sand art painting

sand art painting

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navajo sand painting

Explore a traditional Navajo art form.

navajo sand painting. The Navajo refer to themselves as Dine (Dee-Nay), which means "the people." They are the largest tribe in the United States. Their land, which is called Dinetah, encompasses parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.

In Navajo mythology, each of the four cardinal directions is represented by a different color: white for the east, blue for the south, yellow for the west, and black for the north. Navajo artists use these four colors in the creation of sand paintings, which were traditionally made by shamans as a part of healing ceremonies. When the ceremony was finished, the painting was destroyed.

For Navaho artists, the technique of making sand paintings involves trickling powdered minerals such as ocher and gypsum into symmetrical patterns on clean sand. For this home activity, tempera paints or food coloring will provide all the color you need.

1. Mix up several batches of colored sand. To do this, pour about a handful of sand in each of your containers. Then add a different color tempera to each container. For a richer color, add more tempera. (Note: if you are using food coloring instead of tempera, you will need to spread the sand out to dry before you begin your painting.)
2. Draw a simple picture on construction paper. Landscapes or seascapes work especially well.
3. When you have finished, use a Popsicle stick to spread a thin layer of watered-down glue over your drawing. Then decide where you want to put each different color.
4. Working on one part of your drawing at a time, use a spoon to sprinkle the colored sand on the paper. After each color has been added, lift the paper up and gently shake the excess sand onto a plastic or styrofoam tray to use again. Keep doing this until the picture is complete.
5. After your sand painting has dried, you can seal it by spraying it with a mixture of glue (80%) and water (20%).

source : http://www.eduplace.com/hac/arts/sandpainting.html

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native american sand painting

native american sand painting

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How to Make a Sand Painting

How to Make a Sand Painting

Sand painting is practiced in many cultures, usually for religious and healing purposes. Some of the more well known sand paintings are Navajo or Tibetan (where they are called mandalas). Sand paintings can include many colors and complex patterns. When the ceremony was done the sand was left to be carried away by wind or time.

Here's how to make sand pictures that will be simple and long lasting, as well as a lot fun to make! All you need is colored sand and glue to do this fun craft project with your child.

What You Need:

• Assortment of colored sand – can also use some cornmeal
• White school glue
• Warm water
• Paintbrush
• Paper – works best with an off white colored paper so you can see the glue easier.
• Newspaper
• Plastic bowl
• Craft stick

What You Do:

1. Spread newspapers down on your workspace. This will help catch the sand and make clean up easier.
2. Take a small amount of warm water and add it to some glue in your bowl, to thin it down a little bit. You don't want it like water, but thin enough to be able to spread with a paint brush. Use a craft stick to stir it.
3. Next have your child paint a pattern or picture with the glue.
4. Now gently trickle different colors of sand on the picture where they want the colors to go. Don't worry if all the sand doesn't stick.
5. After all the picture has been covered, let your artwork dry.
6. Gently turn your picture over and let the unused sand fall off onto the newspaper. Then have mom or dad clean up the newspaper. Your picture is ready for display.

Did You Know?

• In Tibet the mandalas (sand paintings) would take days to make. When they were finished the mandalas would be destroyed to show that life was not permanent.
• On Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) sand paintings are still drawn today. Seattle is famous for them. They are soon swept away to illustrate the fleeting nature of life.

source : http://www.education.com/activity/article/Sand_Painting/

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tibetan sand painting art

A Tibetan Sand Art Painting

painting is called dul-Tsong-kyil-Khor, "mandala of colored powders. Construction of a sand painting, millions of grains of vegetable-dyed marble are paid on a platform for a period of several days or weeks. Flowers powder, herbs, or cereals, and powdered and colored stone can also be used. In the past, powdered semi-precious and precious stones such as lapis lazuli for blue and rubies for the reds, were also employed.

A sand painting is a representation of the universe and contains traditional Tibetan Buddhist
symbolism, such as geometric shapes and ancient spiritual icons. It is created by monks of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition whenever they feel there is a need for the healing of the environment and all living beings. The act of constructing it is considered a religious practice and a path to enlightenment.

The subject of a sand painting is a mandala or cosmogram, the floor plan of a sacred mansion. The psychologist Carl Jung called the mandala a universal expression of the human subconscious. There are many varieties of mandalas, but most have three levels of meaning: outer, inner, and secret. The outer level represents the world in its divine form; the inner level depicts a map pointing toward enlightenment; the secret level represents the perfect balance of body and mind. The purpose of creating a sand painting is to achieve purification and healing on all three levels.

The Buddha wanted each living being to find peace and happiness and avoid suffering. Because everyone is different, he used a variety of techniques, all designed to lead to clarity of thought, purity of action, and a correct view of reality. These included meditation and a code of ethics whose goal was to avoid harming others, and helping them if possible. The practitioner would eventually come to realize the interdependence of all phenomena.

Tibetan Buddhists regard the tantric tradition as the highest path, requiring an ethical lifestyle and altruistic intentions. Various spiritual practices lead to enlightenment.

Each tantric system employs a particular mandala that represents a specific existential and spiritual approach. Three examples are that of the enlightened beings Avalokiteshvara, which stresses the importance of compassion; Manjushri, which represents wisdom; and Vajrapani, which emphasizes the need for courage and strength.

The Kalachakra tantric system was introduced to Tibet from India, and in recent years it has been brought to the West by exiled Tibetan lamas. The so-called Kalachakra Initiation is given to large groups of people--citizens of the kingdom of Shambala--using mandala sand paintings.

The process of mandala sand painting can be divided into four phases. The opening ceremony involves the lamas blessing the site and evoking the forces of goodness by chanting, mantras, and music. This takes about a half-hour.

They then draw the architectural lines of the mandala with a ruler, compass, and white ink pen on an approximately five-foot square wooden platform, which consumes the rest of the day.

The longest phase involves laying the colored sand, starting from the inside of the design and working outward. This symbolizes the growth of a child from the sperm and ovum into a living being who can experience the universe through his senses. The laying of the sand is accomplished by pouring it from a chak-pur or metal funnel. The monk holds the chak-pur in one hand and runs a metal rod along its rough surface. A vibration is created that causes the sand to flow and creates a cricket-like sound. Constructing a sand painting is a form of meditation for the monks. They work quietly, often in awkward positions, for hours at a time, the tops of their bodies wrapped in red cloth. Occasionally they take a break to discuss the work-in-progress with each other.

The mandala, which is not considered art by the monks, is destroyed soon after it is completed--swept up first from the outside, and toward the center--in a colorful and usually crowded ceremony. This pattern of destruction symbolizes how all returns to the source at the heart center at the time of old age and death. It also draws attention to life's impermanence and the empty nature of all phenomena (everything emerges from nothingness and returns to it). All the sand is collected and placed in an urn. Half is given to the audience for healing purposes, and the rest transported to a nearby body of water and thrown in. The waters carry the healing blessing to the ocean, and then on to the rest of the world for further healing and the dissemination of universal goodness.

Anyone who participates in or witnesses the creation and destruction of a mandala sand painting is believed to be purified, uplifted, and enlightened by the sacred energies of the spirits, deities, buddhas, and saints who are evoked. The physical area in which the mandala is constructed also becomes blessed.

One of the most important mandala sand paintings is said to have been created by the Buddha himself. It is called The Buddhist Wheel of Life, or the Sipay Khorlo Mandala. The Buddha designed this mandala as a lesson about the cyclic nature of existence. This is seen in the twelve links in the outer ring of the mandala, which demonstrate a doctrine called dependent origination. That is, each link is dependent on the previous link, and leads to the next link.

The function of the twelve links of dependent origination is to tie the living to continual birth and rebirth, or reincarnation, in the six realms that are depicted in the middle ring. Attainment of nirvana or enlightenment is the only thing that will allow the individual a rest from this endless cycle of life and death among the realms. The inner ring's dark half depicts demons whose function is to push the dead spirits into hell. The light half, in contrast, shows fortunate spirits rising to heaven.

The center contains three animals. The bird symbolizes desire, the pig ignorance, and the snake anger. These are considered the three poisons that fuel the twelve links of dependent origination.

In the past, a few monasteries kept one sand painting permanently displayed on their grounds because the healing and purification of the world were not yet completely fulfilled. In today’s Tibet, which is a part of communist China, there are strict religious prohibitions, and mandalas probably are not constructed there, except possibly as a token display of the religious freedom that does not exist. Most sand paintings these days are being constructed by exiled Tibetan lamas at Western museums and also in India, where the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, has lived in exile for many years.

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