English 12 Honors Blog

I went into creating my mandala having no idea what I was going to draw that would represent me. I like balance in my life so I started by drawing 4 even bloxs. If you notice the whole design is, for the most part, symetrical.

The only thing that really throws the symetry off are the curls on the “pedal” like part of the design. I decided to draw the pedals in a way where they wouldn’t have the same symetry because I thought it would illustrate how even though I do need balance and a rountine I still enjoy mixing things up.

The only noticable symbol in my mandala would have to be in the center. It looks like an eye. It was a complete accident to be honest. I just started making a circle, some curved lines, colored around it, and it ended up looking like an eye. There is no meaning behind it.

I originally had planned to color my mandala but after finishing it I decided not to. Even though the back of the Mandala paper explains what certain colors mean in my opinion the hardest thing to do is describe yourself using color. Not only do colors represent different emotions to different people and cultures, but I believe a person is to complex to be described by just a color.

This is my mandala, there’s not much to look at but i will explain what i can.  The circles all have japanese symbols in them, from bottom left around: Peace, Water, Love, Death, Strength, Fire, Joy, and in the middle is Unity.

I have them all in circles of black to symbolize the evil that can be found in everything even though the act itself may not be considered that of evil nature.

Also circles are perfectly symmetrical wherever you go making them relevant to one another and equal.  I did this because I feel that everyone has as much a right to have any element in their life as they wish regardless of where somebody puts his or her self on my Mandala, they have just as much room as everyone else to go where they please.

The red blue and gold are simply all the other emotions that are affiliated with each symbol, i didn’t mean to put more of each color than the other but my design said otherwise, there was nothing i could do about it.  But i put no symbols in the other colored circles because no emotion/action should be placed above another and therefore does not deserve a color that signifies it as better or worse than another feeling.

When I began this project I contemplated what I should put on my mandela. I thought about putting my hobbies, favorite colors, and favorite music on it but nothing seemed to fit. I wanted something that everyone could understand and possibly relate to. In the end, I think that my mandela can not only represent me, but other people as well. I was trying to represent the idea of one complete day in my mandela and I ended up illustrating one of my favorite philosophies, the idea of living each day to the fullest.

Unfortunately, routine is what I typically reform to and I think several other people feel the same way. We get caught up in all the unimportant things in life, drama, television, and games. All of these things are entertaining but could be the basis of some people’s lives. What we often fail to recognize is the beauty of simplicity. Nature has some of the most awe-inspiring events of life. The sunset and the night sky represent the miracle that happens everyday. I do not appreciate this as much as I should and I admit that I sometimes get lost in the “unimportant” things.

As I was looking at the other posts comparing my mandala with others, I noticed how lots of people had drawn elaborate pictures that symbolized what they thought of life and who they were. This made me realize that I am a very simple person and that is shown in my Mandala.

My mandala defines who I am. The main focal point is the cross and the word faith. Just like my life the rest of the mandala revolves around faith. I live my life by faith and everything else just falls into place.

The flower, the moon and the stars, the sunset, the music notes and the laughing face don’t represent anything. They are just things that make me happy. The microphone represents the Christian band that I sing in and lead at my church. The boot and the shakers represent Bethettes. This year I am Head Bethette and it has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.

The rest of my mandala represents where I want to be in the next few years. I want to continue to sing in a Christian band and go to Penn State to major in Middle Level Education with a duel certification in Math and History. After I graduate I want to find a job teaching, get married and have a big family, and work in a beauty salon part time.

This is my mandala, and to be completely honest, it looks pretty pathetic.  However, as weird and as sad as it may sound, I wanted it to turn out this way, and I would not redo anything.  

My mandala is in the shape of a pizza.  I chose a pizza because, quite frankly, it was the first thing I thought of that is in the shape of a circle.  I guess me being a rather large human being food would be the first thing that comes to my mind, but I am digressing.

As I was gathering colors for my pie shapes, I was thinking of what I could symbolize with this “pizza” except for my love of food.  Then it hit me: I’ll symbolize life’s unexpected and dangerous obstacles using this pizza.  If you look closely at the mandala, there is a black dot in the center, symbolizing the current problem you are currently facing in life.  As the colors flow away from the dot, they get progressively lighter in shade, until almost disappearing at the edges.  This symbolizes that once you start to attack and defeat the obstacles life gives you, it gets easier and easier to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Each of the colors did not represent anything at first, but as I colored my “masterpiece” I began to match up some qualities to colors.  

The Red slice stands for blood shed: sometimes you need to encounter some physical pain in order to overcome our obstacles.  The Blue slice stands for bravery:  you must have courage in facing your fears.  The Yellow stands for intelligence: you must use your brain to escape dangers. The Purple stands for luck: sometimes you just need to be lucky.  The Orange slice stands for determination: you must be focused in order to achieve a positive outcome.  The Pink slice stands for encouragement: in order to succeed, you must feel wanted to succeed.   The Gray slice stands for trust:  you may be put into a “gray situation” but you must trust yourself to achieve the goal.  And finally, the Green slice stands for help: sometimes you need assistance. 

The toppings on the Pizza stand for obstacles/detours on your path to success, and no matter how detrimental they are, you can still find success. 

So that’s my mandala in a nutshell, and the next time you eat a pizza, you should think of how to relieve life’s stresses.

This is my mandala. I am not artistic or creative, so although it doesn’t flow very well together, I think that everything on my mandala describes me very well.  First, in the upper corner I have the word Family with a cross and some hearts.  I love my family and I don’t know what I would do without them.  I also drew a cross because I strongly believe in my faith.  Without it, I don’t know how I could make it through the day.  I have some music notes on top because I love music and I played the flute for many years.  I have the word Running drawn in the upper corner because although I do not like running, I like the way it makes me feel and I do it very often.  In the bottom left corner i drew the German Flag and the Italian Horn to represent my heritage.  I drew the German Flag bigger than the Italian Horn because I am much more German than I am Italian.  Finally in the bottom right corner, I drew a tree with a recycling symbol.  I am very committed to recycling and and I believe in “going green” and helping the environment.

I also drew a tree to represent my life.  In my opinion, everyone can relate their life to a tree.  We all start out as little trees, innocent to the world around us and ready to grow.  Through the years, we gain life experiences which help shape the person we are becoming, just as a tree’s trunk and leaves change through the years.  Finally, the experiences we have are kept in our memories forever, much as a tree’s rings hold its past.

My mandala is a representation of what my life is centered around, my past, my potential future, and things that are happening in my life right now.

In the middle of my mandala, there is a soccer ball. This is because my life is basically centered around soccer. It’s something that affects me daily. On any given day I either have soccer practice, a soccer game, or I’m doing some sort of conditioning or other activity to improve my soccer abilities.

On the left side of my mandala, the is the “BP” logo. The “BP”, obviously representing Bethel Park, is on the left side to show that my time here is running out, and that it will shortly become a thing of my past. However, it is a place that has been a part of my life since I was born, and growing up here has definitely affected who I am.

On the right side, the “CMU” represents Carnegie Mellon University because it is where is will hopefully be attending college. It’s on the right side to show that it could be in my future.

On the top and bottom of my mandala are Beadling and Football. This is to show that Beadling, my club soccer team, and football are things that are currently going on in my life.

Deuces

To start, this mandala is a representation of me.  The colors and shapes represent a characteristic or something about me.  The black and orange defines that I live in Bethel Park, because they are the school colors.  The green shows that i have a love of nature and enjoy the outdoors.  The blue is representative of the blue deuce he is a member of the lacrosse team and loves the color blue.  The yellow is present because of the power and beauty of the sun, without it life could not exist.  Where as the red is there because it shows that I am passionate about what I do.  lastly, the grey represents the area in my life between black and white where nothing is certain.

Next, the shapes each say something that characterizes me.  The four semi-circles each are a reference to the four necessities of life,  food and water, shelter, love, and a purpose.  Also the four triangles represent a triangle of trust, each point of the triangle is representative of a person that I can trust.  Along with that the red arrows symbolize that I am moving forward in my life, and accomplishing new things.  Lastly the twenty two in the middle of my mandala represents the rat.   The rat is present in my life, he is the leading force in the battle against the talbots, and the talbots are my mortal enemy.

In the end this mandala is my creativity on paper.

My mandala represents many aspects of me.  The first thing that can be seen is the big yellow scale.  This was put in here for two specific reasons.  The first one being that it represents half of my zodiac sign.  I believe a lot in astrology because I found that many of the qualities that are found in the two signs, are found in me.

The scale is the symbol for Libra, and the symbol for Scorpio is found on top of the scale, which is my other astrological sign.  The scale also symbolizes how I try to keep balance in my life.  Primarily split in two categories, scientific/logical and emotional.  These can be seen in the equations on the left and the music notes and the word emotions on the right.

One of the qualities of a Scorpio is that he/she holds emotions inside and does not allow others to see them.  I do this often, I only allow a few people actually know how I am feeling and for the rest I put up a mask.  I have always done this and it’s just a safety mechanism, much like that of a scorpion’s tail.

The world and moon also symbolize how I like to have things balanced.  The Earth and moon are always in perfect balance and have a constant pull and push on each other.  Without the other there would be total chaos.  This reflects how I think that everything should be taken in moderation and one thing should not be in excess or complete absence.

The strings that are holding the trays are blue because blue is a more passive color.  And when I try to balance the things in my life I like to do it in the most peaceful and stress free manner there is.  I find that my mandala reprents me quite well.

     My mandala illustrates several aspects of my personality.  The blue around the edge of my mandala represents the ocean waves because I enjoy traveling to the beach as well as going on cruises.  The multitude of colors describes the various emotions of my personality.  For example, the vibrant hot pink color shows that at certain times I can be outgoing.  The lack of color in the middle demonstrates that I am reserved at times in my life as well.

     The symbol in the center represents the zodiac sign for scorpio since that is what I am.  The arrows illustrate that my life goes on in many directions.  For example, I enjoy spending time with my friends as well as spending time with my family.  The hearts describe that love is very important to me and the stars represent that I believe it is very important to shoot for the stars and follow your dreams.  I put the same amount of stars as hearts to show that they are both equally as important to me in life.  The music notes that I drew illustrate that I have a love for music.  I enjoy listening to music as well as playing my own music.

Well, when I did this I was going for that it is me metaphorically. This is because each color is a different part of my personality.  Then the part in the middle is when they all come togethor you get who I am. Each color has its own connotation. They are pretty obvious i suppose.For example, yellow to my happiness and blue to my sadness but green the overlapping contentedness.

I chose the title through the looking glass because this is how i view the world. I view it through these glasses whether it be the blue or the green or whatever i am feeling at the time and hopefully through the black when it is i am not too extreme in any direction. The center is also smaller then the rest because i am rarely completely centered.

My first thought when I was told to make a mandala, I didn’t know where to start. I figured I would just draw something so that I would get the points. Although, as I started drawing it, I started to realize the qualities of myself I could exemplify in it. It is a swirly pattern of a mixture of red, blue, and gray. I am a very relaxed person, therefore I chose to use blue to display this aspect of myself. I wanted this part to be the main focus of the mandala since it is my most important characteristic. So i made this the most eye-catching part with the swirly pattern. I also chose to use red to show my quality of joy. I am always a very happy person, so I thought I should make this a very important part of the mandala. Now originally I wanted to make the small gray circles white, but I couldn’t find any white colored pencils so I just used gray. The white was to represent my bright and happy side. I felt that it was very similar to my joyous quality, so I made the same circles to show their relation. Finally, everything comes together at a point, because when you put all of these qualities together you get me. It does not explain all of my qualities, just the most prominent ones.

This is a picture of the mandala that I created for english class.  A mandala is supposed to be a representation of ourselves and our lives.  Each elemtn of my mandala represents a different part of my life.  

For example, I drew a soccer ball in the lower left hand corner of the mandala because I play soccer and it is important to me.  It is  not the most important thing in my life, howeer which is why I did not include the entire ball.  The music note, similarly, represents my love for music in general.

The main background color is red because it symbolizes daringness which is a big part of my life.  The triangle with the lines running parallel to each other reflects my neatness while the sunglasses and smile

My mandala is more a representation of an idea than a representation of self.  I was inspired by the harmony of nature, how its different aspects exist together without conflict.  The outer layer is a representation of trees, followed by water, grass, and finally, the sun.  These are all separate elements, however, they flow together in the mandala as well as in nature.

 Nature’s harmony is something I have realized I lack in my own life.  I think I knew this subconsciously, which is why my mandala is about harmony.  While still a reflection of nature, it has also become a reflection of self.  It is through my mandala that I have discovered something more about myself.  Thanks to my mandala, I can now seek out the harmony I have subconsciously been looking for.

Robby's Mandala

When looking upon my mandala, I see many things about myself. I see something ornate and naturalistic, yet somewhat structured colorful! In the center of the mandala is a flower, representing the natural beauty that I possess as a human. Surrounding the flower are many colorful triangles, thus symbolizing my bright individuality and creativity in a somewhat structured world. Music, as a passion of mine, would obviously be found on my mandala!

Surrounding the perimeter of the mandala are music notes. Though to a normal person it may seem like random music notes, to me its actually a song. It is the exact rhythm to a song from one of my favorite Broadway shows, Next to Normal, called “Just Another Day.” This exemplifies my love of Broadway and the stage as well.

Although I believe it impossible to entirely represent a person on a mere sheet of paper, I have tried to capture a minor part of me in my mandala. The result seems to be pure mandala magic!

At a first glance, my mandala does not look as though it could clearly represent my life. It looks like an abstract flower that could be interpreted in many different ways but it has a much deeper meaning to me. The calm relaxing colors of this mandala were chosen for a reason. They represent my personality. They are not overwhelming or obnoxiously bright as I do not like to be loud or complicated. I just go with the flow. Also, my mandala has many layers. This shows that it takes me a long time to reveal my true feelings and trust people. People that know me very well would describe me differently then those who i just met.

Although the flower can be interpreted as anything, to me the flower represents the nature that we are around everyday and how it has a major impact on daily life. It symbolizes that each and everyday we learn something new and grow stronger from this. Everyday we have a chance to start over and make the best of our life. The flower is also very complicated. This shows that i like my life to be exciting. I like to go out and do stuff instead of just sitting around. I like to have a good time.

   The meaning of my mandala deals with lightness and darkness and where it takes you. The entire image is a symbol of hope and strength. The brighter colors represent the sun and light. In the middle there is a circle that spirals outward and rays of yellow and pink exert from it. On the other side are darker colors separated in a mosaic-esque pattern. If you look closely the entire form looks like a half moon. The arrows illustrate the meaning of direction. In this picture the arrows are directed to the east and west. Using the directions of east and west show a pulling between to things from one side to the other, you are in the middle and being pulled in bother directions at the same time. The mandala does not have one way to be seen. If it is turned so that the arrows are facing up and down with the darkness above the meaning changes. At this perspective the darkness is taking over and the light is disappearing. With this hope is dimming as well as the will to be strong. If the mandala was flipped the other way with the sun on top, it is mainly taking over the bottom and becomes more dominate. With the arrows pointing up and down once again it only presents two directions to go, although this way suggests that it is more of the persons choice of which way to follow.

I made my mandala to reflect myself as I am in the here-and-now. To start out i made the art work with my fingers and paint to make it even more personal.  I went with the theme of clouds because they are unpredictable; No one can determine what the exact shape of a cloud is or is going to turn into, they can only give their own view of how they perceive the cloud.

I believe I am (like most) a person with many different elements that make me… well, me. If you take my attire, for example, I wear how I feel that day.  The genre of the clothing has no influence on my decision when I get ready.  A lot of people only shop at certain stores because thats what makes them comfortable but for me, that is too predictable and boring if all your clothes blend together.  

The different colors in the mandala represent my different personas so to say.  No I’m not so cliche to say ‘white is good and black is bad’ and thats why most of my mandala is grey.  Nothing is completely good or bad, and I have a lot of  elements and moods that make it impossible to say if I’m the super hero or the villain of my comic book existence. The other colors I didn’t honestly put that much thought into. They can represent my moods; green is calm, red represents passion, yellow is hope and blue is confusion.

My mandala represents the contrast between nature and man-made cities. I chose to do this because I find both extremely beautiful and pleasing. On the nature side, I drew the sun, stars, a body of water, a tree, and the moon. On the other side I drew a few buildings to represent a city. I personally love both nature and city life, especially because they are polar opposites. In nature, one finds peace and tranquillity. In contrast, city life is roaring and fast-paced. As for my personal preference (even though I do truly love both) I would chose city life over nature any day, but that’s just me

In our class assignment we had to create a mandala that represented some part of our life. The first thing that I stated with was a large circle. This circle is not just a simple shape, but a complex configuration. It represents my life as a whole. To me, it means that my life is always continuing and is a cycle. It shows that time does not stop because a circle is perfection and does not have any ending points.

The next thing I worked on are the four chinese symbols in the circle. The first  blue circle represents the stars. I put this on here because I enjoy looking at the stars. They show me that there is always something greater in the universe. I colored it blue because the sky is blue, and even though you look at the stars at night, you are still looking up from the earth.

The next green circle represents truth. This is a very important virtue for me to have and to follow. I do not appreciate people when they lie to me, therefore I do not lie to them. I feel like everyone should always be truthful to one another no matter what. Even if the truth hurts, its better to be honest and know exactly what happened, than be lied to. I picked the color green because green represents grow. There will always be growth as long as there is truth.

The third red circle represents love. There are many different forms of love. Love is the universal language that everyone can understand. It makes the world go around just like a circle goes around. Without love, the circle would not be able to be complete. The color red also symbolizes love.

The last purple circle represents beauty. I feel like everyone is beautiful in their own way. I picked the color purple because purple represents royality and one’s inner self. That shows that people have inner beauty as well as outer beauty.

The chinese symbols represents all attributes I would like to obtain. Even though no one is perfect like a circle, I will always try to be the best person I can.

   Each person in our class had to create their own Mandala that somehow represented the aspects of their life.  I decided to make my Mandala in the shape of a flower, because we are always surrounded by nature. The flower not only represents the nature around us, but it also symbolizes the growth of our life and how it continues to blossom with every new thing we learn. I thought the flower would be a good representation, because like a flower grows everyday, we grow everyday when we learn new things.

On every other pedal of the flower, I put chinese symbols that meant various things like honor, love, friendship, and forgiveness. In my opinion, one needs all of these things in life to live to the fullest and be happy. I believe that if a person has all of these attributes, their life will be very well-rounded. Based on my personal experiences, all of these things have influenced my life and have affected me in some way.

 I chose to have the the peace symbol in the center of all of the flower, to show that all the other symbols work to make a peaceful life. Thus with every step in life, everyone’s life will grow into a different flower.

The largest, most important symbol on my mandala is a handprint.  I love handprints and I think that nothing could better represent myself than my own hand.  Everyone has their own unique handprint.  I outlined my handprint on the inside a few times to add color and layers to my mandala because as a person, I have many different layers and feelings.  In the innermost rings of my handprint, I added two Jesus fish.  These fish are a common Christian symbol to show fellowship with Christ.  I included two because I hate to be lonely.  My faith is very important to me, so these religious fish reflect my views on the inside, which is why they are within the rings of my handprint.  The symbols on the outside of my handprint are not as unique, but they are still an important part of me.  I chose vibrant colors because I have a lively personalty. Red is my favorite color, but I included pink because it is a happy color.  The hearts represent love and important relationships in my life.  The stars are a symbol of the unknown because I am just one small part of the universe, along with the stars.  Finally, I used snowflakes because I love the winter.  Skiing is one of my favorite hobbies and fresh snow is very calming.  This mandala is simple, but it truly reflects who I am in many aspects.  When I look at my mandala, the most conspicuous symbol is my handprint, much like in real life, but it takes some further examining to see what else is there on the inside!

When first designing my mandala, I really was not sure what to do. I did not really know what would be appropriate to represent me, or something symbolic to me.  So, since I did not have a direction to go in, I just started to go with the flow and see what happened.  First, I added Chinese symbols of destiny, truth, and peace.  I chose these words for different reasons.  Peace is important, because I believe that everyone should live in peace; there should be no fighting or other conflicts.  Truth was added, because in order to have peace, truth usually accompanies it.  And finally, destiny is on the mandala, because everyone has something important to do in their life, and it is their destiny to do it.  After adding all of these symbols, I separated them into sections with lines, to show that they are different, but all work together.  I have small designs added onto each of the sections that decorate and add to the exquisite quality of the mandala.  For example, in the section for peace, I have a dove, which is often used as the universal sign of peace.  Along with different symbols and objects, I chose to use bright colors in all aspects of the mandala.  In my opinion, bright colors can make an object more interesting and add to the viewing pleasure of the observer.  When looking at my mandala as a whole, it is vivid and full of action.  The mandala may not represent exactly how my life is, but it models several aspects that I believe are important to a happy existence.

When I first heard about drawing a Mandala I thought “I can’t draw!”, but then I just took the compass and drew a few circles.  I also decided to draw everything as symmetric as possible for me, the circles as well as the colors. Simultaneously I decided to color the upper part more warm and the lower one more cold.

The purpose in all that is for me, that everything in the world has to sides and when I look at things I try to see not just one aspect, because nothing should be seen just negative or just positive, there are a lot more perspectives.

Furthermore my Mandala describes kind of myself because there are a lot of different aspects of behavior just inside myself, depended from my mood, the people and the atmosphere around me, things I experience every day and a lot more, like the difference between every color, the place where it is drawn and if it is drawn with less or with more pressure.

Besides, the difference between the colors is supposed to be seen like a cut in the middle of my Mandala, representing the difference between night and day, light and darkness, good and evil and just things like that, opposites.

Another aspect I thought of when I drew my Mandala was like the shell or the appeareance of someone and the way he or she really is.  I surrounded my Mandala with brown, because often people seem different and more withdrawn as they really are, you just need to look through the shell and see the different colors and not just the brown on the outside.

The middle of my Mandala, like the little red or orange dot, is supossed to be assoziated with the metaphore of a fire, that burnes inside everyone and gives strength to just keep going and staying strong to make things change. I drew it in the center because it keeps eerything moving and makes things change from up to down and good to bad.

The last thing which comes to my mind right now is that I expirienced my whole life like going up and down, sometimes I felt like living in the lower part of my Mandala where it is cold and I did not feel well and sometimes I felt like living in the upper part where it’s warm and I felt comfortable and good, because life always goes up and down and even if there are bad things happening there are good things as well and often you just need to see and appreciate them.

When i was creating my mandala i originally didn’t base it off my life. However now that i am taking a second look at it i see myself in it. First off my mandala represents day and night with the sun and moon. Also the color of the sky represents the changing of the day.  Day and night are complete contrasts and I believe that i am also contradictory. My personality has conflicting qualities that make up who i am just like day and night are very different but they both make up a full day of life.

The peace sign definitely represents my personality because i dislike drama and i am usually the one keeping the peace and solving the disputes.

The windmill looking design in the middle represents my view of the world; no matter what life goes on and continues to turn. Everything happens for a reason and even though horrible things happen my life will continue to go on and the world will keep on spinning.

I choose to add exciting and vivid colors into my mandala because i believe powerful and vivid colors represent who i am. My personality is outgoing and creative however i can be shy also, which goes back to my contradictory personality.