I had the distinct experience of being able to see the Sand Painting weeklong experience at the Paine Art Gallery.  This is my second such experience, the first being in St Petersburg Florida a few years ago when I just happened to be in town when the sand painting occurred.

After an opening ceremony, the painting begins.  The outline of the mandala is carefully drawn.  And then the monks start to fill in this amazing mandala, with pieces of colorful sand so carefully added.  My first experience is on Day two as the monks added sand to the outline.  As you can see the monks are in the early stages of filling in the mandala.

Careful attention to detail.

And you can see the individual grains of sand pour onto the Mandala's canvas.

The colors are so intense and the mandala continues to grow during the week.  You can see the individual pieces of sand and the attention to detail in the later part of the week of sand painting.  First a close up of the sand painting:

Then a view of the progress that they had made two days after my initial visit.

It was truly inspiring to see this and to hear the lectures given by the monks about Tibet, about sand painting, and about their emphasis on compassion.