Transcripts
1. Welcome and Introduction: Hello, everyone. My name is Louise Gail and I'm a botanical mandala artist. I'm so excited to be sharing the skill share class with you today, So I'm the mixed media artist behind the website louise gown dot com. I'm also the author of the book Botanical Man Dollars. Sit in this class. I will be showing you just one of the ways that I love to create expressive mandala artwork inspired by nature, A mandala is essentially a circular design that is made up of a framework and pretty motifs repeated around the circle to form a beautiful design. So in this class, I'm going to share with you how I use real flowers to inspire my motive sketches. Once you get started with gathering ideas this way, you will find an endless source of drawing inspiration in nature. We will then draw out basic mandala framework. So if you are completely new to managers, I show you how to get started. Next, we will take the motifs we have drawn in the earlier videos on add them to reframe work. There are so many different ways you can draw your design and I will be showing you some of the tips and tricks that I love to use to finish our mandala design off. We were used water, color paint, add color and vibrancy so you can frame your artwork and hanging on the wall. So I'm really excited to be sharing this class with you and my love for botanical man dollars. I can't wait to see what you create, so let's get started.
2. Materials: okay, So high, everyone. I just wanted to quickly run through the materials that I'm gonna be using in this class there, two types of paper, but I'll be using So first of all, I have this hot pressed watercolor paper that this is from Castle in London's. This is UK brand, but, you know, cancer in and lots of brands do hot pressed paper, and this one is actually 100 and ÂŁ40 in white. It's very smooth. It's great to work with. So that's watercolor paper Onda. Then I also using this cancer mixed media paper that this is a smaller sizes and a five size. But you can get larger sizes in this brand as well, and this is ÂŁ120. So, you know, if you I have only got access to to the mixed media paper, then you can use this for both our motif drawing Andi our mandala project as well, because it does take water color paint. So they're the two different papers that I'll be using on. Then we have some black pens on. This is really personal choice. Here. I see these eso I have just a una bullpen, which is just like a regular black fine line pen. I've got Faber Castell Pitt pen here. I've got a Sharpie pen and then I have the micron pen here, now micron for me and my favourite pens to work with at the moment. So even though I'll be drawing my motifs with the kind of regular black pen when we actually get to the mandala drawing, I'm gonna be using my micron pen on these. Come in various points sizes as well. But you know, you need to kind of experiment with which kind of pens that you love to draw with a will be a little bit different, depending on how fine pointed they are in a going right through to kind of like a brush point as well. So in addition to the pens, also need a pencil. If you don't want to dive straight in withdrawing your motifs or your mandala in pen, you can use just a regular HB pencil I've got here on. Then we have a compass. I've got two different kinds of compasses here. There's the kind that already has the lead pencil inside. And then there's this type here that you can just put your your pencil in. Andi, I kind of like to use both of these, But you again you'll find, you know, the kind of compass that you love to use. Then we need an eraser. Justo, erase out out pencil lines. We'll need a ruler and a protractor. Essentially. You know, this is what we will be using to draw out frameworks for our mandala designs. Andi. Then way. When we come to actually painting out Mandala, we are just gonna be using what? I'm just gonna be using some winds at Newton. These are professional water colors. They come in tubes. And what I dio, I actually just squeeze them into my palette here, the supportable palley. Because sometimes when I'm traveling, I love to take her with me. But you can use any kind of palate fuel water colors. So I just squeeze them in these little compartments here. You can also squeeze them in. Do you have, like, this little tiny box here that has, like the water colors in these Connie little your trays as well, Which are really fun to use if you don't have water colors. Don't worry. You can use any kind of paint on. Do you know, I just love to use watercolor, so that's what I'll be using for our project on. Then you just need some water jar here on and some paintbrushes. I'll be using this very fine rounded paintbrushes as we paint out design on. Then you need some tissue paper, which we may use to kind of blot out water color when we actually come to color the mandolin in. So I have added these materials to the course information page on bond. Let's get started and I'll see you in the next video.
3. Your Flower and stages of growth: So how everyone I wanted to really kind of dive in in this video. Andi, just show you how much I guess endless inspiration. There is just in one single flower. So I have the dahlia flower here, one species of the dahlia flower. And as you can see, it's very beautiful and very fragile whips. But there is some absolutely gorgeous colors and shapes inside this flower on what I've actually done. I have pixel have a plant in my studio, and I just picked different stages of growth for this flower. So I have a little, but here we're gonna draw from then, as it's opening up, the four bloom. And then there's this little fella here that, you know, once all the petals have fallen off the structure of this, um, as I guess it effectively, almost dead. Really? I suppose all the petals have come off, but it's still were still got some amazingly thick kind of leaves, and the centerpiece is still there as well. So I thought what we could do in this video is just I really want to show you how you can create. We'll start creating, sketching on creating some motifs for your mandala designs just with one simple flower. So I think sometimes it might feel a little bit overwhelming thinking about Oh my goodness , you know, there's so many flowers and plants and leaves and there's so much inspiration out there, you know? Where do I start from? What do I start with on This is a really fantastic way. You know, you can go into your back garden or go to the garden centre and just take one flower and use this for your inspiration for your hand drawn man dollar. Let's say, for example, I have created like a deck of inspiration cards, which I use for a lot of my mandala creating on these particular ones. Are you flowers? So I have another bunch that a completely different motives as well. But these kind of little man dollars in themselves, Little mini man, dollars of flowers that inspired me. So that's one way of capturing, you know, one particular shape, but because we're gonna be capturing every aspect I thought we were just get started on just one piece of paper, and then if you want to add to your inspiration deck, then you can go ahead and do that as well
4. Drawing Motifs: Petals: So we're just gonna get started here, and that's going to show you some ideas. Order some ways that you can capture what you were seeing here. Andi, I, um I'm gonna use this to black pen here, but of course, if you want to use a pencil, please go ahead and do so. But it's really hard for you to see pencil on the video. So and I really love to dive in with black pain. So let's just take I mean, I think just take a simple pedal to begin with, Andi, lots of different ways that we can draw this. And, you know, I am going to zoom in here so you can kind of see we just go with the camera here, gonna move this across every guy and what's going to start with this single petal? He and I'm gonna draw it to size to begin with. Now, I'm very much like I don't wanna draw it completely perfectly for May. It's about recording the shape. So, you know, we can start with this this petal shape here that this in itself is a motif. We can go one step further with stock hunt. I think our lines that down here you could say I'm a little bit messy, but that's okay. I'm kind of just getting a feel for the petal of the moment. Well, maybe I wanna capture kind of like where this light and dark happens here with the with shapes. This is a little bit more abstract, as you can see what we could go back to, kind of being a bit more traditional, just at the lines that we're seeing in the petal here. So straight away, just from this one single petal, we've kind of developed four kind of very sketchy motifs, and I think you know, I'm gonna draw them out. I used this for these kind of motifs. I use this kind of rectangular shape rather than the square. So I'll have, you know, each one kind of on this deck of cards. But I think it's really great just to start sketching. First of all, getting a feel for what you drawing, Andi. Then you can kind of create more perfect shapes. If you are creating a deck here, someone's gonna zoom back out again.
5. Drawing Motifs: Buds: then we have Let's have a look at this little bod here. I'm gonna zoom back in again, cause actually, I don't think it's not clear for you here. So there's different ways that you can capture this depending on how you hold it as well. So as you can see here, we can look straight down on what we would be seeing here is it's the very basic circle and then kind of like the petals coming in like this for it's our opening up. And then we've even got the leaves that kind of coming out. So this in itself is a very natural. The natural man, dolla. And you can see I haven't drawn a perfect circle there, but that's totally fine. So, yes, one way of looking at it or what we can do is turn it toe one side here and then we can draw kind of what we're seeing here. So I'm gonna draw like a bud kind of shape, and then you've got some of the petals that going up beside here. And then again, we've got the little leaves that we drew out to the side here. Like what I would call northeast southwest, like, just a full point, But I'm kind of one of captured e. So I'm going to draw these out like this. Of course, you could put us much or as little detail in you wish. I mean, there's different ways you could even do it from behind here. I mean, even just taking those petal shapes that could be a motif in itself is kind of like a little mini flower. The way that those petals of forming I can't even draw it kind of from behind here, give being interesting kind of motif. And then, if you want to, you can kind of put the lines in your leaves. And if you want to, also, of course, you can put the stork in as well, so you may want to draw drawing on its side and it bit maybe. And then you might want to draw the leads in here, even in a stock
6. Drawing Motifs: Bloom: and then with the actual four bloom itself, of course, you know, we would. I would probably go ahead on and not see this is a different flower here. But I would then go ahead and create a little the card that's very much like this that captures this beautiful flower shape that we have. But again, you know when you will scrap piece of paper that you're playing with, we could just go ahead and its capture. Some of the shapes that we're seeing on this center is really interesting because it's kind of it's no, some of it's already fallen off, so it's not perfect, and this is what we like. We want some imperfection here, and then he's gorgeous. Leaves all different sizes, petals. Should I say This is a really great way, kind of just get to get to know the flower structure just the like. It's the process of just drawing petals, and how different each one actually is flower kind of structures around. I was laid have some of the leaves, our cells, some of the petals of kind of folding over a little bit, where the color is a kind of changing or the lights. What time of day is the light will be different, too. So even though we're not capturing all of those things, it's great to kind of notice. Notice what you're actually seeing, and here I'm adding a little bit more in than I'm actually seeing on the flower here. If we wanted to, we could you know that that in itself is a motif. But we could, you know, I could actually just add in that center. And as I'm just using a black pen, you know, if I wanted to, I could just color in some that, let's say, in black, just to put the contrast in Miss might feel a bit messy, depending on how you like to work. Thinks it's fun just to try out lots of different ways. Toe. I kind of stopped drawing your your motifs in your inspiration deck and how they might translate into your mind dollar designs. So I think I was gonna add a bit more. But he's a little bit thick around the interest of balance that out because that's quite dark. That center you might want just before put the lines in so you can see how that can actually start to take shape as a motif and depending on how detailed do you want to be?
7. Drawing Motifs: Other flower elements: And then we have this. This is a flower here that's kind of like just come out of his body. But we might want to capture some of the petals coming on here. So she's quite a nice design. Has its opening up spiky some of these. We'll see how you approach. This is completely up to you. I'm just jumping straight in with you know how I'm drawing this. Put little stock on that's what you very that's a farm motif, that one that would look lovely from a man dollar design. And then you've got, like, these little see these little leaves. I'm not gonna pick one off here. Little leave shapes could be quite fun to again. You can cooperate those into your mandala design in lots of different ways, even just the simple shape of a leaf. They want the other leaves here as well. Oops. It's, uh, the ones of the actual plant seeds that she just er to draw in some of the mines that you're saying in the leaf. Right? So let's see you have any others. I suppose this one that we looked at early room probably captured that a little bit even that centerpiece lips see here might just pop that in the top here. So you've got, you know, the center of the actual flower. It's complicated, little bit messy. I'm just gonna kind of script by in here and in these gorgeous lots and lots of little leafy kind of petals. It was like a lily or waterlily or a lotus flower. That's what she really found that So again, that's another little motif that you can use. Something else is really fun to deal. I mean, you might want to kind of turn the flower upside down here. Might be some inspiration that you're seeing kind of in the back of the flower as well to look how pretty this hiss. It's so beautiful. Even just from you know, this side here you can see I got the back side of the petals, which pretty in themselves, because they very pale pink of repower kind of like a lie. Lucky color. We can see the lines underneath. And then you've got these little Lego pieces here that kind of holding this flower together . You're very beautiful as well. So I think, you know, just to begin with, just with black and whites. This is so much, so many shapes and different aspects that you can record that you can then later on uses your motifs. So I'm gonna go ahead on and be a little bit more mind for, because I actually have just quickly sketch these out. I'm gonna go and add them to my inspiration deck. Andi, I am looking forward to seeing I guess number one what flower you guys choose to, you know, really dive into and take a look at on all the different kinds of motifs and shapes and things that you can find in your particular chosen flower. So I look forward to seeing what you guys create and please post them so we can all enjoy the ones work.
8. Watch me add my motifs to my card deck:
9. Drawing a Mandala Framework: okay, So high, everyone first I'm gonna do here is destroy out some templates which you can use as a framework for your man dollar designs. So this point, about seven or eight. Now, I like to use Andi. I just show you kind of just some of the basics of setting You're framework up. It's the first thing of what square piece of paper here. And I'm just gonna find the center a little bit here by going from corner to call. It might not be completely exactly. It's just a good starting point on. Then from them is gonna grab my compass and pencil on, just draw a circle that will actually use thes lines as a basis for beauty, my protractor. So I'm just going toe go over these again to see you can see I'm gonna go quite hard on the pencil, hopefully can see that on the video. So, really, what we've got here is like four pieces of a pie. So I like to say I north, east, south and west. So if you wanted to create a man dollar, it started with four petals. Let's say then this is a really good starting point then if you wanted to create something with eight and all you would simply dough is just raw lines kind of straight down the middle here. And you can use your protractor to do that. If you want to get really, really exact you'll see here I've put this protracted along this line. You can see that's 90 degrees here. So if we wanted to separate that up again, I would do 45 degrees. And then, you know, I do the same if I wanted to keep dropping it up. If you wanted a man dollar, that was a lot more intricate, it's then you could actually separate it by, you know, 10 degrees here should have lack of 36 losses. 36 360 degrees on you'd have 36 sections if you did it by 10 degrees. So protracted protractor is a really hurt. He taught tohave. If you want to experiment with adding a lot more kind of sections to a man doll and making it a lot more intricate, so I'm really just gonna get started. I think with the eight point here, it's the most simple one. Really. I was gonna make a mark here. Let's go around, then I'll just twist this around here. He's gonna make sure this line that's in the center here is going on the line that you've drawn out. And then all I do is connect those lines up with my ruler. There's a bit of paint on my route because every time I use it, I get a blue blobs on the pay pass really annoying. So they know that you have eight points straight away, and then obviously the next time you could do this in any order. You could do these points first and then draw concentric circles or dear circles first, and then do your points is not really any kind of official way of doing that. So here I'm just going to draw out some concentric circles. There we go. That's basically that basic framework. So this is just a really good starting point. If you've no created mandalas before, this is very, very basic start, and obviously, if you have created man dollars before then you might want to get a little bit more detailed. Add a few more sections in, um so it becomes a bit more of a kind of intricate design
10. Mandala Drawing: Getting Started: Okay, so let's get started withdrawing our motifs into our mandala framework. So I have a framework here that's slightly different to the one that I just showed you. But on the same, you know, basic framework. So I've got the concentric circles and I've got eight points here, so it's gonna be an eight pointed man dolla to begin with. Andi, I have my motifs by drew out earlier on the motive cards, and I'm gonna lay these down just for inspiration on I probably won't be using all of these , but it's great to to slay them out in front of you, Just give you some reference points as your drawing on the way the I like to construct my mandalas is starting from the center and then working in each concentric circle. So here I've got this main central circular point, and then I've got another circle that goes around here a thinner circle and then the outer circle here. So I'm gonna start from the center and essentially kind of grow the mandala out. But using all see this 8.8 framework as my guide, So have a micron pen here that I'm gonna use But of course, you know you can start off with using pencil if you prefer. Um, especially not usedto drawing out mandalas. You might feel like you want a drawing pencil first, and then you could rub them out and change your design if you wanted to. But so you can see what I'm doing on the video. Very clearly, I'm using this black pen on. These are great for mandolin work. This one is a A 0.2 That's quite fine, so you can add quite a lot of intricate details, so let's get started.
11. Mandala Drawing: The Central Motif: I'm gonna start in the center here, and I think I'm gonna use this lovely bloom motif to begin with. So let's lay that down here. And you know what? I'm gonna zoom in the camera just a little bit, so you can see. See what I'm doing a bit better here on essentially, what I'm gonna do is issues thes lines, thes eight lines that I've drawn out as my guide. So you can either, you know, draw petal in between the grid lines, or you can draw petals where the grid line is the center of the petal, and it's entirely up to you, kind of Which way? You know, you want to work. So I am going to go for this first way. So I'm gonna actually draw in between the grid lines. And I think, first of all, what I might do is distraught. Come about the center off the flower. First you can see I've got the There's quite a lot of them Stamos his something to draw that first and then the petals behind that. Now I am someone who you know, even though I'm keeping in with the eight point Mandala framework, my motif designs are not completely perfect or symmetrical. I really love Teoh. Have more of an organic feel to my man, Dennis. So I'm not being too precious with no getting the perfect petal, making sure that they will match. I'm just simply just drawing these out. Never go around the eight points. Now you know there's different ways that you might want to work. You could draw just these very simple line drawings first throughout the whole mandala. Or you can go in on and, you know, as you work through each section, you can add more lines and add more detail to your work. So I think I'll do that. First Son's gonna use This is reference. I just put in a bit of line work here, and this really helps. You know it'll start to kind of come together. You can start seeing your design emerge. There's a lot of light and shadow. You may find that you want to go over again with your pen, like I'm doing here. Drawing amount That, to me is like a meditation, so you know there's not really a roller right way of of working with this. It's just really how you feel as you're going through following your intuition a little bit , I'm gonna put in some fate lines in the petals here. You can always come back over your design as well. So once you've finished your mandala, you can you come back and rework some of it. I mean, at the moment, I'm thinking maybe I might want to put another petal in between these ones because, you know, this motif does have quite a lot of petals. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that. Just have one little pedal kind of poking out behind that As you go through your design, you know where we've got the concentric circles. You can either choose toe, leave them on and you rub them out later on, or you can choose to actually put a circular design in. And I think for the purpose of this demonstration for what we're doing today, I'm gonna put the I'm gonna put the circular design in so you can see more of the structure as it kind of unfolds. So just freehand gonna draw in that first concentric circle here. Of course, it's not gonna be perfect, but that's totally fine. well, and then you can even add really embellishments as you go through around the circle was were like it add little dots if you wanted to little lines.
12. Mandala Drawing: Layered Petals: I might actually create kind of like a full point here and then put the motif within that point. So let's try that. So what I'm gonna do here is used the's grid lines as a guide. I just can't draw one big petal around here four times. So even though I'm using an eight point Mandela framework, you know, you can play around a little bit with how you're utilizing the framework by having, I guess, kind of like multiples of two. So you've got, like, you could have two of something, or mostly four of something and then eight of something, and then we can even go higher. We can have 16 and 32 as well. So as long as you're keeping him within that kind of eight point framework, you can create some very interesting kind of designs. Now, what I like to do when I'm working, I do like to turn my design around as I'm going around, so let you do the top on the bottom here first, you know, turned that and then we'll do the next one so he can see I've got kind of, like, four points happening on if I wanted to. I could, you know, create again, like a petal shape where I've got to That's going on behind there to create more of an interesting design. So let's do that. Actually, so we are going to create, like, kind of eight petals here. So what I'm gonna do is use the center points as my starting on. Then this is kind of at the top of the petal, but I'm not gonna draw all the way through. I'm actually gonna draw kind of like behind it. So you might want to just sort of move your pen along to see get the grid line. I could see it starts to take shape. Okay, So I'm thinking I want to use one of these. Maybe one of these motives here, even maybe just this, like this is like, kind of more of a bud shape, and what I can actually do is draw inside the petals. If I wanted to, or I could actually have this expanding out as well. There's so many so many possibilities is kind of sometimes you get start because it's so There's so many wonderful things that you can do with your design. Then what you can do. You can actually add in adding extra lines here we wanted to. So again, you kind of adding some interesting detail. - So here, even though I don't have a grid line going around this center point, I kind of feel like I want to create something in here, so I'm gonna go ahead and that's a little Archie's.
13. Mandala Drawing: Rotating Motifs: So one thing you can do as well is that even though we're growing the mountain, the design from the center point outwards and essentially, you know, you might want to You feel like you want toe, draw your motifs as if they're growing out. You can actually turn things around and actually turn them upside down. So essentially, for this petal here, I could actually draw this motif as if it's going back into the center. And that can really add some interesting kind of, you know, interesting look and failed to your mandala design. So I'm actually going to do that. You could have as many petals as you want. Might be different to the design before. That's totally fine. - I think what I might do is add something slightly different to these petals. So maybe this bug design here, which actually I'm gonna have growing from the center so that won't be upside down. It's gonna be growing from the center here, So as you can see, I'm not. I'm not drawing exactly what the motifs look like. I'm kind of using them as inspiration. So, you know, as you're going through and drawing your design just feel free toe, make adjustments and come on. Just listen, Toe, listen to your intuition off. You know where your mandolin wants to take you. Because, you know, if you draw this on a different day or you probably find that, you know, you have a completely different design starts to emerge. Okay, So that's that center point. We're gonna zoom back out again. Now, we're starting to grow this a bit more.
14. Mandala Drawing: Adding Geometric Elements: and then here we've got this smaller circle going on, so I kind of feel like I'd quite like to add, you know, maybe some petal shapes in there, so kind of, kind of. I think I'm gonna divide this up a little more. Well, I could just draw, maybe draw the arches. Actually, I'm gonna just draw arches on here. So again, you know, I am no, actually measuring this out. Let's go around. Come a little half petals again. It's okay there. No, you know, all the same size I'm gonna go through and draw in the circular design. Let's hope you can start seeing that really coming to shape now. But, you know, adding the embellishments as I'm going along and I think I'll even Adam or around this circular point here later on, like you could add lines. Or I could just add little arches again just to go around here to add some more detail. Let's go ahead and do that. Now I've said that. So here, You know, I've got quite a straight line and for that concentric circle, and now I'm going around with a bit more of a curved curb line
15. Mandala Drawing: Finishing the Design: okay. And then what we've really got left is then this outer circle here. So it feels like it will be really great to have something that's a bit more kind of flourishing coming out. So this feels like this will be the perfect motif tohave around here on, and I can go ahead again. I could draw four. I can draw eight. Um, you know, maybe I can draw them. So this line is the sense of a flower. Or I could draw them inside the actual box here, so it kind of feels like they're coming from behind the petal. So I'm gonna go ahead on and draw those I think inside there. So I'll zoom in for this 1st 1 here, Every guy keep that close. This you can kind of see, See that disease evolves. - And then what I can actually do is kind of add a bit of a stork here, so actually looks like it's joined up. Well, that is kind of like sitting behind. Of course, you know, you don't have to have everything repeating eight times. I could have chosen to do, you know, just four of these and then added a different motif in between as well. Again, That adds some interest. - Okay , so there we go, that south first past the actual design there. So again, you know, we can leave as as this, or I think I'm actually gonna drool this outer circle as well. Just toe. Keep it a bit more of a compact design. Let's go ahead and do that. But this is entirely up to you. Don't have to close the circle off. Just leave it so the flowers are kind of flourishing. Okay, some to go ahead and just erase those pencil lines out now.
16. Painting: Part 1: Okay, so let's add some color to our design. Um, now I have some water colors here that I've put into my palate. And this is Windsor and Newton professional grade watercolors. But you can use any kind of paint that you wish to color in your mandala. So if you have access to even poster paint watercolor pains, you can use coloring pencils if you wish. But for the purpose of this demonstration, I just love the way that watercolor works. And it's my favorite medium to use for many off my mandala designs. So I'm just gonna go ahead on and again, working from the center outwards. I'm going, Teoh dis literally color color this designing with watercolor. So I just have my paint pot here. My sorry, my water jar with Cem paintbrushes. I probably will grab some of smaller paintbrushes decided, get into some of these little areas. Onda, um oops. Got wet their mind. It's ok, Andi. Uh, I I'm not going to really be using any special techniques or anything. It literally is just putting, you know, paint into the design and coloring it in using watercolor. So I'm going to stick to a quite a limited palate. I think I'm just gonna be using yellow and pink and blue and green. I'm just keeping it very, very simple. Andi making it nice and bright. Andi fun. That's the most important thing is to have fun when you're coloring in Onda adding kind of color to your your designs. Now, one tip that I will share with you and this is something that I really love to do is you know, once I've actually drawn my mandala out like this sets in black pen, I love to scan it in Andi or just photocopy it. So I've got lots and lots and lots of different versions. You know, lots of copies of this mandala desire just in black and white. And then it's really fun to then try out different color palettes and different materials. If you are able to print on watercolor paper and things like that, it's really lots of fun toe, you know, use the same design and just try out lots of different ways of coloring it in. And you'll be really, really surprised, you know, with how different your mandala can look sometimes too. So I'm gonna get started on, bond. I think First of all, I'm just going to use some very fake yellow. I kind of wanna paint. You know, even though the dahlia that we've been observing it is very pink and purple E I kind of feel like I want to add yellow in here. Yellow is calling me today, so I'm just gonna go ahead and grab some yellow watercolor. I don't have very much on my brush. I am just gonna very lightly, actually. Let me scan. So let me zoom in here for you a little bit very lightly. Just paint on. You know, sometimes I like to actually leave some, you know, white areas. And the great thing with watercolor is, you know, depending on how much pigment you've got on your brush, you can get club lots of different effects happening. So, you know, even if you're not a watercolor artist, don't worry. You know you don't need toe have any kind of really complicated knowledge, old or techniques or anything. Just a color. Your mandarin is just my preferred material. And I just love how Amanda looks when you used water color. It just has a really beautiful looking fail. The one thing I do like to keep handy is some tissue again. If you feel like there's too much color, you can actually dab the color a little bit with your tissue. And they could always go over it again, a bit more off of vibrant color. And sometimes you got to pick up the color with your brush. Move it around your piece a little. The one thing to note is no. Obviously, when you're using water color, you're using quite a lot of water, so your your artwork can actually sometimes feel quite wet on. Do you know if I now go ahead and paint in the background here, you might find that the colors run. So, you know, I actually quite like that effect I actually love kind of like the, you know, it kind of being very unpredictable. I love that in my mandala work, but you may know enjoy that. So if you don't want your colors to run and just make sure that you're letting each piece that you're painting dry first and then you can then go over it if you want to and then paint a section that's quite close by without any fear of kind of blending or the paint actually running. And then once it's dry, you can then go over it again. If I wanted Teoh, I could go over it in, um, another color as well. So I was gonna continue with this year alone. Just go in the back here. It's feel so satisfying. Toe color, Your piece in so fun. How much you're gonna do is gonna get some pink. I just go in the center here. Just see if it will run a little bit and it's OK if it does. We are. It's just running just a tiny bit there. I just love. This is I call it a wet on wet technique, and I just I just love the way that the water color works together. It's just it's just so beautiful and delicate and kind of romantic feeling as well. Okay. So even though I was saying that I'm gonna be working from the center outwards, I kind of do want to leave this to dry a little bit before I add paint in the background of this sent central flower. So I think what I'm going to do is gonna go ahead and work on some of the areas kind of in this next concentric circle here on, um and see how I get on with just a adding some color in there. So I got yellow and pink in the center, and then I kind of feel like I might want to add some pink petals of maybe some blue in the background. So I'm going to start off with the petals. I think now I love this pink This Windsor Newton, this is called opera Rose and I think of all of them Hold the color. Artists love this color. It's so vibrant. So first of all time scale of color in these this four points around. First of all, - my even put a little bit of purple. I think for the next bods, you can't. Adding a little bit of variation was quite a pigment on that, Actually, just even if you make a little mistake, it's totally fine to get a tissue, just lift up paint. I realized I wanted to paint those green Eso is totally fine making of a steak. It's totally fine. Okay. Okay. So I'm gonna go ahead and put a bit of green on those purple flowers. That might be a little bit of running going on, but let's see what happens.
17. Painting: Part 2: Okay, so I'm gonna go back into the center. I think that's that. Flowers dried off a little bit. Some lovely fun turquoise. Of course, you don't have to color in every single peace. Be sit segment you've got going on here. You can leave some of it blank or white if you want to. What's great about water? Kaleena Khumri! Change the grade, Ian by using your tissue to lift up some of the color. I love this blue personally. Probably fainter here says you can see I'm kind of jumping around my mantle of a little bit on again. You know, I'm no. What were you following? Any rule was you know, I kind of feel like it's good Teoh work from the centre outwards, But because I'm working with pain here, I'm kind of jumping around a little bit. Just getting a feel for balancing out the color because I have the blue in here. I kind of felt like they wantedto some blue in this background here. And sometimes you can even put, you know, like here I've put my pigment on here, and I'm just kind of dragging it across. This is enough paint on my paintbrush to cover the home section. So I'm not even needing Teoh kind of go back and didn't want brush back in the paint. I would go so that I could stop feeling in areas behind these flowers. I had a very fight green, actually. So that's a little bit too much paint a little water on my brush, - I think behind the purple Here's have already got a little bit of green, but I would actually quite like to add green hits. Something use very faint, very fine green. I see different, different effects you get even despite, you know, just regular painting by using a lot more water or using a tissue, which is a great tool, you can get some lighter shades going on. So I'm gonna work. Gonna actually skip those sections and work on the flowers up here a little bit. Andi, I think I'm gonna probably do a combination off pink and yellow. Just the balance out the color a bit more because obviously we've got yellow quite about the yellow here in the center. So I think I'm gonna do kind of yellow and pink just to see if I get some interesting kind of different look going on. Each of the flowers look very different as they go around the center. I used my and again, you know, the paint may run else I'll just go round field I was in.
18. Painting: Part 3: Okay, so we're getting there. You stop seeing this unfold. I feel like a woman on a bit more green. So I think this outer circle here, I'm gonna add some A nice green kind of maybe agree. Bluey background. Not sure Need a slightly bigger brush. Think Morva area again. I'm going to keep this very light. So what I'm trying to do is put a little bit more pigment in the in this in the around this bit here and then dragging it out. So hopefully become a little bit light as it goes towards the age of the circle. Some of that's running a little bit, but I actually quite like I love that effects, so I'm perfectly happy with that. But if you're gonna you following along with May, then maybe let's some of it dry. And then here I think I'm just gonna add make best blue and yellow again around here, right? It's kind of like the GM geometric band that's going round every now and then. Just to finish this off. I just need toe color in this centrepiece here on them the lines that go around here. So I'm kind of feel like I want to add some brown and I was gonna keep very limited palate , but coming brown is being called to me. It's like a golden round color into balance this out. I kind of feel like now. But I did a bit of brown in the middle here. I kind of feel like on add something around the edge, something very faint just to kind of close the design in a little bit. So you can experiment a little bit here with this brown and see if I see a useful work so much you put a lot on my brush, blend the color a little bit, still green around the edge, but it's kind of putting it in a little bit. I mean, I'm not sure if that works or not, but that will go with it and, uh, see what else? Well, we're not As we go around, try knows, but too much pigment on here. Actually, this one close in the color a bit. You can see here they can go over your design afterwards like I'm doing here life. I feel you feel like you want to just add slightly different tone or different color to peace. Okay, I think where most dollars just got a little stocks to fill out. Green in there, I think. Okay, so that's the design. Completely colored in on. Do you know if you want to, you can go over with pens. Once this is completely dry, you can kind of add a little more detail When, if you want to around the edge. If you wanted to add some more line work or embellishments, you can by all means go and do that with your black pain as well. So I hope you have fun creating your own botanical mandala.
19. Our project: So you ready to get started on a project? I hope so. So there's two parts to our project in this class. The first part is to draw out or to choose a flower of your choice. Or you can use the dollar eras well from my videos on to create yourself some lovely motif drawings, motive cards or a page off motif drawings in your sketchbook and share those in the Projects folder on the second part is to then draw your own mandala design so you can draw your design based on the motifs on the process. But I share with you in this class, or you can also share your own project. So if you chose the different flower on, you've got different motifs, and you've used the techniques I've shown you in the video to create the Mandela. I'd love to see your own unique mandalas. Well, so please share all of your photographs on your imagery, and I cannot wait to see what you guys create. Thanks a lot
Louise Gale, Botanical Mandala Artist | Nature Lover
