Two Tomato Mandala

TIMELINE: May 26, 2010 I did the first layer of the Tomato Mandala, based upon a red tomato I got at a restaurant, which had four connection points. After that I sliced open another red tomato and it had five connection points. Then I tried a Beefsteak tomato, which had 8 connections to the outer flesh, and a Roma tomato has two.

A few days ago I shot and uploaded the finished Tomato Mandala.

On Monday I went to yoga class and my teacher, Constance, showed another student and me her newest drawing, which is 6 feet wide by 9 feet high. I was very excited by it. It is based upon the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I hope to post a video of her talking about it, later.

So today, I brought my Black Drawings (white pencil on black paper) with me, along with the Tomato Mandala, to show Constance. After class I stopped at the art supply store and looked for heavy black paper to paint on, as my black drawings made me think about how nice these mandala paintings might look on black paper. I was walking up to the counter to purchase a large sheet of black paper when this pad of black paper caught my eye. It is SQUARE! Perfect for mandalas!

I had purchased a yellow tomato and an orange one, so when I got home I cut them open and Lo and Behold they had each only three connections. So amongst tomatoes, I have seen two, three, four and five, as well as eight connection points.

Constance offered to keep a tally of the number of connections in the tomatoes she encounters, as well. I was planning to go on to my red pepper mandala (3), but this got me going.

The heavy black paper was not designed specifically for water media, but it took the gouache well, in a thick solution. I have to tip my hat to my sister Betsy, who suggested I might like working with gouache. It took a couple of years to get around to trying it, but I am really enjoying it tremendously.