From Watercolor to Mandala: Legacy in Lines

By K. Elizabeth — May 10, 2025

I didn’t exactly fall in love with art at first sight.

I grew up around it. My father, Ray Broady, was a bold presence: an entrepreneur, a trained architect with his own firm in downtown Chicago, and a renowned artist and watercolorist. He didn’t just value precision, he expected it. He taught me the structure, background, and discipline of watercolor. But watercolor never became my medium of choice.

Still, the foundation he gave me stayed.

It was later, in high school, that my connection to art deepened.

In an art class at Luther South, David Sohn introduced me to mandalas along with acrylics, clay, pen and ink. For the first time, making art felt less about getting it “right” and more about getting centered. That shift changed everything. Mandalas offered structure without pressure and pattern without judgment. Creating them provided a way to focus, reflect, and release, all at once. That’s when art became instinctive.

Years later, I found myself in a very different kind of space, one shaped not by classrooms, but by therapy.

With the encouragement of an eclectic therapist, whose approach was often unconventional but undeniably motivating, I returned to art. At the time, I didn’t expect that reawakening. But it happened. The thoughts I couldn’t always express in words came out in vivid geometric designs, created in my home, lit by candlelight, with Nag Champa incense burning and Ray Dilla’s syncopated beats playing in the background. I started folding and mapping. Drawing. Designing. Assembling. Refining.

Each new creation is influenced by the music playing in the background—from Anita Baker, Erykah Badu, and Robert Glasper among other artists, the sun shining through the blinds or the darkness of night, and the scents and scenes of the moment I begin.

Today, I work with fine-tip pens, mechanical pencils, glitter cardstock, archival glue, precision blades, and found images—often historical photographs of Black women. I build my mandalas by hand, using graph paper or folded grids, a compass, and a drafting template like the ones my father once used in his architectural work. Many of these mandalas become the “charm” at the center of larger mixed media pieces that honor Black history, complexity, and resilience.

This site, K. Elizabeth Mandala, is more than a portfolio.