Painting Rock Mandalas

In visiting the home of Kathie, a quilting friend of mine, I stopped to admire an array of painted rocks in the planting bed beside the stoop of her front door. I thought they were gorgeous in their own right. They also added a splash of color and contrast not always possible with flowers. Not to mention, with my black thumb, plants often die pre-maturely, long before the lower limit of their theoretically supposed life span. When I learned that Kathie had painted them, I asked that she teach me how. This photo of her collection was taken many months ago and last week we finally got together for her to teach me.

Kathie had emailed me the links to a few online tutorials before we got together. She had prepped a several stones with black paint, which really makes the colored dots we applied pop. One of the  introductory tutorials I liked How to paint rock mandalas by Kristin Uhrig. She told me she had started doing this when she was laid up with a leg injury and found painting dot mandalas on small stones was both creative and relaxing.

Here is my first attempt using a nice round stone and trying to adhere to symmetry both in dot size and position.

My second attempt was painting on an oblong stone and so I thought I would be brave, branch out, and try two circular dots patterns of uneven size on the same stone. I was somewhat cocky and rushed a bit on the next rock so my dots were not as precise as I would have liked and as they had been on my first attempt. The two mandalas looked like eyes to me so I improvised and added a dotted beak.

For even more eye candy and to appreciate how precise dots, uniformly sized and spaced, can really wow, check out this link: Artist Turns Ocean Stones Into Tiny Mandalas By Painting Colourful Dot Patterns. I had a lot of fun with this activity and intend to paint some more on my own. Like quilting, precision pays off, and I will take my time and enjoy the creative process on my future stones.