tickmosis works over in our graphics department, and she is a much better photographer with a much better camera then me. She took some beautiful pictures of the monks working and of the mandala itself. These are from Thursday, so three days into the creation. They finish it tomorrow and dismantle it at 2 pm.

	Close Up of the Mandala It's amazing how much detail they can create with sand. They can even control shading. I've watched them use tapping to drop the grains in a stream to make lines, which seems to be how they do most of the mandala, but they also will blow the sand out making sure to cover the chakpur opening with their robe and blow through the cloth to prevent inhaling the sand.
	The Mandala, not quite as close up. Tickmosis did a good job of maintaining the color. Every time I tried to take a picture it whited it out. They are even more vibrant in person. In this shot you can still see the chalk outline not yet filled in. They start in the center and work outwards.
	Chakpur - the tools of the trade See the tubey things? They use the ends as a scoop (like the Icee straws). I think the other copper tools are what they use to tap with. You can also see some of the rulers. Even the cloth covering the tables are bright, vivid colors.
	Sand! Look how gorgeous! Look how vivid! Sooooooo pretty! They dip the wider ends of the chakpurs into the sand to scoop it up. In a way, it reminded me of frosting bags, except instead of squeezing they tapped.
	Close Up of Orange Sand See he rubs or taps the one tool against the other to control the flow of sand.
	Close Up of White Sand Flowing Look at the detail they can create!
	Concentration One of the monks works on a portion of the mandala.
	Monks concentrating This gives you a good idea how big the mandala is. Considering how much detail they put into each section, that has to be a lot of sand and a lot of time invested. The chalk outline is extremely hardy. I was amazed with how they could lie all over it without spearing it.
	Monks concentrate over the mandala See how the one monk's elbow is pressed down on the chalk? That can't be ordinary chalk.

my knee hurts - ow ow ow

the 18 year old mentioned in the previous post was just in a car accident going home from prom. she's okay but she's banged up quite a bit. :( i guess i can't complain about my knee. it is a MAJOR miracle she is okay considering the descriptoin of the accident.

my husband is in texas for the week. my mom is coming up and hanging out with me. last night we played scrabble and i scored over 400 points in the first game!! whoot! i played zealot on a 3Xword square and vegan and squint and axis. i had really good letters that game. the next game neither of us did as good. tonight we played with acrylic paints and i did the ugliest picture EVER. i am so insanely proud. i should take pictures and post them.

actually...i think i will :)

EDIT

	flower this is the ugliest thing i have ever seen. it started out trying to be a dandilion. then i added petals because it was just so darn yellow. the background is actually pretty cool but you can't see it for the GIANT UGLY FLOWER. i have to say, while the first petal i put on there gave me great pause and a fit of giggles i actually like the rest of them on there. LOL.
	feather so this is just in it's first stage. i'm trying to decide what to paint on top. i was thinkikng flowers based on something i saw at the zoo gallery but i'm still deciding. it actually reminds me of the beach here (blue sky/green ocean).
	peacock okay - for THIS one i want to glue a peacock feather across the middle. a really really big peacock feather that will mostly fill the page. i have water, air, earth, and fire represented here...thought i'd point it out since NO ONE would notice. i held up a peacock feather against it and darn it - it really looks cool. i'll update once it's added :)
	scabble check it out! i did Vegan, Zealot, Axis, Cringe, Squinty, Midwife, Japed, Ruse, Rosin, and some of the other words. I was really proud of zealot :) Mom did chive and dandy - i would have liked to claim those, too, but that's wrong.