Jumping Cholla/Yellow Prickly Pear Circle

I am not sure if I should call this a mandala. I see someone on Zazzle who calls her creations synbalas. Others seem to like to call their's kaleidescopes. I am considering symmedra. If anyone has a suggestion, let me know.
*******
This is a different approach to the design process, but it is one I will do more with. It is interesting in that I started with the outside ring and worked my way in, which is the opposite of how I usually work the circle designs.
*******
Gestation or procrastination or artist's block; it is hard to know. I have intended to revisit my Yellow Prickly Pear/ Jumping Cholla Mandala since finishing it, but nothing had happened. Sometimes, I think we just have to let things gestate and kind of percolate for a while before it is ready to come out. When it finally does, it gives you that aha! feeling; and there is an element of surprise. That star in the center was a wondeful gift, and total accident from my point of view.

Jumping Cholla Background 1

I want to revisit the prickly pear/cholla design. Let's start with a section of a jumping cholla blossom and turn it into a background pattern for our mandala.

YELLOW PRICKLY PEAR BACKGROUNDS

What I am happy with on the mandala designs is the background that I used. There is a lot of potential here and I am excited about the possibilities.

This first image shows the yellow prickly pear blossom I used with the blue outlined rectangle being the section I used to create the background pattern.

In the first background; I duplicated the first rectangule, flipped it horizontally, and duplicated again. I rotated 180 degrees to complete the pattern.

I expanded that to a six element pattern by the same method.

Finally, I expanded the pattern to our 24 element design. I could take it to another level if needed. Do you see how many variations can be done with this?

YELLOW PRICKLY PEAR & CHOLLA MANDALAS

Let me show you my latest experiment. Brian asked me to try a mandala design with larger flowers and no negative spaces. This is my first attempt to work with the concept. While I am not enitrely satisfied with the results, I think this approach has potential and I will continue to work on it.

I am sure there are other ways of approaching this assignment and I will continue to explore those as well. The adventure continues.

STEP FORTY SIX

I want to show you an alternative mandala design, so as to give you an idea of how many variations one can make with this. I joked on Facebook that I could easily create 100 variations of this design. I could do 1000, but I would probably get bored after 100.

STEP FORTY FIVE

Let's overlay our mandala and see what we get. Nice, eh?

STEP FORTY FOUR

To use the thorn pattern as a background, we need to subdue it, so that it doesn't compete with the foreground. So I have darkened it and made it blue. With some designs, I have added some blur or tweeked the level of contrast. PSP makes all that easy and fun.

STEP FORTY THREE

Now, we just duplicate and fill the page. I have done this with various geometric shapes, applesauce, rice crispies, foliage, cantalope section, bread slices, skin section, and more. I am always surprised and amazed at the results, but this one is the best so far. This can be done with so many natural and artificial textures that I won't live long enough to explore all the possibilities. That is why I am enlisitng your help. Put your Safari hat on and start exploring. It's a jungle of potential images out there.

STEP FORTY TWO

Here, we have simply duplicated our first group and move it over to fill the first rows. Isn't that amazing? And it is really very simple.

STEP FORTY ONE

Here, we have duplicated the first pair, rotated it 180°, and moved it up adjacent to the original pair. Wow! But we are not done yet.

STEP FORTY

Here, I have duplidated the square, flipped it horizontally to create a mirror image and place it to the right. You can already see pattern developing.

STEP THIRTY NINE

I have taken the cutout and place it on my 4x6 grid on the poster size page.

STEP THIRTY EIGHT

I want to demonstrate how I have created a new background for my new pincushion cactus mandala. I am offering it here, because it is a technique that has potential for widee ranging applications.
*******
I start with this photo of a pincushion cactus. Note that I have outlined a square section in blue which I cut out using PSP(Photoshop).