DRAWING MANDALAS

Noora Rahman

This semester, I participated in the Scholars Art Therapy workshop. For our final art projects this year, we had to incorporate the theme of the coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19. This pandemic has come as a shock and has carried many hardships along with it. I decided to explore the various feelings and emotions through art and color by coloring five different mandalas. One of the techniques I have learned through the workshop to reduce my stress and anxiety is through coloring. One class we focused on coloring mandalas based on the current mood we were feeling, and that art technique had a big impact in calming me after a very tense, long day of classes. We also learned how different colors correlate to different moods and feelings. Each of the five mandalas I’ve chosen depict a feeling/emotion I have felt while in quarantine during this pandemic. The five emotions I explored were anger, sadness, boredom, fear, and happiness. 

            The mandala I chose to represent anger was colored in various colors of red, and a dark brown. I associate these colors with anger and annoyance. The mandala has sharp spikes coming off the sides of it to emphasize this feeling. This was the first emotion I felt regarding the virus. I had just packed up the majority of my belongings from my dorm room to go home for who knows how long. I was annoyed and frustrated that I wouldn’t be able to finish the rest of the semester on campus ieht my friends, adn go to all of the major events I had been looking forward to all year such as the NCAA basketball tournament, and various events for my sorority. 

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For the next mandala, the emotion I experienced was sadness which I colored in various shades of blue and an aqua, blue-green color. I associate these colors with sadness and sorrow. In the middle of the mandala, it looks as though the “petals” resemble the soft undulations of a river. To me this represented someone crying, and the lines looking wavy because one's blurred vision. I had now begun to feel sad since I was away from my friends, and quarantined in my house. I couldn’t hang out with any of my friends from home, let alone go grocery shopping with my parents because it was too dangerous to leave. 

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After the first two weeks of quarantine, I began to feel very bored and lazy. In this mandala, I chose to color it different shades of purple, forest green, and light gray. I associate these colors with boredom. This mandala is a very simple and boring shape, everything is either a circular or rectangular shape. The mandala doesn’t have any fun twists to it thus making it boring. I was beginning to lay around the house and wasn’t feeling productive whatsoever. We were still technically on spring break so I had no homework assignments I could work on to make the time go by. 

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At this point, I have been in quarantine for about 3 weeks, school began to start up again and pick up with loads of assignments and exams, and the virus was spreading every day, making each day worse than the previous. The emotion I felt through this week was fear. Fear that life would not return to how it was a month prior, fear I was going to catch the virus, and fear that all of my friends and family may get this. I associate this emotion with various shades of orange and yellow, since they are both alarming colors. I had begun to feel productive again since school had started, and I had more structure in my day which is something I work well in. However, my mind was all over the place, worrying about school and the virus. The mandala has several swirls and different shapes to create one big picture, and I felt as though it correctly described what my mind looked like under so much stress and worrying.

Finally, I’ve come to the point where I am happy and content with how my life is going so far. For this mandala, I chose to color it various shades of pink and green, two colors I associate happiness with. Although it is not ideal to be stuck in quarantine, I am with my family and I have started to get even closer to my siblings and parents, especially my sister. I have started to do different activities that I would continuously put off due to the lack of time. Such as baking different foods, workout daily, tie dye my clothes, cut up some old jeans, and I even learned new Tik Tok dances. The mandala is composed of different butterflies and flowers to show the serenity and happiness I am currently feeling.