Abstract Pattern Collages: Mindful Drawing + Intuitive Collage for Self-Care

1. Welcome!: Hi, I'm Mel and I'm an illustrator, artist and teacher living in Nottingham in the UK. I started drawing patterns as a daily mindful drawing practice when I was going through a difficult spell in my life. As my mindful drawing practice grew, I began to bring in elements of color, shape, and composition through using collage, which I found had even more impact as the tactile qualities of drawing on paper, combined with the physical process of cutting out shapes really allowed me to get completely absorbed and quiet my busy mind. This is what I want to share with you in this class. If that sounds in any way intimidating, then please know that this class is designed for everyone. Even if you haven't drawn since you were a kid, each step of the process is simple, playful, and it will allow you to explore drawing, color, and composition in a very accessible way. We're going to start by taking a look at color and how to choose colors to cultivate the feelings you want. Then we'll use these colors to draw simple patterns using repeating marks and shapes whilst practicing some mindful drawing techniques. We'll get in touch with our senses through meditative paper cutting and then explore how composing our collages in different ways can elicit different moods and feelings. You'll finish the class with a collection of small but beautiful abstract pattern collages, which you could frame and hang on your wall. Or maybe gift to a loved one, as well as a host of mindful drawing and collage techniques which you can incorporate into your daily art-making. Or just revisit every once in a while when you need a little extra self-care in your life. If that all sounds good, let's get started. 2. Class Project + Overview: [MUSIC] For your class project, you're going to create a collection of small abstract pattern collages. These collages are a by-product ready though, because the focus of this class is mindfulness and artmaking for joy and self-care. The process is more important than the end product. Although the end product acts as a really lovely reminder or anchor to those mindful techniques that we'll be exploring together. It's always nice to have something cute that you're proud of having made. I want to be clear with you before we begin. I am not a mental health practitioner. I'm just someone interested in mindfulness through artmaking, and I've benefited from it in my own life and seen others benefit from it too. If you're struggling with your mental health, please seek out the professional support that you need. This class is not intended as a replacement for that kind of support. I chose this project because it is extremely accessible and you don't need lots of art materials or skills to benefit from it. It's also a project with a lot of impact both visually and in terms of all the things that you'll learn as we create it. By the end of this class, you will have a better understanding of color and how to choose colors to cultivate the feelings you want. You'll have a toolkit of mindful drawing techniques which can help you to practice mindfulness and meditation. You'll have a framework for drawing patterns which can become an amazing mindful drawing practice in itself. If this is something which interests you, I'd recommend also checking out my class on drawing patterns for self-care, which is a deep dive on just this subject. You'll also explore the meditative opportunities in the physical process of drawing and collage making, helping you stay in the present moment with your artmaking, and hopefully finding some joy and calm in the process. You'll learn about composition and how to intuitively create compositions which resonate with you. We'll look at how certain composition types can elicit particular moods and feelings. So you can use composition as a tool to connect with the feelings that you want. For those who would like to, I'll also show you how to take your collages a step further with some bonus techniques to add more depth and dimension to your finished pieces. Although the class project is quite specific, I want you to feel free to go off on tangents. Please feel free to share any step of your process in your class project, whether it's realizations about your color palette, some pattern drawings that you've fallen in love with creating, or some cool shapes that you've noticed in your collage off-cuts. You can make your class project reflective of any stage of our process together, not just the final collages. This class is about joy and exploration and playing. Use the structure to give you jumping-off points, but please don't feel confined by it. I'm going to be doing the class project along with you, but I'm going to include my project process in some separate demonstration videos. This is because I think it can be helpful to see me go through the exact steps that you're going through and talk you through my approach and decisions. You can also use these videos to follow along exactly with what I'm doing if that would be helpful. But if you're pretty confident with the process, feel free to skip these videos. When you're ready to upload your class project, head over to the Projects and Resources tab. Here, you'll also find a PDF that I created to accompany this class, which you might find helpful. Hit the Create Project button, and then you can add images which could be scans or photographs to illustrate your project in the project body. You can also add text to reflect on your experience and then add a cover photo to polish off your project beautifully. Don't forget to hit Publish when you're done and you can come back anytime to edit or add to your project. Lastly, don't forget to take a look around the project gallery and drop a few likes and encouraging comments on other students' projects. Honestly, you can absolutely make someone's day by leaving a thoughtful comment on their projects. Don't miss this opportunity to spread some positivity. 3. Tools + Materials: [MUSIC] Here's what you're going to need to complete this class. You'll need some colored paper which we'll be drawing our patterns on and collaging. I'd recommend having two different colors. One, A4 sheet of each, so roughly 8 by 12 inches or the equivalent to that will be plenty. If you don't have any colored paper, you could use some other art materials to color your paper, such as paints or inks or markers. If you do that, just make sure that you're using something which you can draw on top of once it's dry and it's not going to smudge. I'd recommend waiting until you've watched the lesson on choosing colors before you decide on the colors you're going to use so that you can pick colors which feel right for you. I'm going to be using a couple of sheets of dalaround convert paper. This is 150 GSM. I like this paper because it comes in loads of colors which I love, it's a nice texture for drawing on, and it's got a nice textile warm feeling to it. It's a good way to cut out and layer up for collage without it being too thick. Don't worry if you don't have something like this though, improvise with whatever you have already at home; wrapping paper, carrier bags, notebooks, sticky notes, for example, are all things that you could switch in for sheets of colored paper. You'll need something to draw with, ideally in color. But if you only have black pens to draw with, you can still achieve some great effects from just the background being colored. If you're working in black pen, it can be nice to use a third colored paper background. This will just make composing your collages a little easier later. Again, I'd recommend watching the lesson about choosing colors before you pick your colored pens if you do have a selection of colored pens to choose from. You can be pretty creative with what you choose to draw with here too. Bring along anything you have to the next lessons and we'll see what's going to work best. Top tip, this project can work beautifully with what I call special pens and paper, things like neons or metallics. If you have any of those types of pens or bits of paper in your collection, it's worth bringing those along to the next lessons too. I'm going to be using Posca paint markers. This is because I find these great for allowing you to achieve vibrant colors regardless of the color underneath. But any colored pens will work really well. You'll also need some plain paper or card to collage onto for our background. I like to use hot-pressed watercolor paper. Mine is 300 GSM because I like it to be a bit more wetty and it also has a really nice smooth texture. If I want to draw on the background, it's nice to draw on as well. You definitely don't need to use something as heavy as this though. Regular cartridge paper would work just great too. I'll be cutting down larger sheets into small postcard-sized pieces of around four and a half by six inches. Having a small size to work on, I find really helpful for this project as it limits how much we can fit onto each piece. It makes each collage really a lot more accessible. Of course, feel free to work larger if that's something you'd like to do. But if you're a beginner then I would highly recommend that you work small like I will be. You'll also need something to cut out with. A pair of scissors is perfect or you could use a scalpel and cutting mat if that's your preferred way to cut out. You're going to need three circular objects of different sizes to draw around. These are going to form the foundations of our colored shapes. I've specifically chosen circles for us to work with for a number of reasons. Circles are a really powerful shape to work with in mindfulness and meditation. A circle has no beginning, no end, and no direction, and it tends to symbolize positive emotional sensations of harmony, unity, and protection, as well as wholeness, the self, the universe, and transformation. Because of the continuous rounded shape, circles work really well for meditative paper cutting, they encourage us to use smooth continuous movement with no sharp breaks. This can help us stay in the present moment. If you have a compass, you can definitely use this instead. I've also included some circle templates in the class resource, you're welcome to use. But I like the physicality and simplicity of drawing around circular objects that I find around me. These are the three objects that I'm going to be drawing around, they're roughly three and a half inches, two inches, and one inch in diameter. Yours could be different but it is helpful if the sizes of the three objects are quite distinct from each other. Think of it as a large, medium, and small. The larger circle needs to be able to fit comfortably on your background, just leaving a little bit of space around it. If you're someone who would like to introduce a little more complexity into the class project then you could certainly use more than three circle sizes. But I'm going to be using three. You're going to need a pencil and eraser to mark out your circles. It's helpful to have a few pieces of scrap paper handy when we're drawing patterns and also later on when we're sticking our collages down. Finally, you'll need some glue to stick your paper shapes to the background. You can use any appropriate glue for using with paper. I'll be using a simple glue stick. Let's grab all those supplies and head into the next lesson, where we'll be exploring color and how to choose colors to draw with and onto, which help to bring us the feelings that we want as we create with them. I'll see you there. 4. Choosing Colors To Cultivate The Feelings We Want: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we'll take a look at color and how colors can influence the way we feel, which can help us in making color choices to cultivate the feelings we want. It's important to bear in mind that cultural context and personal experience play a huge part in how colors make us feel. You might, for example, have a real dislike of a particular color because it reminds you of a past event even if that color is known for being a kind of happy, cheerful color. Although I'll outline some general color associations, it's important to really try to tune in to how different colors make you feel. Red is a powerful color because it affects us physically. Studies show that being exposed to or wearing red can cause elevated blood pressure, increased metabolism, heart rate, and respiration rate. All of these physiological changes naturally cause your energy levels to spike. Red is linked to warmth, passion, desire, and love, as well as power and anger, aggression, annoyance, danger, warning, excitement and energy. Some may find red fun and playful, while others feel it's too bold, exciting, or even dominating. Research shows blue to be the world's favorite color, possibly because we're surrounded by it when we see a blue sky. Blue is often associated with feelings of calmness and serenity and is often described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, traditional, conservative, orderly, stable, and reliable. Research has shown that people are more productive in blue rooms. Blue can also lower the pulse rate and body temperature, promoting physical sensations of calm. Light blue is the best shade for promoting sensations of calm. The darker and more saturated the blue, the more mentally stimulating we will find it helping our focus and concentration. Whilst a turquoise blue is more uplifting and rejuvenating. However, on the flip side, blue can also create feelings of calmness, sadness, or aloofness. Green is a restful color which has strong associations with nature. Thing grass, trees, plants. It's often described as a refreshing, balanced, harmonious, health giving and tranquil color, which is thought to relieve stress and help to heal. Green has long been a symbol of fertility, but could also be seen to represent jealousy, luck, and safety. Green has more hue variations than any other color. Aqua can feel uplifting and refreshing, whereas olive green can feel heavy and dull. Lime green with its high proportion of yellow, is full of life and energy and it feels invigorating, motivating, and refreshing. It's worth tuning into the specific feelings that you get from the shades of green that you have available to you. The color yellow can be bright and intense, which is perhaps why it can often invoke such strong feelings. Yellow can quickly grab attention, but it can also be abrasive when overused. Yellow can feel energetic as it increases your metabolism and has associations with warmth, confidence, freshness, excitement, optimism, energy, light, and cheerfulness. On the flip side, yellow is the hardest color to read and can elicit feelings of frustration, nervousness, and depression. People often describe this color as mysterious, spiritual, reflective, and imaginative. Purple is often associated with royalty, wealth, wisdom, romance, sadness, frustration, and in some parts of Europe, purple is associated with death and mourning. Purple tends to be quite a polarizing color. People tend to either really love it or hate it. Orange can be a very strong and energetic color. People often describe orange as bright, happy, energetic, warm, and uplifting. It can be associated with spirituality, love, and compassion. In some cases, however, it can seem too bright, unrefined, and overwhelming. Much like purple, orange tends to be a controversial color. People tend to either love it or hate it. Many people immediately connect pink with all things feminine, including associations with softness, kindness, nurture, and compassion. It's thought of as a calming, fresh, joyful, and happy color. Conversely, pink can come across as weak. Some shades of pale pink are described as relaxing while very bright, vibrant shades can be stimulating, creatively inspiring, or even aggravating. Like red, black has many different interpretations. For some black evokes glamour, attractiveness, sophistication, and elegance, but can also convey substance, authority, and gravitas. Throughout history, this somber color has been tied to death and all things scary, unapproachable and bad. It evokes strong feelings of anger, aggression, fear, oppression, heaviness, and sadness. Black is a great example of how color meaning can differ from one culture to another. In many Western traditions, black is associated with death and mourning whereas in China, the color of death is white. In Western cultures, the color white is often associated with religious ceremonies, such as weddings or christenings and it's often used to convey a sense of purity, simplicity, freshness, cleanliness, and peacefulness. The color white seemed like a blank slate, symbolizing a new beginning or a fresh start. In many Eastern cultures, however, white is symbolically linked to death and sadness. It's often a color used in funerals and other mourning rituals. White can also be described as cold, uncaring, bland, isolated, and sterile. Now you have some ideas around how different colors can make you feel. We can think about how our material choices in this class might work for us. If you have colored pens that you can work with for the drawings, I'd suggest choosing two different colors of collage paper. Once we begin to introduce drawings in colored pen onto your colored paper backgrounds, this is going to generate the visual effect of adding more colors to our palette. If you will be working with just black pens, I'd recommend introducing a third paper color. When you're choosing your two or three collage paper colors here are a few tips to help you. Start with a color you feel drawn to. It might be a favorite color or just one you feel really connected to today. Try and look at your color options as though seeing the colors for the first time. Is there one which makes you go, I love that one. Then listen to that instinct. One thing to bear in mind right from the off though, is that whatever color you feel drawn to, avoid a very dark hue of that color. This, it says that our pattern drawings will still look effective on those colored backgrounds. It can depend on the types of pen that you'll be using. If you're using paint markers like I will be, you may get away with a more vibrant or darker background. But if you're using regular markers or colored fine liners or some other kind of water-based colored pen it would be better to stick with a lighter hue. As you pick your second color, lay the first color next to any potential options to see how the two colors feel together. Do they feel right? This is where you can bring in some intuition and try to really feel the color combination. There isn't a wrong or right choice here. It's just what feels right to you. You might like to consider those color associations that we've just discussed to help inform your decision. Visually, it can be helpful if the two colors that you pick are fairly different from each other, which can provide you with more variety. Now it's your turn to make some decisions about your colors. I'd like you to pause the video here and choose your two or three collage paper colors and make them if you're coloring your own paper. To recap, you'll need one sheet of each color, which is around A4 size or 8 by 12 inches. Two colors if you're using colored pens, or three colors if you're using black pens. You might still have a ton of different options for your pen colors and that's what we'll come to next. Bring along your colored collage papers and your colored or black pens and join me in the next video, where we'll be preparing to draw our patterns. I'll see you there. 5. Preparing To Draw: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we're going to prepare to draw our patterns by doing three things. We'll prepare our circle templates on our colored collage paper, we'll select which colored pens we're going to use if you're using colored pens, and we'll make some physical and mental preparations to help us get the most from our mindful drawing. First, let's start by drawing our circle templates in pencil on our collage papers. I recommend starting with the biggest circle first. Mine is roughly nine centimeters in diameter or about three-and-a-half inches, but yours could be a little different. We'll trace around this circle three or four times on each piece of colored paper, depending on what you can fit in. I'd recommend going into each corner with the largest circle. It makes it more likely that you can fit in the other circles in the gaps. Repeat this with the medium-sized circle and then the small one. You have roughly 9-12 circles drawn out on each sheet of paper. If you can't quite fit 12 on, don't worry, this is actually more than we'll need just because it's always nice to have extra bits to use in collage, so just fit on whatever you can. Don't forget, if you need it, there's a template in the class resource. You're welcome to use if that's helpful. Next, we're going to choose the colored pens that we'll use to draw our patterns. Now that we have our circles drawn on the paper, we can use any spaces between the circles for some little tests and color swatches. We'll aim to find three different pen colors to use. This is going to give us lots of variety, but don't worry if you don't think you'll have that many, one or two can still work beautifully, and you could introduce black plus one color or black plus two colors, which will give you lots of options. Whatever pen options you brought with you, just create a little squiggle on each colored background. It's important to test it out on both colors to make sure that it will be effective on both. Try not to have preconceived ideas about which colors you think are going to be the ones that you'll pick. They will look completely different on colored backgrounds, and they'll behave differently on the paper depending on how transparent the ink is. It's really important to test out your pens on the actual collage papers that you'll be using. What are we looking for? First, does the pen draw well on your colored paper or does it bleed or snag? You really want to feel comfy as you draw. If the pen doesn't suit the paper or you don't like the tactile sensation, try finding something different. Does the pen work visually on your colored backgrounds? It's important there's enough contrast so that your drawings don't disappear. Contrast just means that the color that you're drawing with can be seen clearly against the colored background. It may create the visual effects of a different color than you were expecting. For example, a pink paint marker on a blue paper can look like a very vibrant purple. Do you like that effect? Think about those color associations we covered in the previous video. Do the colors you're now getting bring you the associations that you want? Which colors do you just feel intuitively drawn to? These are the colors that you should pick. This class is not about color theory and creating color palettes for design. It's about choosing colors that feel right to you, so try and tune into how these colors are making you feel. Once you've done lots of swatching and squiggles between your circles on your collage paper, try and narrow it down to choosing around about three different colored pens that you can use for your mindful pattern drawings. Now we're almost ready to start drawing. But before we do, it's worth making some preparations to help the drawing experience be as joyful and relaxing as possible. Mindfulness encourages us to become more connected to our senses. Take a moment to sit in your drawing space and notice what you can see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. Could any of these senses be improved by making a few simple adjustments? A relaxing atmosphere can mean different things to different people. It may be that clearing the table, changing the lighting, or preparing a nice drink to have alongside you would be nice to include. Maybe you'd like to introduce some background music, a blanket, or a candle might be things that you find nurturing. Finding things to exclude is as important. Perhaps switching off a TV, disabling notifications, or closing browser tabs might all be things that you need to do if you're surrounded by those things, which might be competing for your attention. I know that it can be really tempting to ignore this step of the preparation as you'll be so eager to dive into the drawing. But believe me, taking a few minutes to make yourself comfortable will really make this a much more nurturing, enjoyable experience for you. Now it's your turn. Pause the video if you need to and make sure that you've done those three things to prepare to draw. To recap, have you drawn out your circle templates on your collage paper? Have you chosen some pens to draw with? Have you prepared your drawing space to make your drawing experience as nurturing as possible? Great. Then we're ready for our first mindful pattern drawing technique. In the next video, I'll be starting my class project in the first demo video. Feel free to begin along with me or you can skip ahead to the following video if you're ready to start drawing patterns mindfully. 6. DEMO | Preparing To Draw: Hi, and welcome to the first demo video. In this demo videos, I'll be talking you through my own class project so that you can see how I approach it, the decisions I make, and why. They are here for you as optional extras, which go into a little more detail. Feel free to watch along. You're welcome to copy my exact projects if that feels helpful, or equally skip these videos altogether if you feel you don't need them. First, I'll begin by choosing my collage paper colors. You can see I've got quite a big selection of colored paper here in front of me. Choose a color, the first color choice. Just go with the color that you feel intuitively drawn to it. Is there a color in your selection that you think, "I just love that color". Or maybe, is your favorite color, or it's just really resonating with you today. It always seems to me, I always gravitate towards this kind of golden yellow color. It's my favorite color and it's one that I come back to a lot, and I think it's just because of those associations with yellow. I find it really uplifting, joyful, and happy color. That's going to be my first color choice. Now I'm going to choose a color to go with that. I quite like these, sort of, how the blues are working with that yellow here. All these blues look very vibrant against the yellow, which is really nice. I got a couple more here. Let's have a look. Because I'm going to be using paint markers, I can't get away with a slightly darker or more vibrant background color. But don't forget, if you're using a regular pen like a colored fine liner, or a marker, a highlighter pen, if that ink is quite translucent and watery, then those darker more vibrant color backgrounds, might really make the colors disappear. If that's the case and you're using those pens, then I would opt to go with something quite light in your chosen color spectrum like this. I think I do want to go for a blue today, because I quite like how it's really bouncing off the yellow, it feels very energetic, even though it's quite a calming color. I might just take the other colors away to help me narrow down my choice. I'm just going to lay them next to the yellow and see what I'm going to choose. This one, I don't think I'm going to use that, because firstly, it's quite a dark hue, so I feel as though using the paint markers, it would still work. But actually I feel like it's quite a dull, deep blue. I don't think I'm going to use that one. For the same reason, I'm going to not use this blue because I feel as though it's quite dull, it's got quite gray in the color. I'm left with these three options. Quite like the very pale blue, actually, it's a really nice contrast. This one, this very vibrant blue it appears very dark against the yellow. It's the yellow makes it look even darker. I feel like it's too dark, for how I feel I want these to work together. I quite actually I'm enjoying the really pale blue against the yellow. It just feels a little bit calmer, it feels like it's balancing the yellow really nicely. I really like this color, it's a very energetic combination, that yellow and blue together. Which is really nice, but I feel like I want this energy in the yellow and the calming of the blue together. I think I'm going to choose these colors. I've chosen to use these two colors for my collage paper. I started with the color yellow because it's my favorite color and it's my happy place color, and I just love it as it's light. It's also really easy to draw onto and get pretty good contrast. I chose this second color of blue because it's different to the yellow, and I'm quite drawn to the sensations associated with blue like communist, tranquility, and serenity. It's a nice balance to the yellow, which is very optimistic and energetic because I love these feelings. But the blue just really helps to balance those out with a calming energy. This particular shade of blue, I also love because it reminds me of blue sky and clarity and lightness. It's also quite light in value, which also helps it to work well-being drawn onto, as we should be able to get pretty good contrast with the pens. Now, I'm going to draw out my circles in pencil, I've got here a pot to draw around, I've also got a lid of something, I think it was a lid of an old paint pot. I'm going to use my glue as the smaller circle. You can see that the size of these circles is quite different, so you want to find objects that give you a fairly defined small, medium, and large size. They're not too similar. I'll start with my large circles first. Start by going right into the corner of your paper. Not going off the edge, but if you go right into the corners, it does make it more likely that you're going to fit the rest of your shapes when you come to draw them. There's a template in the class resource which is pretty much exactly the sizes of circles that I'm using here. If you don't have many objects around you that you can draw around, you could always trace that template. I've just drawn my three large circles on my background collage papers. I have got room to put a fourth circle on there, but I'm just going to leave that for the moment, just in case I run out of space a bit later. But it's good to leave a bit of paper, for we're going to use it in a moment for the color swatching and also if you want to cut out any extra circles later. I'm going to do my medium circles now, and Just leave a little bit of space between your circles. You don't need a lot just so that they're not touching. This is just helpful when we're drawing our patterns. We can draw them to go slightly outside the lines, which will allow these patterns to feel as though they're really going right up to the edge of our shapes. I've got my medium circles drawn on, so now I'll just add my small ones. I've just fit these into the gaps. You can definitely use a compass to draw your circles if you have one. I just really like the ease of just drawing around physical objects. It feels nicer, that sensation of drawing around an object is quite nice, with a fine compass this can just be a bit fiddly. I've drawn all my circles on my background's collage paper, now to start with. I've got space there to add some more letter. Next, I'll test out my potential pen colors in the gaps between the circles. I'm going to be using POSCA paint markers because I liked the vibrancy of color they create from the opacity of the ink, which also does allow me to draw with lighter colors on a darker or more vibrant background. You definitely don't need to have paint markers, though you can use any pen. You could be using black pens, or biros, or highlighters, literally anything. Just try out anything you have. That pink looks really nice against the blue and the yellow, actually. Let's try blue. I doubt it's going to show up well on the blue, but it's worth a go. Not too bad actually. This is what I mean when I said, it's worth keeping an open mind about the colors that you think you're going to use. Because sometimes I just thought that blue is going to completely disappear. But actually, it's got better contrast than I thought it would do. It is worth just trying them out, and the same with the yellow, which I imagine will not be great on the yellow. You really can't see it on the yellow, but it is worth a try. It's quite nice on the blue. They don't have to all be the same type of pens that you're using either. If you have a highlighter, maybe, and then you want to use something a bit finer, you can use a combination of all different things. May even be that if you're someone that uses paint a lot, you could use paint instead or some other material. It's nice to use color if you have the option just because I feel it gives us a bit more depth and all those things that we're channeling through how colors make us feel. You can see some of my paint markers are faster than others. I like the orange and the yellow. Some are thinner so it doesn't matter. You can mix and match. It's important when you're doing these color swatches that you are actually doing it on your paper that you're intending to use for your collages. Just because we're also looking for how these pens feel. It's a tactile quality because some pens to draw with feel like scratchy and horrible to use, and you don't want to be drawing with a pen that feels uncomfortable to draw with, because it will just be an unpleasant experience for you, and that's the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. Just to make a comparison. I've got just a marker here in a color that's similar to my paint markers in orange. It's still coming out really well, actually. It's a more translucent ink. But actually, on the yellow, it looks pretty similar to the paint marker, but you can see the difference on the blue, that it does just look a little bit duller because that blue is shining through. Gel pens are also really good to use on colored paper, because they have a really opaque ink as well, so they can be nice to use on a colored background. The other thing to look out for is if you've got a pattern that's running out, it's not going to be very pleasant to draw with. Even if you liked the color, like that blue one that I just tested, the dark blue, it seems to be running out. Just on that basis, I'm going to not use it because it will be frustrating to get halfway through, and then find that I can't finish. The red is really nice. That's looking nice and vibrant on there. The three colors that I've decided to pick, the pink, the orange, and the turquoise-greenish-blue color. The reason I've decided to pick them, I was immediately drawn to the pink. That's intuitive, got feeling that I'll be referring to a bit. If there's a color that you try out and you just go, "Oh, that looks at really nice," then likely that's a good one to go for. I liked it on both color backgrounds as well. The orange, I also really liked on both colors. I felt it was quite nice and vibrant even on the blue, because I thought it might be quite dull on the blue, and the third color, I quite liked this blues and greens, but I wanted to have something that was on the cooler end of the spectrum, and it resonated with those feelings of calm and tranquility, which I'm trying to bring in a bit with the blue paper as well, and the blue pen was a close second. I really liked how this looks on the yellow. On the blue, it does work quite well, but I feel it doesn't quite have enough contrast for those patterns to show up really well, so that's why I've picked the turquoise color. If you have a big selection of pens, then hopefully you can work out which ones you like on your color backgrounds. If you don't have many pens to pick from, it could well be that you just use a black pen or a pencil. Even colored pencils will work really well for this. Just experiment with what you have. Just try and find those colors that you feel quite drawn to, and you feel like they work really nicely with the colored paper that you're drawing onto. Now, I'm also thinking about preparing my drawing space. I am someone who gets a bit stressed out with too much mess around. I'm just going to tidy my desk up a bit. I'm not going to get distracted because I'm using my phone to film. Hello. I don't have to worry about turning things off, but if you're somewhere where you have your phone, your computer, your TV, those might be things that you want to limit, or turn off, or close tabs, or turn off notifications so that you don't get distracted. I've had a bit of a tidy-up. I might just go and grab a candle and a cup of tea, just to add a little extra something to my drawing space, and I'll see you in the next video. 7. Drawing Patterns Mindfully: Circular Method: [MUSIC] In this lesson, I'm going to show you the first of three different methods of mindfully drawing patterns, which we're going to apply to our circles. I have an entire class dedicated to mindfully drawing patterns in different ways, which has literally hundreds of examples in it. Do check that out if this is a subject you'd like to delve into further. For today's class, I'm going to show you three different pattern drawing methods which work well for this particular class project. Each method will be connected to a different mindful drawing technique for us to explore. Because we're going to be filling these circles with patterns and then cutting them up, we need to draw patterns which are flexible to work with our shapes. Whether we leave them as a whole circle or cut them up further, you can be free to either follow along with my examples or make up your own patterns. Whatever you feel most drawn to. There are lots of examples of each of the three methods in the class resource to help you if you'd like to use that for reference. The first pattern drawing type we'll explore is a simple circular pattern. That is, we will trace the outline of our circle shape a little further in from the edge and repeat this again and again until we have filled the shape. Don't worry about your circles being perfectly round. Just draw them, however feels natural. Wonky circles are most welcome. You can begin from the outside and work your way in, or vice versa. Using a circular pattern is helpful compositionally as it accentuates the repeating circle shapes. Concentric circles can also be symbolic of so many things. Thinking about them as layers of the self, of growth, or of layers of protection around us. It can also be a helpful drawing exercise to help us feel grounded and present in the moment. Like drawing a point on a map, grounding us in the here and now. Before you begin any mindful drawing, I'd really encourage you to pause and take a deep breath or two. If you feel comfy, close your eyes briefly as you breathe in and out. Introducing just a little space between what we've been doing and what we're about to do. This can signal to our brains and bodies that we've arrived at our drawing practice and can help to physically calm us before we start to draw. Give it a try. As you draw your concentric circles, bring your awareness to the point at which you begin and end each drawn circle. As you close the first circle, shift your attention to where you will begin the next circle and so on until you filled up your circle completely. Doing this helps us to stay in the present moment with our drawing, preventing our brain from wandering off as it loves to do. Don't worry if you do find your mind does wander off though, it's completely natural. Just notice that it's happening and then just gently nudge it back to your drawing and carry on. With a circular or concentric pattern drawing, there are a few different things that you can do to vary the pattern. You can try spacing your lines differently, varying your line thickness, or even introducing a second pattern into some of the concentric rings, like dots or parallel lines or zigzags for example. You could do some experiments on your scrap paper before drawing on the colored paper if you want to try some of these ideas out. Now it's your turn to try out some concentric patterns. To recap, take a few deep breaths before you start and close your eyes if you feel comfy. Try drawing on your scrap paper first to get a sense that the spacing you want, which will suit your pen, and whether you want to add any additional embellishments to your pattern like dots or shading or other shapes. Fill one small, one medium, and one large circle with a concentric pattern on each of your paper colors. You can change your pen color each time so you vary the palette and make the circular patterns different too if that feels right. As you're drawing your concentric patterns, bring your awareness to the point where you're closing the circle shapes to help keep you in the present moment. In the next video, you can watch me apply what we've discussed here to my own class project in the demo video. Feel free to draw along with me or skip ahead to the following lesson, where we'll take a look at our second method of mindfully drawing patterns. When you're ready, join me there. 8. DEMO | Drawing Patterns Mindfully: Circular Method: [MUSIC] I'm about to begin my mindful drawings using the circular method first. Before I start, I'm just going to relax. Just take a few deep breaths and close my eyes for a couple of seconds. This is such a simple thing, but I really find that it makes a huge difference to how I feel. It's divides up my day from all the business. So I feel like I'm dropping into a different gear to slow down and be more calm. Let's just take a few deep breaths. [MUSIC] Breathing in and out. I feel ready to start drawing. I've got my three pen colors that I selected in the last demo video ready. Before I start with my circular patterns, I'm going to just try a few things out on my scrap paper just to see what kind of things that I like and what kind of patterns I might draw. This is quite a fine pen, so I feel like there's quite a lot of scope to do, some detailed bits of pattern perhaps between my circles. So I might give that a go. Let's just move these to one side. I'll start with the yellow. I'm going to start with one of the large circles first. I think I'm going to start from the outside and work my way in. You can do either. There's no wrong or right way of doing it. I'm just, to begin with, just following that pencil line, and I'm trying to keep my focus and attention on the point where I began the circle. I find that doing this, it just helps to keep my brain in the drawing, and not go off somewhere else. I'm also changing the point at which I'm beginning and ending the circle each time. So it's not always at the top of the circle at my 12 o'clock. I'm just changing the start and end point with each circle that I'm drawing. I'm really loving this color combination, this very vibrant pink and the yellow. Just feels really energetic and joyful. It may be that as you are drawing with your pen, try and focus on the colors as well and just reflect on how those colors are making you feel. You can also alternate between going clockwise and going anticlockwise. That's another way to just keep your brain engaged. Try and stop it from wandering off, but don't worry if it does wander off, it's not a problem. It's very natural. Just try and bring it back to the drawing. I've just finished my first circle on my yellow paper, which is one of the large ones with pink pen with my circular pattern. I'm now going to do a large circle on my blue paper, and I'm going to switch pens. Just so that I've got a variety of different colors and patterns. Makes it a bit more interesting to mix and match them all later. I'll just put my yellow paper to one side. I've picked up a little bit of yellow ink from somewhere, which is not a big problem because I might just draw over it with one of my patterns, but it might be easier to fill that with one of the different patterns later rather than a circular one. So I'll go into this circle. I think I'm going to start with this turquoise color first. This one is quite a fat pen, so it will give quite a different effect. I'm starting again from the outside, but I feel like I want to do it a bit differently this time. I might just do quite big spacing. Then maybe think about filling in with some different shapes once I've drawn those. I think I will do some just parallel lines around the outside edge. I'll just start by doing something a bit like a clock face to help me get the angles right. Then I'll keep using those mindful drawing techniques even though I'm not drawing a circle now, I'm drawing lines. But I will keep focusing on where I'm beginning and ending each line. Just because it might help my brain to stay with the drawing and not wander off to my enormous to-do list that's floating around somewhere in my head. I'm actually now really appreciating, taking the time to set up my workspace because I can really smell those lovely smells coming from my tea and my candle. It only took a couple of minutes to get those things, but I'm really glad that I did that now because it's a really nice environment to draw in. This pen has got quite a different feel to the finer pink one, it's much more rough. It's a bit fluffy on the edges as well, so it's not so precise. But I quite like having a contrast between how the pencil look. It's nice to have that variety. Now I filled in my two large circles. Next, I'm going to go to my two medium circles. I'll go back to my blue again, and I think I'm going to do the pink actually on blue. I've really liked this pink color, it's so vibrant. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to change up my concentric pattern. I don't want to do it exactly the same as the last one I did with the pink pen. That's the great thing about this type of pattern drawing, though. It's low pressure. It's basically like doodling because you can make decisions about exactly how you're doing it as you go along without having to pre-plan too much. Play around with the spacing. Don't worry if your circles are very wonky like mine. My circles are definitely not very circular, but that's not really that important. I'm trying to focus more on the way that it feels and the way that the colors are making me feel, which is really enjoying this color combination. Let's do some circles I think around the outside. I seem to be drawing a lot of circles at the moment, but going to lean into that. I might put another line in here, I think. Just so it feels a bit more evenly spaced. Now I'm going to do a medium circle on my yellow. Again, I'm going to switch pens. I'm going to go to the orange because I haven't used this one yet. This one is another fairly chunky pen. So it might not be able to do the tiny detail things, but you really don't need to do anything complicated. If you just want to do some different circles inside circles, you could do that for all of your shapes and it would still make a really nice collage. Changing things up is really optional. I'm really loving this color palette. Now that I've drawn a few shapes, I can see that these colors are working together in a very, very vibrant way. They're quite energetic, even though there's those calming and cool associations with the blue and the turquoise. The way that they're working together feels quite positive and full of energy, which I really love. Now, I just need to fill in two more circles. I haven't yet done a turquoise color on the yellow, so I will fill in one with turquoise. You don't have to structure it in this way where you're doing one color of each on each paper, you can repeat the same color again. I quite like to try and spread out the way that I'm applying the colors to the different shapes, just so that it gives me more variety later. I'm now just going to do one more small circle on my blue paper. I'm going to use the orange pen, just because I haven't used that one yet on here. I might just fill in a bit on here because it's quite a fat pen, this orange one. I like the idea of blocking in some areas like this. I think drawing concentric circles like this is a really helpful way to often to start a session of mindful drawing because there's so much symbolism behind concentric circles and the way that it makes us feel. I feel as though it really helps me to feel centered and grounded in the here and now. That can really help my brain to engage in what I'm doing rather than be thinking about things elsewhere. It's almost like you're drawing a spot on a map and saying I am here, both in a physical sense, but also in a mental sense as well, that your mind is arriving here and now. There's also lots of symbolism with concentric circles, and you could think of them as layers of protection around you, or layers of warmth, or all sorts of things. These are really nice things that you could think about as you're drawing these circular patterns, which can be a really nice way of bringing some visualizations into your drawing. I've now completed my circular mindful drawings. I'm noticing that I do actually feel a lot calmer and more present now than I did before I started drawing. I'd love to hear your experiences too. So let me know how you find the process of these drawings in your class project or in the discussion area. In the next video, we'll be exploring our second method of drawing patterns mindfully. I'll see you there. 9. Drawing Patterns Mindfully: Linear Method: The next pattern type we will work with is a linear pattern. This just means a repeating shape which can be formed in rows or columns across our circle. For example, stripes, scallops, zigzags, wiggly or looping shapes or anything else you can think of. The reason it can be nice to incorporate a linear pattern into our project is so that when we come to composing our collages, if we have some shapes with linear patterns, it can help to introduce direction and movement into our overall layout. As you draw a linear pattern, a mindful drawing technique it can be nice to incorporate is counting. Literally counting the rows of scallops or zigzags or wiggly lines as you draw them. Counting our drawn shapes is another helpful technique in trying to encourage our brain to stay present with the drawing. You might have tried counting sheep when trying to fall asleep. It's a similar process in that giving our brain another really simple task to work on alongside the drawing keeps it too busy to be doing its own sweet thing. Don't worry if you lose count as you go through though, just start again at one and keep going from there. You can vary a linear pattern by thinking of all the different types of shapes you could use for your line, as well as introducing different spacing, pen thickness or even adding a secondary pattern between the lines. It doesn't need to be anything too complicated though. Simple stripes work well, so go with whatever linear patterns you feel most drawn to and which suit your drawing materials. Repeating the same pattern with different color combinations is a nice way to bring coherence to the collection of collages. Don't be afraid to repeat the same pattern a few times. Now it's your turn to draw. To recap, don't forget to take a few deep breaths and close your eyes before you start drawing just to help you feel calm and centered. Try drawing on your scrap paper first to get a sense of the spacing you want which will suit your pen, and whether you want to add any additional embellishments to your pattern. Fill one small, one medium, and one large circle with a linear pattern on each of your paper colors. You can change your pen color each time and draw different variations of linear patterns too. As you're drawing your linear patterns, try counting each row or column to stay in the present moment with your drawing. In the next lesson, you can watch me demonstrate some linear patterns by applying what we've discussed here to my own class projects. Feel free to draw along with me, or you're welcome to skip ahead to the following lesson, where we'll take a look at our third mindful pattern drawing method. 10. DEMO | Drawing Patterns Mindfully: Linear Method: [MUSIC] Hi there. I'm about to draw my linear drawings on my colored collage paper. I'm going to take a couple of nice big breaths before I start drawing. If you're watching the class all in one go it might feel like not so long ago but you already did this, but there's absolutely no harm in doing it again. Slowing our breathing down can actually physically calm us down, so there's nothing to be lost and everything to be gained from some extra long deep breaths. Ready, breathing in [MUSIC] and out. Breathing in and out. Before I draw my patterns, I'm just going to try a few little tests on some scrap paper to see what I like to look of most. A linear pattern could be as simple as just some stripes. I quite like to use a sort shape very often because I like the way that it connects and looks a bit like knitting. I might do something that ends up a bit more organic but is linear. That's quite a nice option. Obviously I've got two thicker pens and one thinner ones, so the thinner pen will behave a bit differently quite like zigzags which I think works better with a slightly finer nib quite like the simple stripes actually with the fossil pens. Let's see what we're going to do. When you're drawing your patterns, draw them over the pencil lines so you're going way beyond that pencil line. When we were drawing the circular patterns they didn't make as much sense to do that, but now we're drawing the linear patterns. If you just go beyond the pencil line it means that when we cut out your shapes, they're going to be really nicely covered in continuous pattern. I'm going to begin with my largest circles first. The way I'm going to approach this is I'm going for quite a diverse mix of patterns, and styles, and colors. I won't use the big fat turquoise pen initially, so I'll either use the orange or pink. I think I'll just start with an orange. I quite liked the simple stripes with the fatter marker pen, so I think I'm just going to do that to begin with. Remember our mindful exercise this time is to use counting which can really help to just keep our mind on the drawing giving our brain a extra tasks to do, so let's have a good one. I'm going to do my large circle on my yellow paper, and again because I used pink last time I won't use pink again this time. I think I might begin with the turquoise pen and I probably will just use simple stripes again because I quite like the simplicity of that and how it looks. These stripes I find quite nice when we're putting our collages together because they help to give the collage direction. Those straight lines help to lead our eye in a particular way, so the way that we point the stripes can be quite helpful. [NOISE] This color is so vibrant against the yellow as well. I really like this combination and you can see as well my straight lines they're really not very straight. That's something that I hope that you've picked up through all of these exercises that nothing needs to be perfect, it doesn't need to be straight. The circles don't need to be perfectly circular, it's just really about the process and finding a nice rhythm and joy in the actual drawing and just enjoying everything about it. So I think I mentioned earlier as well. The other thing that's quite nice about repeating the same pattern even if it's in a different color because you can see I've done two striped large circles one is orange; one is the turquoise, is that could also help to bring coherence to your whole collection of collages too so there's no harm in repeating the same pattern more than once. Next I'm going to fill in my medium circles. I'm going to take the same approach of just trying to alternate between the colors of pen that I'm choosing, so I won't for example choose the orange pen on the yellow for my linear pattern because I did that in a circular pattern. I'm just trying to keep changing it each time, but you're welcomed to do the opposite if you like and actually make all the medium circles the same color and all the large circles the same color. That can work really nicely too. I'm going to do the yellow one next, I'm going to choose my pink pen. I quite liked the zigzag pattern, so let's give that a go. I'm going to start in the middle rather than at the edge because I think it's easier if you're following a shape to start from the middle and work your way out. You can see I've done an uneven zigzag, so it's not a perfect linear zigzag. I've realized I've just lost count to my head with this pattern, so I think it's just because it takes a bit longer to do one line so my brain just lost count for a second. If that happens don't worry, just go back to one. Don't try and count them again. I'll do a medium on here, so quite like the scallops actually. I'm going to do an orange scallop. I've used pink already but I haven't used the orange and I'm making them tops so they become quite a continuous pattern, but you could leave them with space in between them. Really enjoying the tactile sensations of this particular pen, I'm not sure. It just feels really nice. I think it's maybe because it's a newer pen so it just feels very smooth to draw with, but it makes this nice sounds that are quite like. I'm really trying to tune into all these things as I draw. Now, I'm going to fill in my small circles in a similar approach that I've been using before, so I'll try not to use the same color twice. Simple stripes. I'm going to do a looping one here. I'm pretty happy with how those patterns have worked out and I actually got quite absorbed into the rhythmic quality of drawing by using the counting method, so I hope that you found that it helped you too. In the next video we'll be taking a look at our third and final pattern type, so when you're ready join me there. 11. Drawing Patterns Mindfully: Random Method: Our third and final patterns height is a random pattern. There are a huge amount of possibilities here for what you could draw and the shapes you could use. Random patterns are nice to use in our class project as they fill our circular shapes evenly, so act as a nice contrast to the circular and linear patterns. They also work well in any direction. This is really helpful when we're cutting out and changing the direction and position of our pieces. I really like to keep things simple with pattern drawings and take inspiration from my immediate surroundings. I think this helps us to cultivate a more mindful awareness of the here and now, noticing things we may not have seen before. As we approach this pattern, take a look at your immediate surroundings and look for a shape that you could repeat over and over. As you draw the shape over and over again in your circle, you could have the shapes with space between them. They could be touching or they could be overlapping. They could be just outlined or filled in. You could also vary the size of the shapes or keep them more similar. There are a lot of tiny adjustments you can make to a simple shape to get quite a few different patterns from just the one shape. As you complete your random fill patterns, try to focus on intentionally slowing down. Slowing down everything, your movements, the speed of your pen and if you can, you're breathing. Slowing everything down can help us to slow down and quiet our busy chattering mind. Actually if we can slow down our breathing, this will have the knock-on effect of slowing our heart rate, which will make us feel physically calmer. If you struggle to change your breathing, just try to take a slow deep breath every now and then as you draw. If you found the counting from the last exercise helpful, you could try counting with your breath alongside drawing shapes. For example, inhale as you draw three circles, exhale as you draw three circles. This can take a bit of experimenting to get right, so try use your scrap paper first. It doesn't work for everyone, but it's worth a try as it might help you to slow down and stay in the present moment. Now it's your turn to draw. With the random fill patterns you can now fill the remaining circles on your colored paper. Or you could revisit one of the other methods if you preferred working with one of those. To recap, don't forget to start your drawing session by taking a few long deep breaths and closing your eyes if you feel comfy doing that. Take inspiration from a simple shape in your immediate surroundings. Try repeating that shape in different ways as an outline, filled in, spaced apart, overlapping, and touching. Have a play on your scrap paper to see what you like. As you complete your random fill patterns, try to focus on intentionally slowing down. Don't forget, repeating the same pattern is a great way to make the collection of collages feel coherent. In the next video, I'll walk you through how I will be using the random pattern method to fill my remaining circles. You're most welcome to join me there and follow along or skip the demo to move on to the next lesson, in which we'll explore meditative paper cutting. 12. DEMO | Drawing Patterns Mindfully: Random Method: [MUSIC] In this video, I'm going to use the random method to fill my remaining circles with pattern drawings. I'm going to arrive at my drawing practice by preparing with a few deep breaths as I've done before. Breathing in, out. Breathing in and breathing out. I'm going to look for some simple shapes in my immediate environment, so basically just here on the desk around me. I really like to do this mindful awareness exercise because I think so often we can be looking so hard for inspiration without actually noticing what is quite literally under our noses. You'd be surprised how many things you can do with really very basic shapes. I always seem to be surrounded by circles. I can see loads of circles around me in the candle as I'm looking down on it, my pen lasers that are pointing up are circular at the end. Even the leaves with my plants are quite circular. So I'll take that as a starting shape and explore that a little bit on my scrap paper before I start drawing on my collage paper. I'm going to start with one of the fatter pens because I think the fatter pens can be more challenging in a way. That's quite nice for circles touching. Could also do solid circles. Maybe circles with holes in them. I'll try now with my finer pen because I think I'll get different results with the thin pen and the thick pen. I felt as though I've got a range of different patterns here to try out, so I'm going to start with my larger circles again. On my blue paper, my larger circle is going to be in pink because I've already used the orange and the turquoise. I've got this bit of yellow ink that I wanted to try and cover up. I think I'll do something perhaps that involves a bit of a solid area. I'm trying to go quite slowly. It's really tempting, especially when you're doing a pattern like this that is very repetitive to really rush to try and fill the shape. I'm just really trying to slow down and just not think too far ahead. I'm just really trying to enjoy each shape that I'm drawing. I'm not thinking about finishing it or anything like that. I'm just thinking about the shape that I'm currently drawing. When you're drawing a random pattern like this, it can help to rotate your paper every now and then. Because even circles will look different, drawn at different angles because we will never draw them perfectly circular however much you try. Just rotating your paper a bit now and then can just help to make it feel more random. I'm having to be quite intentional about going slowly because I can just feel myself occasionally just speeding up. It's just an automatic thing I think that we're probably used to doing things quickly once we have a task and completing it rather than actually being in the task. I am having to work quite hard to go slowly. Again, with these random patterns, you really want to draw them beyond your pencil line so that when we cut your circles out, the patterns are really continuous right up to the edge of your shape. You might find that you enjoy doing this process over a period of time. If slowing down means that you need to find a bit of extra time to do the project, then don't be afraid to just come back to it another day and pick up where you left off. The great thing about drawing patterns like these is you don't have to be in a particular way of drawing or a particular mindset to complete a drawing once you've started it, in the same way that if you're drawing something representation or like a figure or a character. Sometimes if you stop and come back to it, you're not in the same flows when you started it and it can be quite tricky to pick up. Whereas these types of pattern drawings are really super easy to just put down, pick up, come back to whenever you feel ready. I'm still really enjoying the sensory aspects of these drawings as well. It feels really nice. Using these colors are the main thing that I think absorbing the really vibrant pink and that really fresh blue. I'm also getting this really lovely smell from this candle that I lit at the start of the process. I find traditional breathing meditation quite difficult. I have practiced it many, many times and I do keep persevering and coming back to it. But I just find that my mind very easily wanders off if I don't have something else that I'm actually physically doing. This is why I think mindful drawing can be so helpful to try and cultivate mindfulness because it's just giving ourselves an extra simple task. So nothing too complicated where we need to be thinking too much about what we're drawing or what does it looks like, or are we worried about how it looks? Does it look like it's supposed to? Just something simple where it feels really joyful and you can connect to the physical process. I've done my large circle on the blue, so I'll do my largest circle now on yellow. I need to use my orange pen to keep everything consistent. I've done my two large circles with my random fill circle. Now I'm going to do my medium ones and then my small ones. [NOISE] You can see that I'm repeating the same pattern in this medium circle that I did on the other color. That's just because I think it suits this pen and this background color. Also don't forget, it can be really helpful to actually repeat some of the same patterns throughout these shapes so that when you put them all together later, there's a common theme running through your collection of collages. I just quite enjoyed drawing that pattern as well. It felt really nice. I like these tactile sensations, which is why I'd like to draw that one again. I'm really happy with the patterns that I've got. At this point, this is completely optional, but you might like to make use of that space that you've got left if you've got some space left as well like I have. I think I might actually quite like to put a few extra circles on just to give me a few more shapes to play with. Just because I'd like to have tryouts and other different pattern types as well. I'm just going to add some additional circles in these quarter sections and fill those with pattern 2. It may be that you want to revisit some that you've already done or a particular pattern type. If you really like the circles, for example, then go with them. Or if you really like the linear patterns, go with them. I quite like to do a couple of different random fill patterns. I find that is the pattern type that I enjoy drawing the most. I'm going to do a slightly different random pattern that doesn't involve circles. One that I really enjoy drawing is just a collection of random lines across the circle to divide it up. Just going in all sorts of directions, splitting it up into smaller shapes. Then I'm going to fill each of those sections with parallel lines which go parallel to one edge of the shape. When I come to filling in the next shape, I'll pick a different angle so that each shape is filled with different angled lines. This is a pattern I draw often. I find it very meditative I think because you have to keep thinking all the time about which way you're going to be drawing the lines. It's another nice way to keep your mind focused on the drawing and not wandering off. I also really think it just looks really effective. It's one that I enjoy drawing. As I'm drawing this pattern, I'm trying to think about the mindful drawing techniques that we've been using for the other patterns. I'm trying to focus my attention on the beginning and end of each line just so that it keeps me really present in the drawing. If you've found that it worked for you, you can try using your breath with drawing shapes. It might be that you breathe in for one shape and breathe out for one shape. If that works. It doesn't work for everybody, but it can be a really nice technique to try and slow your breathing down, and there's the counting as well. This particular pattern does work quite well with counting because there's a lot of repetitive straight lines. I think because I love drawing that pattern and I quite like to repeat patterns so that there's some continuity in the collection of collages, I'm going to do the same pattern again in one of my extra circles on my yellow paper. Just do it on the medium circle just so it's a bit different. I think next, this large circle, I think I'd like to get a bit more turquoise into the yellow. I'm going to repeat one of the patterns that I've already done, but just do it a bit larger, which is this zigzag one. I just quite enjoy drawing that pattern and I think it'll work quite well large. All of these additional ones, if you're doing additional ones or if you don't want to be particularly following, doing three of each type and doing it a bit differently, you can totally make up your own patterns, too. That's really fun. With this pattern, I'm trying out this breathing with drawing the patterns and breathing in and drawing five circles and breathing out and drawing five circles. I quite like how that is regulating my breathing and because I'm having to count as well, it's keeping me very present in the drawing, which I really like. I filled my paper now with those extra circles. I'm happy I've got lots to play with when we come to cutting out and collaging. In the next video, we'll start cutting out the circle shapes, practicing some meditative paper cutting. When you're ready, join me there. 13. Meditative Paper Cutting: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we're going to practice some meditative paper cutting. As we cut out our pattern circles, ready for composing into collages. Cutting out paper shapes can be incredibly meditative because the process demands our full attention. The combination of both our hands and eyes in continuous movement, which encourage us to get very absorbed in the physicality of the process. There are also a lot of tactile sensory aspects of the process that we can tune in to, to help us cultivate a mindful approach to this simple task. To start, I would suggest roughly cutting each circle out before you start cutting more accurately, just so that you can handle one circle at a time. Next, safely take your scissors in one hand and one of your papers circles in the other. Just take a couple of deep breaths as we've practiced before closing your eyes if you feel comfy. Notice the sensation of the scissors in your hand, the weight, the texture, and temperature. Notice how the paper feels in comparison. It's probably lighter, more textured, and flexible. Notice the difference between these two objects. Now we'll begin cutting out your circle shapes. We'll aim to cut just inside the pencil lines so that we're cutting off the pencil line rather than needing to erase it. Keep focusing your attention at the point just inside the pencil line as you slowly rotate the paper and cut out the circle. As you're cutting out the paper circle, just try to tune into all your senses. What can you see? How does it feel? What does it sound like? Can you smell the paper or the ink that you've used? If we're able to slow down and tune into our senses, this is essentially what mindfulness and meditation is. It's noticing things, which is really simple, but it can be surprisingly difficult to convince our brains to do it. As you come to the end of the circle, just have a look at the leftover scrap piece of paper. Notice its shape. Does it remind you of anything? Does it have any bits of drawing on it from the pattern or from our earlier color swatching? Sometimes I like to keep the offcuts from collage as the unexpected shapes can make some great jumping-off points for other collages or you could add drawings on top of these shapes to transform them into something else. Repeat this paper cutting process with the rest of your paper circles. You can really take your time with this and enjoy it. Don't feel you need to get all the circles cut out in one sitting. Go at your own pace, take breaks, come back to it, and enjoy the process. As you cut each circle out, we can begin to organize them roughly into little piles not to start forming compositions, but just to distribute them evenly. I like to alternate between the collage paper colors, for example, I'll put a large yellow circle with a medium blue circle and then a small yellow one and I'll try to have different pen colors and patterns on those circles so that if they all end up in the same composition, there's plenty of variety and balance. Don't worry at the moment about the arrangement or exact combinations. We will discuss this in more detail in the next video when we start composing our collages. This is just to give us some starting point. Now it's your turn to get cutting out your paper circles and give those little exercises a try to prompt you to stay in the present moment. To recap, roughly cut out your circles first so you can handle one at a time. Take some deep breaths, and try to tune into all your senses as you handle the paper and scissors. Cut out your circles slowly, bringing your attention to the point just inside the pencil line. Take some time to look at the bits of paper that you're discarding and notice anything interesting about them. Don't forget to take your time and enjoy the process. In the next video, I'll be demonstrating how I approach the paper cutting part of the process, so feel free to join me there or skip ahead to the following lesson where we'll compose our collages. 14. DEMO | Meditative Paper Cutting: [MUSIC] Hello. I've got all my patterns now drawn onto my collage paper. In this video, I'll show you how I go about paper cutting. I'm going to use scissors. I prefer to use scissors for cutting out circles, just because I think a scalpel and cutting mat can feel a bit harsh and linear, whereas scissors allow us to keep that continuous circular motion, which I like. First I'm going to just roughly cut out the individual circles. This is just so that I can handle each circle individually. Before I begin cutting out my circles, I'm just going to take a moment and take a few deep breaths as I've done before. This time I'm going to have my scissors in one hand, and one of my paper circles in the other. Make sure you're holding your scissors safely to do this and you're not going to cut your hand. I'm just going to close my eyes and tune into all my senses. As I'm doing this, I'm just trying to tune into all the different sensations that I'm feeling in both these objects. I'm trying to tune into the texture, the temperature, and flexibility or rigidness of the materials. This is such a simple but really effective mindfulness tool. Doing things like this can just encourage us to slow down, and just notice things that we would usually overlook. Now I'll begin cutting and I'm going to focus my attention as I'm cutting out on just inside the pencil line. I'm intending to cut off the pencil line just about. Then we don't need to worry about rubbing it out. But it's also quite a helpful thing to give us that focal point to keep our mind present. Don't worry if your cut line is a bit wobbly, it just really doesn't matter. As I'm cutting, I'm trying to absorb as much sensory information about this as possible. I'm noticing the sensation as I rotate the circle of how that feels quite smooth against my hands. I'm also noticing the pressure of the scissors on my fingers. Now I've cut my first circle out. I'm just going to put it to one side and take a look at the bit of paper that we would usually just throw away and not think twice about. I noticed this bit of paper has some marks on it from the pattern, and I'm just touching it, noticing how it feels, how flexible it is. I'm just flexing it into different shapes. If you like, you could even cut it up further to divide it into different shapes as well. It can be quite nice just as an experiment in looking at shapes. Sometimes it can help to look at the other side that doesn't have drawings on it to focus on just the shapes and not the marks on the edge. Sometimes I like to use these little off-cuts of paper collages just as starting points for little drawings. It's a great little exercise just to warm up if you feel like you just need something to get your brain going. Just to grab a random paper shape and then make it into an object so you could draw things over it. For example, I can see this one here reminds me it could work as a really stylized shoe. That could become quite a nice little drawing. I will keep these pieces just in a box and I might come back to them later. Paying attention to this little scrap of paper in a way epitomizes how I think about mindfulness. It's really just noticing and bringing our awareness to things we might not otherwise. It can really just bring us out of our heads and into the present moment to do simple things like this. Which you can practice anytime or anywhere with whatever is around you. I'm going to cut out the rest of my circles now. I'm going to speed up the video here so it's easier for you to watch. But as you're doing this, I'd urge you to take your time, try to practice being in the moment with your senses, and enjoy the process. It doesn't matter how long it takes. You could do this over a few days if you want to. I have now finished cutting out my circles, and now I'm just going to start grouping them into just groups of three circles. One large, one medium, and one small. Not that they're necessarily going to stay in those groups, but I find that it can be helpful just to have everything distributed before we start composing our collages because it can just give us a bit of a headstart. I've got my background cards that I've cut out. These are small postcard size bits of hot press watercolor paper. With the amount of circles that I've got, I'm going to have roughly about eight groups-ish you might have fewer. If you have a odd number, you can just distribute them evenly in a way that feels right. The reason why I like to do this, is just so that it gives me a starting point and I know that I'm distributing the colors evenly. For example, I'll get all the large circles of my yellow backgrounds and put those each on a different background. Then on top of those, I'll put a medium circle, which is on a blue background. I'll try to make sure that the pen color is different too. For example, this one is orange, so I won't put it on the orange background. I'll put it on one of the others. It doesn't mean that they necessarily going to stay in these positions, is just a starting point. Then those small ones, I put a small blue one onto a medium yellow. I'm alternating the paper color each time, and also just trying to distribute evenly the pen colors as well so that everything feels quite balanced. Once I've got them all distributed, I might swap them around if they don't feel quite like they're working. I've now finished cutting out my circles and I've just grouped them into sets of three shapes on eight backgrounds. I might end up with fewer than eight collages because I might want to incorporate more shapes into one. But this is a nice place for us to start composing our collages, which is what we're going to start doing in the next video. Where we'll be discussing composition. When you're ready, I'll see you there. 15. Intuitive Composition: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we're going to talk about composition. If you're not familiar with the term composition, it just means how things are arranged on the page. Composition is a huge topic and you'll find many excellent classes on just this subject. I don't want us to get bogged down in composition theory or too much information. In the interest of keeping things playful and light, I've devised three main compositional styles that we can work with as kind of overarching themes or templates for our collages, and each one communicates a particular set of feelings. You can pick a compositional style which resonates for you or experiment with all three, or of course feel completely free to do your own thing with compositions. Here's a rundown of the three compositional styles. The first compositional style is really simple and we'll refer to this simply as centered. Visually, this compositional style will use symmetrical and balanced visual elements, like these examples you're seeing on screen now. The use of symmetry and balance in these compositions promotes feelings of strength, balance, harmony, and stability. If these feelings which you feel you'd like to promote in your collage-making today, this might be the compositional style to go with. The second compositional style is one we'll call optimistic. In an optimistic composition, you will see some kind of upward movement in how the pieces are arranged or how our eyes encouraged to move over the collage visually. The upward movement and optimistic feeling can encourage sensations of energy, playfulness, positivity, and happiness. If you take the example of these two collages, which are very simple in how they're arranged as the circles are inside each other, see how the very simple adjustment in how the circles are placed gives us a different feeling. This one would fall under the centered style, where this one would be more optimistic in style. This is not an exact science, of course, and you'll find some overlap. For example, these collages are using elements of both a centered and optimistic approach as they have some symmetry and also some upward movement in how the pieces are arranged. The third compositional style we could consider using is one we'll term eclectic. This is one which may feel as though it resonates more for you if you want to communicate a multitude of different types of feeling at the same time. Visually, this will look more complex, varied, or even random. This compositional style could be said to resonate with feelings of contrast, duality, diversity, or layered feelings. It can be a little more challenging to put together this type of compositional style in a way which feels right. But one top tip I'd suggest is to try and have one kind of main line of direction on your page which the collage pieces follow. This will give some coherence to the whole thing, even if it's still quite complex and random. Now we've had a look at these compositional styles. We can start to think about arranging our pieces on the backgrounds. As I mentioned earlier, I really like to use these very small backgrounds around postcard size to arrange my collages on because I like the restriction that gives me. It limits the compositional variables, which is quite helpful when we're just making art for fun and for relaxation, as a larger, more complex composition can feel quite overwhelming. The other thing I really like to do at this stage is to work on multiple competitions at the same time. Don't feel you need to do this, but I'll tell you why I like to. Having several compositions laid out at once I think make it much easier to make some decisions about how to distribute the collaged pieces. If you've used one pen color which is quite dominant, you can see that if you distribute any patterns with that pen over several pieces, it doesn't feel so dominating any longer. The other reason I like to work on several at a time is that if I get a bit stuck with one piece, I'll just work on a different one then often the solution to where I'm getting stuck with the original one will work itself out and I can come back to it later. One other tip to bear in mind as you compose your collages is that even with a centered composition, it's helpful to compose the central parts of the image just slightly above center. Because visually, things always look better if they're a little higher on the page rather than too low. This also leaves a little space for things to look even if you want to sign your work at the bottom, too. There'll be more on that later. We also have the option here to start to cut our circles in half to make semi-circles or even quarters. Once we've done that, that gives us the option to either have them in the same composition or we could move them to different compositions if that feels more appropriate. As you begin moving your shapes around, it's helpful to have your phone or a camera handy. If you arrange them in a way that you like, just snap a quick photo that you can refer back to, if you want to keep moving them around and playing with them. I've intentionally not said that your project will end up being a specific number of collages because at this point, I think you really want to have some flexibility to use however many of the collaged pieces you want and even to discard some if you don't want to use them. Another thing you could do at this point is to create some extra circle pieces on any leftover paper if that's what you feel you want to do to add into a composition. For me, this is the part of the collaging process which I find most exciting, playful, and fun. Trying out different ways of arranging the shapes for me elicits almost a bit of a physical sensation, a feeling that it's just right when I hit on something which feels like it's working. This is what I mean when I refer to intuitive composition. It's trying to listen to your gut in arranging things in a way which feels right. In saying this, though, I want to be completely honest here and say that sometimes it doesn't always just come together. Often I find myself getting frustrated that I've got a few shapes which I just can't seem to make work together in a way which feels right. If you find yourself struggling with this part of the process, here are some tips to help you. Of our three compositional styles, I would opt to follow either the centered or optimistic style if you're getting a bit stuck. These are much simpler and easier to make work. You can also feel free to use any of the templates and examples that I've included in the class resource to guide you in making your compositions. Have a look at the color shapes you're using, possibly adding some, taking some away, or switching some might give you a completely fresh approach. If I'm struggling with the composition, what I find is usually the most effective way to resolve it is to take a break. Go and have a cup of tea, go for a walk, come back to it tomorrow or a few days from now, and you'll be amazed at how much of a difference that can make. Don't put pressure on yourself to use every single piece of collaged pattern you've created or create a big extensive series of collages. Just creating one collage which you love might feel like enough and anymore is a bonus. Now it's your turn to have a play with your shapes and create some compositions which feel right for you. To recap, consider using a centered, optimistic, or eclectic compositional style to resonate with how you feel today or feel free to make up your own compositional style. Try playing with the combinations and position of the different shapes until you hit on something which feels right. Don't forget to try cutting up your circles into smaller shapes, adding new ones, or switching some to make it work. Remember, there are examples in the class resource to help guide you if you get stuck. Don't worry about using all of your collage shapes or making a big extensive series. Just create as many as feel fun and joyful for you to create today. In the next video, I'll be demonstrating how I approach the composition part of the college process in my own project. Feel free to join me there if you'd like to see how I go about that, or skip ahead to the following lesson where we'll finish our collages and discuss a couple of optional additional things you could add if you'd like to. 16. DEMO | Intuitive Composition: Hi again. I'm about to compose my collages now, as I've got all my circles cut out and they're just organized into very rough groups. I'm just going to start by having a look at how I've organized them because they were just cut fairly, not random, but I just didn't really pay much attention to which particular colors were going with which. Straight away, I can notice that these two sets of shapes that I've got here together are just jarring a bit. I think it's because I've accidentally put a small yellow and a medium yellow, and a small blue and a medium blue. I just see what happens if I switch them over. I think they don't really work like that because it's a pink and a pink and an orange on top of an orange. I might just try and switch a few things around and just see. It may be that you have a similar thing where there's just some combinations that don't quite feel like they're working. It doesn't really matter too much at this stage if there's a couple that you feel are a little bit off. At the minute, I'm not quite that happy with these two on the sides, but I might actually use the bits of those in other compositions. I'm just going to start by picking a set of shapes where I quite like the combinations of colors and patterns as they've landed. This one, I'm going to start with this one. Because it's starting with this concentric shape, it feels a bit wrong to do something that overlaps with those concentric circles. It feels like it needs to be quite centered. But I think it could be quite nice if I cut it in half. I always think circular patterns always look quite nice, cut in half because it accentuates that curve. I might just do something quite simple to start with, like turn those the other way up. Just something very simple like this. This is quite a centered composition to start with. I'm just going to leave that one there and move on to another one. This is why I quite like to work on multiple compositions at the same time because you can do a bit with one and then move on to another one and then come back to it. It gives you that flexibility and you can often end up solving lots of problems as you do that as well. I think next I'm quite drawn to start working with these shapes here. I quite like the combination of these ones. Again, I might actually just cut them in half because I quite like how that works. I might start splitting some of the shapes across different compositions as well. I might just pop this one because it doesn't have any orange in it over here with this group, which I already feel like that's making that set of patterns feel much better already. This combination of colors I really like, but I just feel like I want to cut them up and maybe share them about. Let's do something like this. Now I've got some shapes cut up. I'll show you what I mean by an eclectic composition. It may be something where it feels a bit more random. It's very intuitive putting something like this together. You're trying to tune in to what feels right. Does it feel balanced? What combinations of things do you like together? I really like these shapes and patterns together. But I think if I've put all of these on, it might just feel a bit repetitive. What I think I'm going to do is cut some other shapes as well. If you're doing an eclectic composition, it's helpful to have what I might call a line of composition on the page. Rather than just spacing things out, it's helpful to have things touching and overlapping. Also for there to be a main line that things are following. In this, there's a diagonal line of movement that the shapes are following, which I think works better. I quite like to steal that yellow concentric because I feel like it would balance really well with this one because it's a repetition of the same pattern. This is one of those cases where when I said it can be great to have some shapes repeating and some patterns repeating. This is an example of where that comes in useful because actually having that pattern twice works quite well in this composition. We're sort of gradually getting there, you can see my process here when I'm just playing around with cutting things up and seeing how they all work together. Doing these semi-circles balanced on each other is quite a nice approach to this idea of a balanced composition because it has that physical feeling of balancing as well. You almost feel like these round objects are balancing on top of each other. I want something pink I think up here. Quite like that one. I feel like there was some pink missing there from that one. I don't think I'm actually going to end up with eight collages necessarily. I'm going to steal that one from there because I really feel like I want an orange background. It might not stay there, but I'm going to just place it there for now. At the moment, I'm trying to resolve this composition here. I feel like I need specific types of colors and patterns for it. This is why I'm taking them from other areas. I feel like I can't really do that one because I feel like it needs to have that blue and turquoise on the bottom. There's just something about that dark turquoise. It feels like it's really grounding that competition, so I feel like that needs to stay there. I'm going to look at what alternatives I might have. At this point, it can be quite helpful to have the offcuts of any paper that you've cut out in case you want to actually create any more shapes, cut out some more circles. Or you could always do something like if you wanted a medium circle, but you have a large one in a particular color, you could always take your medium objects and actually just cut a smaller circle out, which I think I'm going to actually do for this one. Just a really small thing in terms of arrangement. You'll notice in this composition I've got this big semicircle that's yellow with orange. It's right next to this small one that's yellow and orange and I feel like it's too much than being right next to each other. I'm just going to switch around the order of them, feels a bit better it feels like things are separated now. I think that one I'm quite happy with this one I need to just finish up on the other semicircle quite like that. This one I like how it's starting and ending with the same color combination it feels almost like the beginning and end of a sentence so I feel quite happy with that. I'm just left with these bits and what I've got left here, I feel as though I want to add a bit more on this complex one. I might include perhaps some of these small semi-circles and you definitely don't need to use all your pieces of collage. It probably feels like you have to because you've spent time drawing them, but you absolutely don't have to use them all. There's a lot of my decision-making and thought process at the moment is about balance so it's about if I've used a yellow shape at the bottom, then there's a blue one and then there's probably a yellow one not always, but I'm trying to create visual balance in the way that I'm arranging things. Whether that's through the colored papers that I'm putting together and the order that they're in, or whether it's the types of patterns that are drawn on them. This one, I'm trying to make it quite centered as a composition. You may get to a point where you just feel like maybe I've started out with five or six collages, and then you might get to a point where I think actually there's only three of these that I like at the moment and that's absolutely fine. You don't have to make all of them quite like how that one's working. It's just really simple in that the colors are the same, but the patterns are different and I just liked that subtlety in that one so I think that one's probably done. Those three fill quite resolved and finished to me, I'm still not quite sure whether this one is quite there I feel like it needs to come off actually. Often if I'm struggling with composition, it's just not, I just don't feel like it's working. I just take everything completely off and start again because you can end up and I think getting a bit stuck into a way where you feel like you can't move things. Sometimes find that's just quite helpful just completely starting again, I think I'm actually ending up making it go quite similar to how it was, but I think it's helpful just to re-begin anyway. I'm just going to leave this one for a minute and come back to it. I've decided I quite like to make this one quite simple and circular, but actually switch in one of these for half the large circles so I'm just going to cut this one in half. Just because the way that this one was composed, it feels quite similar to that one so I don't feel really too bad about just taking this one out and doing something a bit different with it. Don't forget if you are doing something quite centered like this circular collage will be quite centered. It's always a good idea just to make the competition just slightly above center. That's just so that you can leave a little bit of space at the bottom in case you want to sign your work, there'll be more on that later. But also just visually pieces always look better if they're slightly higher I'll show you what it would look like slightly low on the page. It's slightly low on the page, just feels like it's falling off. It's quite hard to explain really, it just feels wrong, whereas if it's slightly high on the page, it doesn't feel wrong. It feels like it's in the right place, so that will be just above center. That's given me a few more bits to play with, which might help me resolve these two that are unresolved. Let's see I'm going to say that one is done. I may end up with one out of these or I may end up with two. Let's see, it's starting to feel much better now this one I feel like that's almost resolved so let's see if I can do something with this one. I'm quite happy with my compositions now I've ended up with six. I've got a few bits leftover that don't seem to go anywhere, but that's absolutely fine. If you've ended up with that too it's worth keeping them because you might decide that you want them later, or you might decide that you want to use them with some different collages. You can see, I had fairly easy time with some of the compositions, but some of them were a bit tougher to resolve. They're mostly in that centered style some of them crossover into the optimistic style. I think there's a bit of upward movement, you could say, with this one because the shapes getting smaller draws our eye upwards. I think this one also draws our eye upwards because these shapes are pointing up towards the top whereas these 1, 2, 3 just feel more centered and balanced. Then I've got one that is more of an eclectic composition style as well so I've got a mix of all three, but I seem to be more drawn today towards that more centered composition style. I'm drawn to be more grounded and balanced and that's what's resonating with me today. I hope that seeing me work through some of those things was helpful in maybe helping you work through your compositions. In the next video, we'll finish our collages by sticking them down and I'll also show you a couple of optional finishing techniques that you could add if you want to. When you're ready, join me there. 17. Finishing Touches: [MUSIC] We've almost finished our collages. First, we'll need to glue down our collage pieces. If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend you take a quick photo of your collage before you start gluing it down, as it's surprisingly easy to forget exactly where the different parts were. The way I usually go about this is to go for the smaller pieces first if they're laying on top of bigger pieces, particularly if they're overlapping with two or more larger pieces, because then they act like little staples holding the whole composition together until you're ready to stick down the whole thing. For this type of paper, I tend to use a very simple paper glue that you'd find in any office supply store. I like this because it's precise and clean, which is important as it can be so easy to get into a bit of a mess at this point if you're using quite a liquidy glue. When applying glue to your collage pieces, always do that well away from your background paper on a scrap piece of paper and move your gluing area on the scrap paper each time to prevent getting any on the right side of your collage pieces. As you're applying your glue and then sticking down your pieces, there's also a lot of sensory opportunities here that we can tune into, particularly around handling the paper and feeling its texture. Try to keep your mindful awareness open as you go through this part of the process. Once we've glued down our collage pieces, you could certainly say that this is now complete. It looks great, but there are also a couple of additional things that you might enjoy adding as an optional bonus. The first thing is whether you want to add any more pattern drawing now onto the piece, which might go on to the background paper too. This can add a little extra dimension and it can help make the visual connection between the background paper and the collage pieces more fluid. I don't think it always suits every type of collage, but sometimes it does. For example, in this eclectic layered collage style, it would be nice to add a couple of additional circles perhaps to add a bit more dimension. To do this, you could use a circular stencil to draw inside. You might already have an appropriate off cut from the paper cutting part, or you could lightly draw a pencil outline and erase it later, or work free hand, whatever feels right. It can also be really nice to extend a centered concentric compositional style with an additional layer of pattern around the edge to help to anchor it to that background. On the whole, I recommend sticking with the same drawing materials that you've already used to keep everything fairly consistent. Although it may be that you'd like to add in some little highlights or details with something like a gold pen, if you have one, this can be a really nice little addition which you can use sparingly throughout different parts of your collages just to add a bit of extra sparkle. One other thing that we could consider adding to our collages, which I think can be a really nice touch, is to sign it, edition it, and give it a very simple title. Let me explain why I think this is a really nice thing to do. Signing your artwork can introduce a feeling of completion and accomplishment. In the same way we prepared our drawing space and did some breathing exercises to mark the beginning of the process, this is a nice way to mark the end. Adding a title can be a nice way for us to reflect on the thoughts and feelings we've been exploring as we've made this work. We've talked a lot through the process of making these works about what the circle shapes can symbolize, what different colors can encourage us to feel, and how different compositional styles can elicit particular types of feelings. There is most likely a particular word or phrase which might sum up the intention which has gone into creating it. Adding a title can be a lovely way to reflect back on those feelings. It doesn't need to be anything complicated or clever, even just reflecting on some of the words we've used through the class might bring to mind something which feels appropriate. For example, centered, optimistic, happy, eclectic, layered. I've added a list in the class resource if you might find that helpful to help you choose a title. An edition is just something that artists use to show how many of a particular artwork they've created. Printmakers, for example, might create 10, 50 or 100 of the same print at the same time. They would number them accordingly, so you'd have 1 of 50, 2 of 50, 3 of 50, up to 50 of 50, for example. With an original artwork like this where we can't make an exact replica, would edition it 1 of 1 because it's an original. There are lots of different ways that you can sign, title, and mark artworks, but I doubt to keep it pretty simple. Here's what I would recommend. Use a pencil to add your title and or your signature. That way it doesn't detract from the artwork itself, and you can always use an eraser to change it if needs be. Keep your texts small and light, don't press too hard with your pencil or write a huge signature. You would usually sign your work underneath, but not too close to the edge. So leave a little bit of space. If you're just signing your work, you could position that centrally or to either the left or right. Sometimes the composition might determine where you need to sign it. If you're adding a title and a signature and possibly an edition, I'd probably opt to center the title and put the signature to the right and the edition to the left. Another option would be to just sign the front or sign and edition in the front and put the title on the back of your work. This is a nice option if you like the idea of adding a title, but would prefer it to be kept more private. If you're struggling for space, but want to add a title, signature, or edition to the front of your collage, another option could be to switch your background paper for a slightly larger size. If you do that, don't forget to position the collage slightly above center to allow the space for those bits at the bottom. Like I said, this is completely optional, but I just think it's a lovely way to round off our art making together. Now it's your turn to finish up your collages. To recap, glue down your color shapes with an appropriate paper glue, starting with small shapes on top of larger ones first, and don't forget to use scrap paper to keep everything nice and clean. Consider optionally adding some additional pattern drawing onto your collages and the background to add additional depth and interest. Consider adding a title, edition, and or signature to your artworks. In the next video, I'll walk you through how I finish my own collages. So if you're interested to see that in more detail, stay tuned, or you're most welcome to skip ahead to the following video if you prefer. 18. DEMO | Finishing Touches Part 1: [MUSIC] Hi again. In this video, I'm going to show you how I'm going to approach finishing my series of collages. When I finished composing them in the last video, I went away and when I came back and have a look at them again, there were two things that I immediately saw all that needs to happen there. This is a really good example of when I said if you're struggling with a composition, taking a break, going away and coming back again can be a really helpful thing because sometimes those things just pop out at you when you've had a bit of a break from looking at them. When I came back to them, I just felt as though these colors here needs some pink pattern on blue paper. It's got pink on yellow, but the pink on blue creates this very vibrant almost purply effect from afar. I just felt like that was lacking in this one and I just felt like it needed a central point in the middle. I just created a couple of pink patterns on the blue paper just to what I feel finishes off this collage, and there was another one that I thought needed something, which was this one here, which is the eclectic composition. When I came back to it this morning, I looked at it and thought, I just felt like it needed some more sort and turquoise near the top. Something about the way that it's currently composed with this large shape at the bottom in blue and turquoise and one in the middle, it feels quite bottom heavy, so it doesn't quite feel like it's balanced. I just made another small blue and turquoise circle, which I'm just going to put near the top. For me, that just makes it feel like it's a bit more balanced. The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to glue down our collage pieces. We'll just do one at a time, and I'm going to move the ones that I'm not working on well out of the way because I don't want to accidentally get glue on them. I'm just going to put them to one side and I'm going to bring in my scrap paper. Having lots of scrap paper when you're doing your gluing is really important. It's just really going to help you to keep everything nice and clean and stop you from getting glue on the front side of your pattern drawings which you don't want. The way that I like to approach this is where I have a composition like this, where there are smaller pieces layered on top of larger ones, and I'll generally go for those smaller pieces first and stick them onto the ones underneath and then I'll stick the larger shapes down last. If you do have a phone or a camera handy, I really recommend just take a quick snap on your phone or your camera before you start gluing anything down, just so that you can be reminded of exactly where are things positioned exist very easy actually to get a bit lost with where things were. I'm just using a really standard glue stick for paper, which I find really works absolutely fine for this type of collage and I'm just trying to cover the whole thing in glue, and then I will very carefully just line up the straight edges of this one. I'll line up the straight edge of the small semicircle with a straight edge of the medium one one then I'll do the same again. Now, the other thing that's really important is I don't want to put this shape down then on top of where I've just glued that one because there's some glue on the scrap paper. Try and keep moving the part of the scrap paper that you're using as well because it's quite easy to end up with loads of glue on the front of your collages which you don't really want if you can help it. Whilst you're gluing down your shapes as well you can take any opportunities to reflect on any sensory aspects of this process as well because you'll be smoothing down the paper to make sure that it's stuck. It's quite nice if you can really slow down and tune into some of those sensory aspects of the process. It can actually be a really enjoyable part of the process rather than it just being a means to finishing the collage off. I've stuck my smaller pieces on top of my larger ones. Now I can think about actually gluing the shapes down completely, so I'll think about the positioning. It's always best, as I've mentioned before, to try and make sure that your collages are just placed slightly higher than the center. This just leaves us a little bit of room at the bottom if you are going to add some bits at the bottom like signature, which I'll come to talk about in a bit more detail in a moment, but visually it just also looks slightly better if things are above center rather than below center. I'm going to try and make things as high as I can without them looking stranger so they're touching the top of the page. We've intentionally been using these very small bits of background paper or card because it's helpful to limit our compositional variables when we're just doing these little small compositions. But at this point, you might think that you'd like to actually change the size of your background paper and have it slightly larger and that's absolutely fine too. I quite like keeping them small and compact. I'm going to keep them on this size, but if you want to make them slightly larger, you could then rethink what you're sticking them onto at this point. My first collage is now glued down. You can see it's just a little bit above center in its position. This is something that's quite good to aim for just so that you have a little bit of space at the bottom. I'm going to work on this eclectic competition next because I think this one's quite an interesting one as an example because there are so many bits that are overlapping. You might see one like this and think, oh gosh, what should I start gluing down first? I'm going to go with the pieces that are smallest that are on top first, like we've discussed. I'll take this one, for example, which is a really simple one in position. I'm actually going to turn over my scrap paper because there's quite a lot of bits of blue covering it just so that it's keeping it nice and clean. This yellow with an orange circular pattern on it. I'm going to go for next because it's overlapping these two shapes so I think it'd be quite helpful to act as a little connecting piece. From here, I think I'm actually going to go for this large orange piece first, just this end of it so that I can have it attached to the other large shape because that's going to enable me to pick everything up soon so that I can glue down the whole thing. These ones at the bottom are going to move quite a bit. I don't think I can stick them to each other without them moving around a lot. I'm actually going to now take all these pieces out that are connected together and put some glue on those, get those in position before doing the bottom ones. I haven't been able to photograph this because I'm using all my cameras and phones to film this class. The way that I've remembered where this one should go is thinking about the line where the blue paper with pink pattern on it is cut because I know that it should be a straight line, at 90 degrees to the edge of the paper, so that's how I'm lining it up. Now those are down it'll be easier to put these ones on. I'm actually going to start with the one at the back first because I'm going to put them on individually. Because of the way that these are positioned, I know that the cut edge of this should be parallel to the bottom of the paper so that it feels as though it's straight. You can see there's a similar gap at the bottom with these two that I've stuck down just why I'm leaving a little bit of space just to write a couple of things at the bottom. Hopefully, that's been a bit helpful to see how I approach sticking down. I'm just going to stick down the others now and then we'll move on to the next part. [MUSIC] 19. DEMO | Finishing Touches Part 2: Okay. At this point, I've glued all my collage pieces down. I'm pretty happy with how they're looking. Now they're all stuck. They are in much more accurate positions. One thing that you could do that's optional at this point, you may not want to do it. It's totally up to you. If you could now introduce a little bit more drawing onto your collages, now you can see how they look. It may be that there are certain things that you'd like to add. On the whole, I would recommend just sticking with the colors that you've already used, unless there's something that you'd maybe liked to add, which can work really well, or things like just using a little bit of a metallic pen. For example, I have a gold pen here and this is something that I quite often like to add into my collages. It can also be a helpful way of introducing any sort of, if you feel there's a bit that needs something else. This one here, for example, I feel like there's a lot of yellow and pink and orange in this area. I feel like I could almost do with having a bit more contrast through some of the center of this collage. I'll show you what I'm going to do. I want to introduce a bit more of the turquoise color. I'm going to bring in a bit of scrap paper again to make sure everything's working nicely. I just want to add a bit in the center I think, just here. Now the other thing that I might do is just introduce a second dot inside these orange ones. It's just introducing a little bit more variation of contrast through the whole piece because that middle section was quite similar. I have got a gold pen as well. I'm just going to use the gold pen sparingly. I don't want to go too much with it because I don't want to take away from the colors that I've been choosing. But I'm just going to use it in the center piece, just to outline those shapes. It may actually be because it's quite a subtle pen, it's only just a gel pens so it's very fine that you may not actually be able to see these bits of gold, unless you're holding it up to the light and shining it. That's why I quite like actually, I like that sort of subtlety. See, is there any other bits that I wanted to add a bit of gold? I might just introduce a little gold line on some of these bottom areas here. You can. If you have a composition that feels like it needs it, you can actually even draw a whole new patterned area on your collage if you want to, if that feels right. Doing a little dot of gold inside each of those turquoise dots that I just did. All these things are completely optional. You may get to this point, I think. No, I didn't want to draw on my collage because I don't want to ruin it, and that is totally okay. It's all just optional things that you can try if you want to. I don't want to add anymore onto that one because I don't want to change these collages too much, just adding a little bit to make them have a bit of extra sparkle. I'm going to go into this one I think with my gold and I'm going to outline these orange circles. The reason why I would suggest doing this at this point right at the end rather than when we were actually drawing the patterns is because sometimes you don't really know if you want additional embellishments until you've composed your collages. I'm going to add a outline gold just to the top of these lines as well. Of course, it completely depends on what materials you have. You may not have a metallic pen lying around. But if I didn't have a metallic pen, this would probably work quite well just using the colors that I've already used. Here, wonder if we might try something with drawing in a shape on this one. Usually, it's the eclectic compositions that work quite well with adding additional shape. I'm just going to practice on the scrap paper first just thinking about adding a small semicircular shape like this somewhere in the front here that could be quite nice. What I've done on here is, I don't think you'll be able to see it because I've drawn it so lightly. I've just drawn in pencil a very, very pale semicircle so that I can use my paint marker. I feel as though I want to add one at the top to balance that, so it's going to be a small one again. I think it's just going to be peeping out at the top actually rather than a concentric one this time. I think I'm actually going to do it as a stripe, so I will draw the outline. You don't have to draw the outline, you could just fill in the pattern itself because we're following a line here, which is almost like an inverted S, thinking about which way I want the eye to be going. At the very top here is in this direction, it's a diagonal. I'm going make the stripes go that way. That's a really helpful thing about these kind of linear patterns, is that they can just help to draw our eye in a particular direction. It's pretty subtle as you can see. It's just adding in those couple of extra shapes. I might just add a couple of gold embellishments on here, maybe through the center here, this looping pattern. Just going to do little gold outlines of these turquoise dots as well so it feels nice and balanced because I think if you just have one bit of gold in the center on its own, it can just feel a little bit out of place. I think that one is also done. This one is so nice and simple. I'm just going to go use my gold around the outside of the turquoise shapes, little dots inside the pink spots. These are very, very tiny and subtle. This composition is very simple, which I love actually. I think sometimes the simplest compositions can be the most effective so I don't want to overdo the embellishments on there. I think that's enough. One thing I might add on here, going back to the turquoise. Again, at the top, it feels like there is a much lighter tonal value. I'm just going to add these little turquoise dots into these circles that I've already drawn just to add a bit more contrast near the top of the composition. The gold, let's just use it with the dark turquoise parts mostly. Tends to show up quite well against the turquoise as well. Just drawing an outline on one side of each of these thick stripes. Happy with that. Last one, now I immediately feel like I want to draw hollow circles on these turquoise ones. So with this one, I may actually add in a little bit of orange just because there isn't any orange in this composition. So I'm just going to make sure my orange is working well. It just feels like it's lacking a bit of orange because I think all of the other pieces have got some orange on most of them. They will have some orange in. I'm just going to add a little row of orange circles around here. I'm pretty happy now with my finished collage is. Just done those tiny little embellishments there just to add a little bit of extra sparkle to them. The last thing that I'm going to do to my collages now is I'm going to sign them and I'm also going to add addition numbers and titles as well. The reason why I think it's really nice to do this is it's a really lovely way of actually finishing a piece and saying this is done now, in the same way that we started preparing for our drawing at the start when we were thinking about preparing our space and making those preparations. Just feel as though it rounds the whole thing off really nicely. You can choose whether you want to do this. It may be that you just want to sign your work or you want to just put an addition number and sign it or might want to do all three things, put the edition number, and sign it, and put a title as well. I'm going to do all three, take and leave what you like. I'm going to be using a pencil to do this. It's nice and sharp. I really highly recommend using a pencil. A, because if you don't like the way that it looks, you can rub it out and you don't have to worry about it. But also if you sign in anything that's colored or too dark, it can really detract from the artwork. I'm going to do all the addition numbers first and I'm going to do it really small. I've got quite small writing anyway. But it's a good idea to do it small because again, you don't want to just overpower the artwork. It's a 1-1, which basically just means there's only one of these collages. Next, I'll sign my collages on the right-hand side. Again, I'm doing that with pencil and just leave a bit of space. I've got quite a short signature. It's just my initials is how I like to sign my artwork. Now I will add some titles. The titles, it may be that you don't feel like you want to title them, or it may be that you feel that maybe you would like to title them, but you'd prefer to be more private because these are quite personal pieces of works that we've created that connect with how we feel so it may feel a bit too public to put the tittle on the front. If that's the case, then you could still title it but put it on the back. I would suggest just keeping it really simple. If you do want to title your work, just a word or two or three words that feels though they resonate with those sensations that we've been talking about and the intention that's gone into making these collages. When I was selecting my colors, I was thinking quite a lot about joy and energy and optimism. Interestingly, when I came to the composition part of the process, I tended to be more drawn towards those centered compositions. Thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense actually because I think being that I'm creating these collages for this class and it's all being filmed, sometimes that can be quite daunting. I think those feelings of feeling quite centered and grounded and balanced, that will make sense that I was really aiming to attach those feelings to my collages. Thinking about appropriate titles, this one to me, just immediately suggests the word balance or balanced because it just looks like objects that are balancing on top of each other that looked like they shouldn't really balance on top of each other. I think I'm just going to use the word balance for this one. I think I'm going to do this one next. This was the composition that I found the most challenging to resolve. It felt quite problematic at the time. I'm really happy with it now and I really like it now, but it did feel quite challenging. I think I'm going to call it challenge actually. I might add another word in just so that it does feel a bit more of a positive title because I want it to feel positive because that's how it feels for me now. I think I'm going to call it happy challenge. This one is very symmetrical. I just feel like I need to call this one's centered because that's really the word that it's resonating for me with this one. This composition feels much more structured and uniform because those three shapes repeated three times in exactly the same way. I think I'm going to call this one aligned. That feels like an appropriate title. This one, I feel like it's a bit of an optimistic composition. My eyes drawn up towards the top of it. I want to give it a optimistic title. I think I'm going to call this one hopeful. The last composition is quite a simple one. It's positioned quite a lot above center. Again, it feels both balanced and centered, but also optimistic as well. I feel as though the patterns in this one and the colors are even more vibrant and energetic than some of the other ones, just the way that they're placed together. I think the combination of lots of circles feels quite optimistic and effervescent. I think I'm actually going to call this one effervescence, it seems to suit it. It feels quite fun and joyful and optimistic. My collage series is complete. I'm really happy with how they've turned out. For me, the addition of titles I find really helps me to feel anchored to those feelings I've been trying to channel with making them. Also through reflecting on titles, I think it give me some realizations about how I've been feeling and how I've been responding to some of the process of making them, which has been quite interesting. I also like to think that they have that intention wrapped up within them. If I decide to gift one to a loved one, I hope that they might get those feelings from them too. In the next video, we will discuss our next steps. I'll see you there. 20. Next Steps: Congratulations for completing the class. I really hope that you've enjoyed the process and have created some artworks that you feel connected to. Where do we go now? Firstly, I hope you don't let these little artworks be hidden away from the world. Share them here with us in the Skillshare community by adding a class project. But also let them be seen in the real world too. Put them up around your home, whether you stick them on your fridge or display them proudly in a frame. Or maybe you want to share those feelings with your loved ones, so you could share your work in that way. I hope you'll continue to look at these little artworks and feel anchored to those feelings that you've been channeling whilst creating them. Secondly, I hope this class has given you a structure and foundation from which you could continue a creative practice for self-care. Whether it's repeating the class projects again, or revisiting just part of it, or developing it to become something slightly different, I hope that you'll use the skills that you've learned in this class to help support you on your creative path. Here are some ideas for how you could continue or adapt this class going forward. You could use the exact same class project again. Remember you can take your time and create these collages over however long you like. You could try using different colors shapes instead of circles, maybe squares, triangles, or some other shape, which would be an interesting way to develop the project. You could switch up the different sizes of shapes that you use. In this class, we just use three; small, medium, and large just to keep things simple and accessible. But maybe 4, 5, or even more would give you some interesting things to play with. You could focus on the mindful pattern drawing as an ongoing practice if that's something that you'd like to explore further. Don't forget, I have a class all about mindful pattern drawing if that's something that you'd like a deeper dive on. It may be that you really enjoyed the paper cutting part of the class, so perhaps some mindful paper cutting or photomontage could be a great way to develop that part of the process. If it's something which appeals, you could make larger and more complex compositions with more collage pieces. You could combine this practice with other media. Maybe you like the idea of incorporating painting, or printmaking, or some other outlet to explore different approaches. There's so much scope to add your own spin on this project. It may be that this project was exactly what you needed just now in your life and now you're not necessarily wanting to continue it, and that's great too. You have these skills and this knowledge now so that you can always revisit it whenever you fill the need. 21. Thank You!: Thank you so much for coming on this creative journey with me. I hope that in the process of creating these collages, you've made some discoveries about ways you can bring mindfulness into your life in a way which feels fun and easy and enables you to express your creativity in the process. I hope that as a result of what we've explored together, you might feel a bit calmer and more connected to yourself and feel confident that these are self-care tools that you can use whenever you need them in your life. If there's one thing you take away from this class, I hope it's the desire and skills to be more present in the process. To really take the time to slow down and enjoy how things look and feel and sound and smell. You don't need expensive supplies or to be able to sit for hours meditating to explore mindfulness through art-making, and enjoy all the benefits that can bring into your life. You already have everything you need. I would be thrilled to see your class projects and hear about your process. If you feel comfy, please do share a class project with us over in the Projects & Resources tab. If you'd like to hear about my new class releases, competitions, and giveaways, then give me a follow here on Skillshare and If you'd like to hear about other projects, workshops, and fun stuff, then you might enjoy my newsletter. If you share any of the work that you've created from this class on social media, do tag me and use the hashtag melryeskillshare, so I can see your posts. If you've enjoyed this class, please consider leaving me a review. I read each and everyone, and I so appreciate hearing your feedback. Thank you so much for being here, and I hope that I'll see you in another of my classes soon. Bye for now.