artist victoria o'neill: Making Mandalas at Camp Tabarsi

Spent a couple of days teaching about 60 or so kids how to make mandalas, at Camp Tabarsi at Camp Onas in Ottsville. They came in four groups and what fantastic kids they all were.

We began by making squares out of rectangular paper, then folding it halfwise and diagonally, in both directions, to create a center point with eight folds to use as a guide for the design.

The theme for the camp this year was about being an agent of change in the world. My workshop was about polishing the divine mirror within oneself, getting in touch with spirituality. The mandala begins with the center light, and then illuminates.

All of these "learning' mandalas turned out looking fantastic! Here are just a few examples

Interesting to see how absolutely different each person's was. Here are two that were made by two boys, the same age, sitting next to each other, with the same instruction, and the same markers.

We moved on to cut paper mandalas...

I set up a big piece of plywood and a bunch of clay off to the side, and this is what happened over the course of two days....everyone had a hand in making this!