Geometric Design On The IPAD - Mandalas in Procreate

1. Geometric Design Trailer: Hey, everyone. My name is Jane and I'm an Illustrator and Designer. Today we're going to use the iPad to draw some geometric design. we're going to use the Procreate app to draw mandalas. I will walk you through step-by-step on how I create my frameworks in a symmetrical manner. Then we'll start adding in some detail. We're going to work our way through two different mandalas done on two different frameworks. These are the techniques that you'll be able to use in building your own designs going forward. Along the way, I'll show you lots of tricks and tips on using the procreate app and all the fun things that you can do with it. As a bonus, you'll get access to some of my own procreate brushes as well as the grid that I use to create the framework. All you need for this class is an iPad and the procreate app. Join me today as we get busy drawing some beautiful mandala designs. 2. Supplies & Brush Import: Let's start by going over some of the things that you're going to need for this class. Obviously you're going to need an iPad, any iPad that has the 10.0 IOS update will work. You need the Procreate App, you can find that in the App Store. It is a paid App, but it is well worth it. I have also provided in the attached files and image of the grid that I use. So it's divided into eight sections, and each section is 45 degrees, and that's the rotation in the procreate App. So you're also going to possibly want, if you have the iPad Pro, like I do, the Apple pencil, you don't need the Apple pencil, it is a great tool to have if you have the iPad Pro, it really does detail nicely. However, your finger works just as well and I have used my finger for years and procreate and being able to do everything that I'm going to show you today. So now I'm going to show you how to find some of this stuff using your browser on the iPad. So you're going to go into Safari. That's what I use up here in the top bar you're going to type in skillshare.com. It'll take you to the skills share site where you'll sign in. Once you sign in, you can go to the course. I'm going to use my previous iPad course, everything is here. You'll go into your, your projects section, and right here on the right-hand side is the attached files. These are the downloads. In this case it was a flower image, but in this new course, it will be the grid and you just hold it in, save image and it goes right into your camera roll where we can use it. The product description, I will also give you this link to the drop box with the brushes in it, so you'll click on that link and it'll pop up into Dropbox. You don't have to have an account and Dropbox you don't even have to sign in. You just click on one of the brushes, then it will pop up with this screen, you'll choose the download and then you want the direct download, and then it will pop up with the brush mine is taking a little bit long here, there it is, recognizes it as a procreate file, so you open in procreate. When you click on that, procreate App opened, but your brush will already be in there now. So you can check that by going to the brushes, look under the imported file, and there it is, right at the top. Now you can move this out of your imported brush folder into any other folder that you want or one you've created, you hold it and you slide it up to the folder. It has to be above here somewhere, and it pops right into that folder. When you go to the top brush, there it is right there. Now we're going to go back and get one more brush, and I'm going to show you, go back into Safari, your browser. We go backwards to get back to the folder, and back again to get to the full folder. There we are, and I'm going to choose the next brush, it pops up, I choose Download, direct download, and there's my brush, dotted line brush. I open in procreate, procreate App opens and the brushes sitting there in my imported folder. Again, I can put it into any other folder that I choose to put it in, and I just have to touch it and drag it into that folder. When I check in the folder, I go up to the top and there it is sitting right there. So you can go back and do that with the other brushes that I've provided, and you'll be all set to go and we'll start right into the next lesson. 3. Setting Up The Canvas: To start with, we're going to open the Procreate app and we're going to start a new Canvas with this plus sign. We're going to choose new canvas, and I suggest a resolution of 300 DPI and an eight inch size of Canvas. Eight times 300 is 2400 pixels. In order to get the nice quality of your line, you need a good resolution and a good size to your Canvas. I normally draw my model set in an eight inch size anyways on paper. That's what I choose for this canvas. Now, we're going to go insert the grid that I gave you. It's sitting in our camera roll. We'll choose the grid and it's going to pop into our canvas. We want the grid to be the same size as the canvas. We choose these little arrows down here and it makes it the same size as the Canvas we're working on. I'm going to pinch this down a bit because I want some room to be able to see around the edges, and we're going to lower the opacity. We'll go into the layer and we select our blend mode here and we're going to lower the opacity because we don't want this to get mixed up with our drawings. We're going to just make it a guide that sits in the background. Then we are going to get ready to do our framework. We add another layer and we're going to go in and make sure that our ink color is black. I already have a black in my palette. You can go in, it's always in this left-hand bottom corner of the color picker. Or you can go into the color values and its 000 for RGB or the hex is all zeros as well. That's how you know you have a true black. Then we're going to go into our brush menu and we're going to pick our simple plain tech brush that I provided for you. This will give you a nice hard edge, simple line that we're going to work with. Now, we're going to get it ready and make our framework. 4. The First Framework: Now we are going to get into drawing the framework. We have our brush already picked, the simple tech pen. We have our ink already chosen, and I'm going to show you how we're going to draw a straight line triangle to do our rotation, we are on a separate layer from our grid, and I'm going to show you how we draw a straight line, see how my line kind of wobbles. If I hold it here, it's going to snap into position. That's a perfect, that's called the quick line in procreate. I can move it around, it stays straight, there is the first side of my triangle. If I am not happy, I can just hit the transform tool and I can shift the points wherever I want them and the line stays straight, this is going to be the first line of my triangle and I just want to line up at the top there, and then no I can't transform with my fingers with that so just with the points. Now we are going to go in and draw the second side of our triangle, starting at this top point, I'm going to draw, and I kind of get a kick out of drawing a wavy lines, see how it snaps into position, you don't have to worry when you're drawing these kinds of shapes. You just hold the pen where you want it and it snaps into a straight line, so we will finish the triangle bottom and we are just going to shift this point slightly up, and now we have our triangle that we're going to base the rest of our framework on, this triangle, we're going to rotate around our grid to create the framework. First I just want to clean up the tip if you want to do any clean up on the shape, now's the time to do it. Got a little glitchy up at the tip, I chose my eraser, I resize it so I don't erase the whole line, and just take out that little tip. Okay. We are going to rotate this triangle around a grid, and this is the purpose of the grid, is to help us rotate around the entire canvas. We're going to duplicate our first triangle, so we have it in our second layer and then we're going to select the grid layer, when you select, you move slightly to the right on the other layer and it turns a different color of blue. Now you can see everything is picked. I want to resize this slightly. You don't want your canvas to be the size of the screen because then you can't see what's happening around the edges, you go in and we've got our layer, we select our second layer, which is going to be the grid. Only those two layers are picked, and here's where the magic happens. We go down here and we click on the rotate, and it's going to rotate it 45 degrees, that's procreate standard for the rotation, you can't change that, that's why we're working within an eight section grid, we're working with 45-degree rotations. Then I duplicated my triangle again, and if I were to just rotate this triangle without selecting the grid, see how it just rotated within itself. It doesn't rotate on the center of the canvas, it rotates on the center of the layer, the shape itself, in order for me to keep it rotating around the entire canvas, I need to select this grid at the bottom, I do the slight move to the right. I only have those two layers selected, and I rotate the third triangle. Let's make sure I've got the right thing selected, and I'm going to rotate the third triangle and there you are. We're going to continue to do this. We're going to keep duplicating this layer, and then you only want that layer and the grid, only the two layers, and you're going to "click" on rotate again, now we've got four triangles. We're halfway there, again, we're going to duplicate our layer and then I'm going to select the grid and then I'm going to rotate again around the canvas. So there is eight sections in this grid, I'm going to end up with eight triangles. I'm going to do this for a total of eight triangles, and you can see by looking at the layers here that every triangle is on a different angle. That's how you know that you have every one of them rotated. Nobody's sitting on top of another one. So it is easy to lose track when you've got all these lines looking at you. So you look in your layers and just make sure all those triangles are at different angles and there should be eight of them total, when I go in here, I've got so far, I've got seven. I know that I have one more that I have to do, and I'm going to rotate this last one, and that completes my framework. Now I have eight triangles that have been rotated around the canvas to give me a framework to work within for my Mandela. Now I want all these triangles on the same layer because they are going to sit in the background as well, so I can either merge one layer at a time or I can grab them all with my fingers and squeeze them together and they are not quite working there. Squeeze them together and they are going to all merge onto one layer, now I've got the entire framework on its own layer, and I'm going to lower the opacity because again, I want this to sit in the background of my drawing. It's merely there for a guide. The grid and the framework are both going to have a low opacity and be on their own individual layers. Now we're going to create one more layer, and this will be the layer where we start our drawing and in the next lesson I'm going to show you how we get going on the shapes. 5. Adjusting The Framework: Before you go any further, there's an area of my framework I want to add to. This center part right here, when I turn off my grid, it leaves it very blank. I want just that center part to retain the lines from the grid, but nowhere else. I'm going to show you how I'm going to do this. I'm going to take and going to make sure that I'm on my grid layer, not the framework. I'm going to use my selection tool, and I'm going to do the free hand, I'm going to go all the way around this center part, making sure I have a little bit of extra, then I'm going to go down here, hit these double lines and its going to place just my selection onto another layer. Now, I can turn off the grid, and I have that center part to work with on a separate layer that won't affect my grid. I'm going in and select my eraser, and now, I'm going to leave it dark so I can see what I'm erasing, and I just want to erase down to the center part. When I work my way around and I want to leave the lines that are in the center of my framework, I want to do this because sometimes I want to be able to turn off my grid, but I still want the framework to have all the lines I require, so this helps me do it when I'm extracting it out of the grid. Now that I haven't completely cleaned up the way that I want it, I go into my layers, and I am going to change the opacity on this to lower it as well, and I have the choice of either merging it with my framework, or I can leave them separate. Either way, I now have the framework with the grid lines that I want in it, and I can go ahead and start drawing in my Mandala. 6. Start With Shapes: Now we're ready to start drawing our mandalas. We have our grid sitting in the background, and we have our framework sitting in the background and now we're on a separate new layer that we're going to start drawing on. I'm going to pick my brush, which is going to be in my "Plane Tech Pen" that gives me a nice hard edge and a nice crisp line. When we draw in our mandala, we're going to draw within our framework sections and use them as a guide. If you see the mandala as a whole, it has eight sections all the way around. We're really just concerned with drawing within one of those eight sections and then I'll show you how we rotate those around the entire mandala. We're going to start in the center, I like to work from the center out and I'm going to start just drawing some simple petals. Just like in my mandala courses that I showed you how I draw on paper. I do the same way, this canvas is an eight inch size. It's the same concept just on a digital screen. You're going to draw whatever shapes you want into each of the framework sections. I play around a kind of experiment. The nice thing with the digital is that I can erase quickly, I can undo anything that I don't like. In here, it gives me a lot of room to just experiment. Just play around with whatever shapes you really like. Don't worry too much about your accuracy because you can always use the eraser tool. Again, if you don't like it, you just undo it. Here I've played with a few different ideas and I think I'm going to end up with maybe just this simple spiral. We're just working with simple shapes to start with because once we get these firsts and simple shapes down, I'm going to show you how I go back in and add more detail later. Work with each section of the framework and just add something inn that works for you. Now a good idea to do that I often forget is when you go in here, try to add each element onto its own layer, so we'll start a new layer here. Those first three elements are now going to be on one layer. But we're going to start a new layer and if we can have each of our elements on their own layer, then it's easier to turn that layer on and off if you decide you don't want that element, but you don't want to erase it yet because you haven't decided. You can just turn the layer off, create a new layer and put something else in that space. Then you can toggle them back and forth to decide what you want. Here I'm going to pick a bit of a different pen. I also like my pen that has a bit of a taper to it and I'm going to fill in a flowery look. The "Plain Tech Pen" gives you a nice hard edge. But the studio pen gives you a nice tapered look, which to me gives almost more of a hand-drawn look. I'm just going to draw my flower and I'm going to try to make it fit into the shape. Again, we are going for hand-drawn look, so don't worry about your details not being even. Don't worry about your lines not being even just because it's digital. It doesn't mean that we're looking for perfection. When I am drawing the image I like to zoom in really close, and then also I can use the eraser. Oh, I was to forget, always make sure your eraser is downsize so you don't erase a big portion of your design in one swoop. I'm just going to clean up the little edges inside my flower. It's a really good idea going forward if you make sure all your lines join in your design because down the road, I like to fill some of my sections and they won't fill, they'll fill your whole canvas if the lines aren't completely joined around to create a shape. Now I'm going to go into this next section, which I'm doing on its own layer, and it's just trial and error. Often, I'll go in and I'll try shape, and I don't like it, so I'll try a different shape. The nice thing is, it's really easy to undo things quickly and you're just experimenting. The whole point of these mandalas is that they're done in layers and you can add detail as you go. I love how you can start with some pretty simple basic shapes, and you can build on those gradually and end up with a really beautiful design in the end. The nice thing with the iPad is it's so portable, so I love taking this with me. I can just get some ideas out. I can erase them quickly. I can try different ideas on different layers. It's really fun to be able to move so quickly with it. Now I want, I have each of these sections filled in and I did put them on the same layer. I want that flower on its own layer, so I'm going to show you how to get that off of this layer and onto its own layer. We choose the "Select" tool. We can make sure it's on free hand. Then we draw a selection all the way around the flower, not touching any of the other elements. I could use this double lines to create another layer, but I want it off this layer so I need to cut. Three fingers which takes a bit there and I cut it, and then I just paste it. It's going to paste onto a separate layer, so there we go. Now they're on separate layers. No harm, no foul. It's a quick and easy way to do it because it's something I forget often is to create a new layer and you can get going on the design and forget that they're all on one layer and they're is so much easier to work with if you keep them on separate layers. Now I'm going to go for another design. I'm going to fill up this top triangle section of my framework. Again, just like in my mandala courses that I do on paper, you just keep drawing and you'll find favorite shapes that you love to work with. I love working with this petal shape and I have it in probably every single one of my designs. I love a geometric style, but the petal is just really, they really call them me. I've got this first triangle filled in and I have it on its own layers. Sometimes I zoom out so they can take a look at what I've done and then I'm going to create a new layer and work on these last two triangles. Again, when I make the initial canvas, I pick the resolution of 300 dpi so that I can get a nice line that doesn't get too pixelated or blurred out because I really like to add in the detail. I want my canvases to be at least the size I would work with on paper, so the eight inches, what we're working with on this one. Sometimes I'll do up to a 12 inch canvas, but it's a real balance in digital work that you want to keep a really nice size dpi so that you can print this out if you'd like to, to color it in and that your canvas is a decent size as well. But you still want to be able to have lots of layer. You want to keep that file size under control so that you have the option to have everyone of your elements on a different layer because that allows you to manipulate the elements themselves if they're all on separate layers and you'll see how we do that as we go along. I'm just going to finish up this one side of the triangle. Then I'm going to show you what I've done so far. Then I'm going to move on to showing you how I do the transforming and the rotating so that you don't have to redraw all of your elements that you started with. 7. Transform & Rotate: Now we're going to use the transform tool and I'm going to show you how we can get around redrawing everything all the way around. This first element on the left-hand side, I duplicated that layer because I want them mirror image of it over here, I flipped it vertically and I use the magnetic to take it horizontally across so that it lines up. But then at some point, I have to take that magnetic off if I can't get it exactly where I want because the magnetic, it clicks it into place. If I wanted to fine-tune it myself, I take off the magnetic and go to free form and I don't have to touch the element just anywhere on the screen will help me move it. If you want to nudge it slightly, you just slightly tap on whatever side you want to nudge it up and then this gives you a mirror image of the opposite side. Now we have all the elements laid out. I'm going to want to keep a copy of all these basic elements in case I want to make any changes later before I start messing with them. I'm going to put them all into one group but when I do that by selecting all the elements I want in the group. I go up here and I click on these multiple lines and it turns it into a group. You can name the group, which I should name it so that I know what I've got here. I'll just name it pieces and now I've got them all in one place. I'm going to duplicate that group and I want to put them all on one layer now so the easiest way to do it and I'll just pinch them together. Now I have all those pieces are on one layer and I'm going to take that out of the group and just delete that group. Now I have my first section on one layer and this is the one I'm going to rotate. Just like we did with the framework and when I'm going to use the grid to help me rotate around the center, just move the grid up there to the top and I'm going to leave the framework on, I can see it rotating into the sections and then that once I have my duplicate selection, that grid selection, I transform, I rotate and again, I'd go back in and I duplicate the elements again, I select the grid, I pick transform and I rotate and again, I just keep doing this around I need to do it seven times so that I end up with eight complete sections all the way around. I'm just going to speed this up a little bit because it's just duplicating selecting both layers, picking transform and rotate until I've got a complete Mandala all the way around my Canvas. Once I'm finished rotating every one of these, I'm going to want to make sure that I have eight of them. I'm going to have to count them, make sure that there's eight and then I'm going to want them all on one layer so that I can work with this Mandala as a whole. Now we have it all on one layer and we have all of our initial elements there. We have a nice symmetrical Mandala. We didn't have to redraw all of the elements but we still have that nice hand-drawn look. Now I'm going to show you how I add more detail into this Mandala. I love to work my Mandalas in layers, let's get into adding the detail. 8. Layers of Detail: Now, we're going to start adding some detail into our drawing. Again, we want to start a new layer and we want to do anything going forward on a separate layer from the mandala. It keeps the mandala clean and unaltered. It's a non-destructive form of editing so that we will always be able to go back to that mandala in the original form that it was in. Now I'm adding some veins into the flour and I'll be able to rotate these around because the flower itself was rotated 45 degrees. The elements that I draw within one of them, will match perfectly with every other flower as I rotate it around as well. Also I'm going to want to do some fills. I do that by just dragging my color dot over, oops. First of all, I'm on a new layer but I want my mandala to be a reference. I go in here and click reference and now the drawing on my mandala drawing is a reference used for every other layer. Now the fill knows what I want to fill even though I'm on a separate layer. Another way with the fill, you want to watch the threshold here. If it's not quite filling up the whole circle, drag your pencil or your finger across the screen once you do the fill, the threshold will go up. If you go too far, you're going to fill the whole screen. If you go too low, it doesn't fill enough. Now, that I have that fill in, the new layer as well, I'll be able to rotate it. Now I want to go into the different brushes I have here and I want to choose something to add some detail into my center. I'm just going to use my tapered drawing pen, maybe I'll use it in my eraser. I'm going to take it out of the field that I just did. I'm going to use my eraser here and I'm just going to undo that and change the size. I always forget to change the size of my eraser. I'm just going to draw in a little detail into my center and then I can zoom out and take a look at it and see if I like it. If not, then I can pull it back up and I can alter that size and draw draw it in again or basically erase it out again. I can go ahead and add a few more elements but I'm going to show you how I rotate this around and how it's going to fit perfectly into every flower. I duplicate it, I select my grid and my grid doesn't even have to be visible. As long as I've selected the layer, it'll still work. There I have the two of them selected. I pick transform and I rotate and see how it fits perfectly into that flower and I'll do this all the way around. I'll do in a second or third time, so I have three of them and then I'll do my fourth one. Then I'm going to show you a little shortcut that you can use if you want to. I have the first four done. If I merge those four together, I can just merge them down one at a time. Now, they create on one layer. All I have to do is duplicate that layer, select the grid and then just rotate that entire layer all the way around so I actually have to rotate. I have to hit the rotator I think up to four times but it rotates it around and it saves me doing them one at a time. That's another little trick you can do. You can do them in batches or groups like that, saves you a little bit of time instead of having to rotate each one individually. I merge those down into my mandala layer because I was happy with that. You can keep everything separate but eventually you are going to want to merge them. When you know you're completely happy with something, you can go ahead and merge it down. I'm going to do something else in this section. Again, I'm going to create a new layer. Because I want to be able to play, I want to be able to make mistakes and not damage the mandala itself. I'm not really sure what I want to do in here so I'm just going to play with some shapes and see what I come up with. Sometimes it's handy to turn the framework back on or to turn your grid back on because when you're drawing these shapes into large spaces, it's nice to know where it's going to fall. I can toggle those on and off as I choose while I draw in some more details, so I'm going to rotate that drawing. Oh, I meant to duplicate it first. That's fine. We're just going to go in and we'll just start the duplicating from there. We duplicate, we select our grid, we use our transform tool and we rotate. Again, I want to spin. I would a little bit because when you do the rotation, you want to be able to see where it lands. Sometimes it skips over a section, that's fine. It's seems to be a little glitch. You just keep duplicating and rotating till you have one in every space around your mandala. A simple element like this, I could probably hand-draw myself all the way around. The nice thing about duplicating and rotating is that it falls in the exact same place all the way around the mandala, so it's lined up perfectly and gives you that really nice lack of symmetry. In this case again, I did three more and then I took the batch of four, duplicated it and rotated the batch itself so it saved me the time of having to do each one separately. Now, when I've decided if I'm happy with this, I can merge this one down into the mandala as well. One of the reasons that you do merge them down is because you want to keep your layers under control. But if there's any reason that you think you might want to use that layer separately, then keep it separate. There you have some more detail and I'll show you how I add in a little more detail later. For now, we're going to try a new framework. 9. A Second Framework: Now I'm back in my gallery again. I'm going to create a new canvas and I'm just going to use the same one I used before. So this last one here, that's the one I used for the last Mandela, and I am going to insert my grid and I'm going to pull that out of my photos. It's in my Camera roll, there it is, the first one. Again I'm going to expand it to the size of the canvas. Again, I am going to change the opacity, lower it down here as I did the first time and I'm going to start a new layer. So this time I'm going to go in and use my shape brush that I gave you this circle. So wherever you've placed that in your brushes, find that circle brush. I'm going to push it pretty high. I'm going to make it as big as possible because I can always downsize it and I just click on the center to start with so that it shows up. Then I use my Transform tool and I can move that circle now anywhere that I want to move it. So I can expand the size of it and I can shift it up onto the grid the way I want. So I want it to fill the entire half of the grid from the center line up to the edge of the circle. If I keep my Magnetic on for my Transform tool, that circle will hold its shape perfectly, and I can nudge it over here touch by tapping the screen and I think I'm happy with where that is. So now I'm going to make a framework, add to this, and I'm going to duplicate that circle, and then I'll select my grid. I'm going to move my grid back up to the top again and select the circle and then transform and rotate. Then we'll go back down and we'll duplicate again, select the grid, transform and rotate. The nice thing with the grid underneath is that you can tell that the circles are a perfect 45-degree around the center. So it just helps your eyes follow where you want your Mandela to be. So I just keep going around. This one, I'm going to do them all individually. I want to make sure that I have eight when I'm all finished. So I have to keep track. The nice thing with the grid at the top is that I just keep duplicating the one at the top and I only have to deal with those two. Then my last one, I'm going to transform. Now I transform and rotate, and there I have my framework. So again, I'm going to want all those circles under one layer so I squeeze them together to merge them. Then I want the framework to be a lower opacity. So I change the opacity down just like my grid, and now I have the framework nicely laid out underneath, and I'm ready to create my new Mandela. 10. Starting from the Center: Now we're ready to start filling in this framework. We go into our layers and we make sure that we have a new layer to start our detail on. We make sure that we have selected the right pen that we want to work with. I use the plain tech pen and then I zoom in and I start filling in my shapes. Just like in my previous classes where I teach the Mandalas on paper. Same idea, you're just going to use whatever shape pulls to you and use the framework underneath as a guide. Add new layers for each idea so that you can experiment. You can turn the layers on or off. You can delete items. It gives you a lot of freedom for experimentation. Again, we're just going to create one object or design in each section and we'll work on doing the rotation after. Another method that you can use here, if you want to get a mirrored look again, is you create one half of a section. You duplicate the layer and flip it vertically, horizontally, whichever works for this section. Then I get a perfectly symmetrical look on my design and I just fill in the center part after. I like using this mirror ability to work with some of my design so I get a symmetrical look. It helps to keep the magnetic on so that you can make sure that it shifts exactly opposite to the one that you already have. Again, keep them all on their own separate layers because then you can manipulate each design element without affecting the ones around it. Another approach to doing this is initially in the last framework I did all of the single design elements, merge them together and rotated them around. Now I'm going to show you how we're going to rotate each design element itself and once we have it completely rotated around the whole design, then we're going to merge just that element onto a layer of its own. This gives me some flexibility. I get to see what the element looks like rotated around the whole design. But if I decide that I don't like it, I don't have to go in and erase it. I can just either delete the layer or just turn it off so I can decide whether I like it or not. Now that I have this element completely rotated around, I'm going to merge it onto one layer and I now have just that element rotated all the way around on its own layer. Layers are such a powerful tool to use in Procreate. Because as you're designing, you get to try on different elements. You can turn layers on and off and decide which of the elements really enhance your design. You can delete them and you can add in new ones without affecting the rest of the design. Now I have the second design element on its own layer and I can turn them both on and off at will. I'm going to show you now that you've gotten used to how we duplicate and rotate, if I zoom in really close here, you're going to see how this first one that we created and the last one that we rotated, there's a big difference in how clean they are. The first one's very sharp and the last one's very blurry. As you work your way around duplicating each one, it blurs out the line, it pixelates the line a little more each time. Part of the reason it does this is because we're rotating, so the program is trying to guess where the pixels are supposed to be pasted back in and it estimates so you get a little more of a blurry. Now I'm going to show you a way to counteract this. When you do your duplication, only duplicate the original one that you drew. You're going to have to keep that one on the bottom of your list so that you know that you are always duplicating the clean, fresh version. Because the first time we duplicate it, it's pretty close. But then as you keep copying the copies, you pixelate out more and more. Now we know that we keep the original on the bottom of our list and then that's the one that we duplicate and then we rotate that one a round. It's always going to be coming from the original position. Every time you rotate, another one, you're going to have to rotate a few more times to get it all the way into the next slot. Keep in mind that you keep the original one on the bottom of your list and that's the one that you duplicate and then you're going to rotate that duplicated copy. The one on the bottom is still your original. Sometimes this is going to matter to you and sometimes it isn't. That's why I wanted to make sure that you understand how to duplicate and rotate before I got into this pixelation issue. If you find that it's pixelating, I wanted to be able to give you an option on how you can counteract that happening. But sometimes it doesn't matter, sometimes there isn't enough pixelation for you to even worry about. But now at least you understand what's happening there and what you can do about it. Now that we have each of the design elements we have done on their own layers, we're going to continue with the outer ring. 11. Working With Layers: Now we're going to work in outer rings, so I'm going to take this design element that we created in the last lesson, and we're going to rotate that all the way around our design and put it on its own layer. So again, by having each of these elements rotated around on their own layers, it gives me the ability to turn them on and off, and decide and compare different ideas. Now, if there's one that I don't like, I can turn it off, fill in a different design rotated around on its own layer, and then I can compare them quite easily and quite quickly. This is one of the benefits of doing this digitally on the paper. I would have to trace over, and add them through tracing paper, and it's a much longer process, if I want to change an element. Here, I can do it quickly, simply by using the layers. Now as I get these layers rotated around, I'm starting to think this first element, I don't really like it, it's much thicker than the rest of the lines, so now it might be just easier to turn that layer off, and try a different design element in the center. Now I can work with what I already have, and I can add something in that I think complements the work that I've already done. In this center part, I'm going to use the framework itself, and I'm going to trace over it. This helps me give a nice even look to the lines that I'm adding in because I have that guide underneath to follow through. Now again, my screen is getting a little oily there, now my pencil works much better. Another little trick we're going to use is because, I think I want to keep this shape and I want to mirror inside of itself. I just duplicate it and using the magnetic function to keep the proper proportions of it, I squeeze it down, and then move it into the center of the one I already have, and then I think I'm going to do it again, and create another one inside, so again, I duplicate that one and I squeeze it down, and I just centered with my eye inside, so now I have three identical shapes within each other, simply by duplicating the layers. I put this design element all onto one layer by merging them down, and I clean up the lines by drawing over the top of anything that I feel is too thin. Now that I'm happy with this element, I'm going to rotate it around my Mandala and I'll put them all on one layer once I have that finished, and then I can audition the two of them and decide which one best suits the look that I'm going for. Again, with your layers, you're able to add items in, and then you can decide if they suit, and if they don't, then you just delete that layer right out, and you don't affect the rest of your design when you do this. Once these are all rotated all the way around, I'm going to merge them all onto one layer, by squeezing them together. Then we're going to have the two different options, I'll go back and forth, see which one I prefer, now I can see that this one didn't pixelate as much, so it turned out a lot nicer, and I think I prefer this one, so this is the one that we're going to go with. 12. The Outer Ring: Now I'm happy with my first ring. I'm going to work on my outer ring. I want this shape right here to be part of my design, so I'm going to go in and I'm going to select the framework, that's where it is, and I'm going to use my selection tool and freehand draw just around that particular shape. Once I have it completely selected, I'm going to go down to the bottom, hit these double lines, and it duplicates what I selected onto a new layer. Now I can work with just that shape without affecting the original framework. I'm going to go in and pick my eraser. Now I can just clean up the corners so that I end up with only the shape that I want and it can be a part of my design and I can do with it whatever I want to without affecting the original framework. Another little trick that I use, I really like this one when I'm using the eraser, if I go into my preferences, I have the option of turning on or off the brush cursor. If I leave it off and I'm erasing, I'm guessing where I'm erasing. If I turn the brush cursor on, then when I go to do my erasing, say I want a really large eraser, I know exactly where the edges of my eraser are, and it makes it so much easier to erase large sections, but still get a really nice defined edge to the section that I'm erasing. Benefit of having this on its own separate layer is I can erase right over top of other elements, and it doesn't affect the other elements because there are on different layers and they won't be affected by the eraser. Now we're going to go ahead and put some design in here. I'm just going to play around because I'm really not sure what it is I want to do here. Again, I just need to clean up. It's really handy to have one of these claws close by to clean up your screen because the Apple pencil could be pretty sensitive. If there's anything on the screen, it'll make it jump over and your lines will be disconnected. It might not affect your work too much with a solid line, but when you're working with tapered lines, it really shows up. Just make sure, if you're using the Apple pencil, to try to keep this screen clean and to keep your pencil charged, and then you'll get the best results from it. Just keep adding in little ideas. I'm just experimenting. Again, I may even change this before I'm done. I like it there, but that outer framework seems a little on the dark side. It was a great idea, but I think I'm going to erase part of that. I make sure I'm on the right layer, I go in, I pick my eraser, and I'm going to just resize it there a little and take out the dark part. You see here again, I can erase over top of the other element that are below them because they're on their own separate layer. But I do have to be careful with the parts I just drew because they are all on the same layer. This is something that you'll develop with practice because adding in new layers gives you so much flexibility. You just have to remember to keep doing that. Initially, I was putting everything on the same layer because I simply was forgetting. Then when I would want to go and change something, it would affect all the other elements that were on that layer as well. Here I've decided I'm going to leave these center parts in, but I got rid of the outer edges of that frame that I added in and I'm going to add a little bit of a different elements. Sometimes you have to put stuff in and take a look at it. If you don't like it or it might spur on a different idea just by seeing what you've done already. One of the most important parts of being creative is not being scared to experiment. This kind of a program that allows you to put things on separate layers and it's so quick and easy to draw and delete and undo. It really frees up your ability to experiment. It's so quick and so easy to try different ideas. Once again, I'm rotating this element all the way around my Mandela. Once I get it rotated into every slot, there's going to be eight of them altogether, I'm going to put them all on one layer. I'm just zooming in to make sure that the elements look the way I like them. Then once I'm happy with that, then I put them on to their own layer, and then I only have one more section now that I want to fill in. I'm pretty happy with the items I've already added, so now I have to decide what kind of a design element I want here. I think I'm just going to put in a very large loose flower. I'll just draw in my petals. I'm using my tapered pen. Again, I'm using a mix of the tapered pen and the plane tech pen. Depending on the looks that I'm looking for, I can just erase certain petals out if I'm not happy with their size, because you do find, as you draw around free hand, your design changes. It's nice to go back and if one item is out of place, you just use your eraser, take it out and replace it with something that you feel is a little better size-wise or maybe the line width didn't work right for you. You can just play with it as you go using the eraser tool to help you out there. Now that I'm happy with this design element, I'm going to start rotating it around my grid. It seems to be skipping. If it skips, just keep rotating and filling in the spots that it misses. It skipped a spot here, occasionally it'll rotate 90 degrees instead of 45 degrees, so I just bring another one down and fill in that spot. You just keep track and make sure that there is one design element in everyone of the eight spots. Again, you can see that when you pull up your layers, everyone of those layers is on a different angle and that lets you know that they're all in different spots. Now that I've got them all on one, I'm going to merge them together and now they're on their own layer and we have our Mandela. 13. Getting Creative: So now you have the techniques on how to do geometric design and draw a symmetrical mandala on your iPad. You're going to have so much fun experimenting and playing with these ideas. I'm just going to show you here in a quick little speed drawing of where I have taken the designs that we've done today into more detail, and adding in some contrast, and color. Have fun with this. I'm so glad you took the time to take the course today. Enjoy, and be creative.