A Mandala of Our Solar System

Water color, Color Pencils, Red/Blue/Black Ink.

A rendition of our solar system as a Mandala [A Sanskrit word that means “circle.” In the Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions, their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Each gate is in the shape of a T.¹] Usually there’re four gates or paths to the universe, however I wanted to keep things more close to home; the solar system with a nice round number of eight planets.

The Sun is the center of our solar system in which humans worshiped in many ways other than Hinduism and Buddhism, further more there is a ring that protects the planets and acts as limit of the gravitational field. Beyond the circle lies another circle that show the billions and billions of stars of interstellar space.

The process of this is simple. Make sure the circles and lines are neatly white and tidy, mask it with paper tape to divide in sections. Then the first layer used is water color to set the background of the dark space and coloration of the planets. Then comes to the detailing of adding stars and cutting the lines to make the flames and planets look nice and sharp. The last is to add white paint to the stars to make it illuminate like the stars we see on the beautiful night sky.

2008
© Kidd Pantana-Gunther