I am drawn to circles as many of us are, and I want to draw them everywhere. A Mandala is a circle that you can fill with whatever you want. Though the ones that are at least a little bit geometric are the easiest to recognize as mandalas. They grow from a circle in the center and build up to become a beautiful meditation on nature, life or anything you want!
With the inspiration of Kathryn Costa’s book The Mandala Guidebook, that I just reviewed on the blog, and my new and beautiful two-edged pencils that my friend brought me from her recent trip to Barcelona, I decided to draw a geometric mandala!
The straight line belongs to men, the curved one to God. Antoni Gaudi
I’m not religious, but I see the divinity of the circle of course. I get where Mr Gaudí, with the quote above, came from. Also, as a side note, since my friend went to Barcelona, I’ve been googling Antoni Gaudi’s mosaic creations – and I’m in love. I love the look of mosaic so much! I will try my best to squeeze in one or two mosaic projects this summer (the flower pot I made is still a favorite in my window), because traveling abroad is not in the budget this year which means I can’t just book a trip and go see the Gaudí Park no matter how much I want to… I’m on staycation. I’ve got to keep entertaining myself at home with my creativity.
Today: drawing a geometric mandala!
The fun thing about this kind of calculated geometric mandala is that it has both measurements and straight lines (man made) and the divinity of nature’s more organic forms. Maybe that’s the best of two worlds?
What you need to draw a geometric mandala are a ruler, a compass and a protractor. I wouldn’t mind this very girly but cute pink kit from Amazon:
When the structure is drawn out, you add in circles and petals that you imagine yourself. I really enjoyed the straight structure that you just draw out to help you get the mandala in shape, and then the more free-form drawing that comes after.
But the best part is of course when you erase all the straight lines and get to color in your own artwork! Yum! I took a few snaps as I was coloring in this big mandala:
It’s really fascinating to see how the whole thing changes and morphs when you add a new color! I was trying to use only warm colors that match, but it would also be fun to try to use all the colors in the Gaudí-box and see how that would work.
Today’s lesson learned: Coloring sounds so easy and relaxing – but to make it look good, you have to take a lot of hard decisions and get practicing! :-)
How to draw a Geometric Mandala
Kara, of Boho Berry, has made a great tutorial on YouTube on how to draw this kind of mandala. If you want to learn how to do it, watch her and be inspired:
Like I mentioned in my review there are mandalas everywhere these days, here are just three of the coloring books I spotted in my local book store recently:
I’m not a coloring-book-girl, so I didn’t get these. I tend to doodle mandalas more on a whim, in my notebooks.
Also, nature is full of beautiful circles, so right now today, is a good day to go out and capture some mandala inspiration to “draw from” – pun intended.
What’s your best mandala inspiration or tip?
Beautiful – I loved how your mandala turned out. Thanks so much for showing off the process and for including the You Tube link. I’ll have to check that out!
I love your mandala and your two-colored-pencils… awesome! I visited Park Güell when I was in Art school in the eighties… and was stunned by it. I hope you get the change to go there one day (oh, and when you do: don’t forget Sagrada Familia and the Miro museum – if it’s still there…) I have a mandala coloring-book and one with patterns… I love to color in those when I’m feeling down and out – it doesn’t require drawing and thinking about patterns, just picking colors. To me, it works great to keep the ‘creativity flowing’ until I am ready to create from inside myself again.
Beautiful! Thanks for showing us your in process photos! Looks like a lot of fun!
I love mandala’s and I draw them a lot. Mostly freehand though, so they are always a little wonky, which to me is part of their charm. I also do tiny mandalas in a small sketchbook. They measure about 8×8 cm, are quick to do and a lot of fun. Mandalas to me are just a specific kind of doodle and like all my doodles I draw them so I can colour them in. It’s sort of like making your own colouring book pages. ;-)