Jody Cooke © 2015 All Rights Reserved Honoring Orange today! Just trusted my intuition, and my hand as it reached for orange, blues to complement and browns to tone things down. I am really letting go of all "rules" and trusting the Higher Self completely. So much more fun this way. Enjoy!
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Jody Cooke © 2015 All Rights Reserved It is so cold and snowy here today, I don't know where this color palette came from. Evidently it's not too early to be thinking of spring....even on a subconscious level! 71 days and 40 minutes til spring....and counting!
Jody Cooke © 2015 All Rights Reserved There is nothing quite like a new year, a fresh start, a time to begin again. I like the shades of red in this mandala because I'm in the Pink! Moving forward in my life and I feel good! Of course this color palette reminds me of a box of raspberry cream chocolates, and that just can't be a bad thing. Yum.
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved I draw, dream, and choose significant colors... my mind floats south to a beautiful, yet unknown place where the weather is warm, it's quiet and the people are nice.
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved For Bill! Feel better soon! We're sending our best thoughts and prayers down your way!
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved It's been two months and six days since my husband passed. After hearing the news, my world went dark, there was no color, no design for days on end as I picked up the pieces of a broken heart, a broken life and dreams that will never come true.
A few days ago I thought I would have it in me to create a mandala. While looking for paper and supplies I found a black and white copy of a design I had previously colored. I decided coloring was a better place to start. Berry Cheesecake Bliss is actually Mandala 06-30-14 recolored. It was so easy and natural to pick up where I left off over two months ago. I can't say I'm crazy about it, but it's a baby step back into my former life of mandalas, mandalas, mandalas everyday, all day non-stop. Color is coming into my world again. Jerry would want me to keep making mandalas. He loved all of them. Always encouraged me to color them all...even though I didn't like half of them. He always encouraged me to to be at peace with my art, because he thought it was beautiful. This one's for you Jerry Berry! Love you always. xox Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved It's my Happy Summer Mandala! I felt compelled to use a lot of yellow. Just had to have a warm and sunny color palette today to match the absolutely gorgeous weather here in beautiful New Jersey for the past two days. May sunshine, flowers and love be with you.
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved The ink is barely dry.....so happy to have a new mandala to share. It's Saturday morning and the sun is shining, all the promise of a brand new day stretches out in front of me. I have had a peaceful time bringing color to this mandala this morning. Now the family is up, rustling about the house....time to start my day in in the physical world of activity and people.
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved There aren't many words for all the emotion that went into this mandala. My years at East Carolina University are some of the finest I have ever lived and they will always hold a most cherished place in my heart. From the beginning days when I was a freshman and everything was so new and exciting all the way to my senior art show and graduation, I loved my days in Greenville, NC. This mandala is a reflection on those times that I hold so dear. Purple and gold were naturally chosen to color in the elements for these are the colors of my university. Other than that, the rest was simply one big long contemplation about times gone by and the memories that remain. I sit, breathe, draw, reflect and I am transported back in time with nothing short of joy, and longing sometimes too, for a place in my past. This is a mandala for those treasured days.
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved It has been said that light blue is associated with healing, tranquility, trust, and clarity, and that dark blue represents dependability, power, integrity, and nobility. For me, I just think it's pretty and very soothing to look at....easy on the eye and definitely calming. Enjoy!
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved I forgot to post this one! Better late than never, as they say. At any given time there are at least three mandalas on my drafting table in various stages of development. I try and discipline myself to create at least one black and white design a day. I like the idea of continuing the self discovery on a regular basis to keep growing. The black and white designs take anywhere from an hour to two hours. That's time spent in meditation and peace, so it's well worth the practice to do this. What greater gift could I give myself? When I come upon a mandala that also has a sense of design that I like, I color it. They keep coming to mind.....so I keep drawing them. I can't believe I never knew about these until last year! Life is better with mandalas. :-)
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved It's another one of those mandalas that just had to be done. Corners can be tricky sometimes....so I got an idea to just fill them all with little, green, clover type blossoms. It looks like the mandala is floating on a field of flowers....what could be better?
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved The whole process of making a mandala is about creating a sacred space. Sometimes it's appropriate that a prayer weaves it's way into the design making evolution, as it did this day back in May. Other times it may simply be a word, or a phrase that just makes sense at the time. I can work with graphics as well as symbols (I haven't come across any rules for mandalas yet). Whatever comes to mind, that is what goes down on the paper. I connect with my inner guidance and reflect that on the paper. Connect....reflect.
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved Happiness is a mandala with red! I just love the red outer circle and the star shaped inner circle. They really keep me in the mandala and feeling centered. It was a total joy to color this one up yesterday....with my new Copic markers. Onward and upward!
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved I've interpreted this design a few times. Twice on the computer just fooling around with color, and then this one which I hand colored with my new Copic markers. Wow...they are really wonderful. My favorite marker is still Sharpie...but they just don't have the color range I need. I still love that super fine tip though. Anyway, these new markers are lovely, they are archival quality, come in a vast range of colors and values...it's the new way for me and JoDesigns!
Jody Cooke © 2014 This mandala goes out to the sweetest girl in the world....my daughter, Melanie. I love you Mel Mel....forever.
Jody Cooke © 2014 As much as I truly love to mark up a mandala with lines...I started to realize that when it comes time to color them...I was missing the joy of big solid blocks of pure color. So, even though that is still very much my style, this day I decided to leave open space to honor color. The gold really makes me happy and I feel a warm peace looking at it. I hope you enjoy it too!
Jody Cooke © 2014 All Rights Reserved There are certain elements that naturally occur in my designs. I tried to alter those symbols in this design to keep from having a possible sameness to my mandalas. I think it worked. It's always a catch 22 with me and the hand drawn designing. While I do not care for the static look of a computer generated design, my imperfect lines bother me too. But in the end I choose my own hand over the perfect cold, lines of a computer design. Just don't look to closely!
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Photography: Pat Olds
AuthorHello, and welcome to my website. My name is Jody Cooke and I am a designer living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I have been an artist in some form or another for over thirty years. My new passion is mandalas! Since I learned about them in January 2013, I have created over 1,500 (black and white) of these circular patterns and over 160 full color. Some are very small and sketchy, most are 8 inches in diameter, currently I am creating on 24" x 18" paper (transitioning into a Lotus Mandala series as of summer 2017) and one is a 24 inch square acrylic mandala painting on canvas. Definitely not my preferred medium..but I gave it a try! CategoriesArchive
August 2017
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