. In a literal sense, the meaning of the lotus flower in Buddhism represents rebirth as a reincarnation, such as in the Buddhist religion, when a soul leaves this world in its present form to be reborn in another.” https://buddhists.org/the-meaning-of-the-lotus-flower-in-buddhism/
THE PROCESS
The process of creating these apparently simple and easy Lotuses was an amazing experience of patience and resilience, but most of all of persistence. It became the quest to find the perfect gold that was both the exact brilliance and non toxic.
As with all projects, the realization and the awareness of the deepest experience unfolds at the end, when everything has finished and I start writing this post.
When the desired goal has been reached, all the troubles and challenges melt and are forgotten, and one can only say ” it was very well worth it! “
I had been wanting to draw a lotus mandala for awhile, so I began at the end of Januray 2021, by sketching a few and kind of letting ideas come to me.
I wanted them to be able to be scanned easily and upload them to create products such as tshirts, bags etc. so my initial intention was to draw them black on a watercolor background.
When I finished with the drawing I decided to scan just the black and white and give it a try on some posters, tshirts and for some coloring postcards to see if anyone would like them, also with a digital watercolor background to see how it looked.
But as I cannot help wanting to create something with my hand with colors I continued to prepare my own backgrounds.
I had some Watercolor papers left and instead of just using one I decided to cut them in small pieces and experiment with different watercolor backgrounds.
I was able to make 4 pieces of 15 x 14 cm and 4 of 21 x 15 cm.
I used the wet on wet technique and let everything flow and see what would come out. It was a really fun experience to just play with water and colors, seeing the different patterns emerging adding more or less water.
The first one that I tried with black on a turquoise background did not really satisfy me much, so I made a trial on the computer and created gold digitally and I liked the result so much more.
So I then decided to paint it with a gold acrylic paint that I had. The paint itself worked very well on previous projects but did not feel 100% on this one, so I left it for when I could find another paint. I will show you a comparison with another paint later on and you will notice the difference too.
I found a Liquid Gold Leaf Paint that everyone was saying was the best but I was very wary of buying because it said it was toxic, but not being able to find anything better, I tried. It came all the way from the States and as it needed a non porous surface, while I was waiting, I painted a base with some white acrylic gesso, to also make the paint stand out.
When the paint arrived, in July, the smell was so strong that I could not work with it and decided to leave it for awhile, until I found a way by being next to the opened door and window, with a ventilator placed directly on me and a few masks. I was able to paint only two with this one, than came summer and I could not open the windows for the excess heat, so I left it and when I picked it up again the paint had gone quite hard, so time to search for something else again. This is the comparison with the previous paint, quite a big difference!
After a few trials and errors and having to redo some few times with different paints, I finally found watercolor gold leaf pigments which are just the best and most beautiful non toxic option until anything else better comes along. (Imitation Gold is made of Copper which is still toxic to aquatic life, so the left over should never be thrown down the drain) I will do a post one day on the different types.
I started this project at the end of January 2021 thinking it would last me few weeks but between not finding the ideal gold paint and life challenges I was able to work on it few moments each month and now in December 2021 is finally seeing the light.
Thank you for watching and reading up to here!
SunFreeStar 