Hi, my name is Bronia and I’m a multi-disciplinary visual communication designer.
Throughout my practice I mostly work on projects that focus on Graphic Design, Illustration and Photography. I use digital media as well as the traditional ones. The range of my experience covers everything from wedding & portrait photography, surface pattern, guerrilla marketing to branding & packaging design. I love clean, minimalistic design as well as complex, colourful graphics, and I think the list of my various experiences reflects my diverse interests.
I’m very interested in sustainable development and the concept of circular design. I worked on several projects tackling complex contemporary issues such as climate change through the strategic design process and I found it very meaningful and fulfilling. I try to incorporate sustainable approaches into my practice as much as I can.
However, if you were my close friend, you would know that I’m obsessed with mandalas.
A mandala is a spiritual symbol in Buddhism and Hinduism. It’s a symbolic representation of the universe with an inner and outer world. The word mandala comes from Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language. Literally mandala means “circle.” The circle is seen as a magical form, without beginning and end, just as the universe is believed to have no end. The mandala is used as an object to focus your attention on while meditating. Because of the symmetrical shape, your attention is directed to the centre.
You can find mandalas everywhere in my home: on my clothes, my jewellery, some of my mugs and crockery, on plant pots, coasters, bedding, wall art and more. It all started many years ago when I got a mindfulness colouring book. I found it very relaxing to colour in beautiful mandalas and play around with colour combinations. It became my form of meditation. Whenever I need to calm my mind, I draw mandalas. I use different mediums and techniques, but the symbolics keep repeating. There is something about mandalas that I really love. They remind me of flowers, and sun and the symmetrical geometric patterns sooth my perfectionist soul. Everything is in order.
I often get inspired by nature. I love taking pictures of interesting patterns and mandala-shaped objects. Then I take the images further and use some of the geometric elements in my own drawings.
Dotwork, also known as stippling, is an amazing method of creating visual effects in ink drawings. These dots create either the entire image or just the shading. I use Uni-ball fine line pens for this kind of illustration as they work the best.
One of my most favourite activities is to collect round, smooth pebbles when I’m on the beach. I use them as a canvas for my mandalas. These pebbles on the photos were painted with acrylic colour using dotwork technique.
Creating this slate covered in mandalas took me about 30 hours of work. I layered the colours on top of each other and had to wait in between to make sure the paint is dry, otherwise it could smudge and damage the whole piece. I really enjoyed painting on slate, and I think the dark background makes the colourful mandalas pop.
I painted some musical instruments with a Posca pen, too. The black scratch plate was a commissioned work and I was required to hand paint the pickguard, so it gives the guitar an unusual look. I decided to create two mandalas using simple geometric shapes and patterns. I only used white paint as I think it works best with black background. I liked the result so much that I decided to paint my own ukulele as well.
The most recent mandalas I have created are digital ones. I really love digital illustration as I feel that I can draw more freely than in the traditional way. Digital art is more forgiving mistake wise; it is faster and efficient. Thanks to technology I can express myself in a lot of different ways and I find it easier to share my art online.
Thank you for reading!
You can follow me on Instagram @bronia_art
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