I feel that drawing a mandala is a great way to unwind and open the door to your inner creativity.
Find a place where you feel relaxed, this might be in your garden or lounge, studio, dinning room, wherever you feel you have the space to create. The process of drawing a mandala is a great meditation practice... enjoy the journey! Open the door to your creative soul and feel the nourishment.....
1. Firstly get together your supplies, you will require a piece of paper any size will do, a pencil and or a Pen, a ruler and a rubber (dont worry if you dont have a ruler to hand I often draw my guidlines in freehand).
I often like to light a candle and make myself a cup of tea or a drink before I start, put some relaxing music on and I'm ready go. Do what feels nourishing for you.....
2. You are now ready to get started on creating your mandala and enjoy this time of self care....
Divide the paper into 8 segments these will be your guidelines for drawing your mandala.
Find the centre of the page you can do this with a ruler or by eye if you don't have a ruler, and apply the pencil lightly to draw the lines, as at the end you will be rubbing these out.
3. Starting in the middle point draw a shape it can be any shape, I started with a circle in this one (sometimes I start with petals, leaf, diamond shapes and others)... go with your own intuition.
Then using the segment lines as guidelines start drawing your next row of shapes, this is a great way of relaxing and unwinding, drawing the shapes and marks that come to you in the present moment. I did petal shapes as the next row on my mandala. Repeat the shape you choose all around your starting point.
For the next row continue to listen to your soul and draw a shape or mark and continue repeating the pattern all the way around.
4. Continue the process of adding new shapes on each row until you feel the mandala is finished.
(Below are images of my process of drawing each row in pencil before I add more detail).
5. Then once you feel the mandala is ready to add details, draw over the pencil lines with black pen and start adding details like, lines, dots, circles and words within and outside of the shapes. I always go with marks that intuitively speak to me in the moment.
You may want to leave yours in pencil or use coloured crayons or felt tips for the outlines what ever you are feeling.... enjoy!
I have left this mandala in black and white but I often colour them in, which is great fun to do, with coloured crayons, paints, felt tip pens, tea, coffee or spices from the cupboard explore and have fun.
Here are a few other images of mandalas I have drawn in pen for inspiration.....
'I dream my painting and then I paint my dream' Van Gogh
For these mandalas I have used Uni Pin fine-line pens as they are water and fade proof and are a great quality. They are available with a variety of nib thicknesses from very fine to the thickness of a felt tip pen, they are available on Amazon and at some art supply stores. These pens are also great if you want to colour your artwork in after you have finished as they are water proof.
I hope this blog has helped spark your creative soul and you enjoy making your very own mandalas, have fun exploring....
With love and blessings Danielle xox
Comments