How to Draw Mini Mindful Mandalas - A Beginners Guide to Wellness Through Daily Sketching

1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. My name is Susan and I am an artist. Author, yoga teacher on drawing Tutor from Sorry in the UK In this class, I'm going to show you how to create beautiful many mandala artworks. Drawing many man dollars is the perfect way to relax and to focus on mindfulness through creativity. The method that I demonstrate in this class requires limited materials and is perfect for a portable daily sketching project on a project that helps you to focus on wellness on boosting your creativity. I'll start by explaining what to mandala is what mindfulness is on. How to approach these drawings in relaxed and mindful way. Then I will show you the steps to planning your design, how to build them up and how to finish them off with a sprinkling of color. This class is aimed at beginners to drawing or anyone looking to focus on their wellness through drawing. I take a very relaxed approach, but with clear, step by step instructions and guides on examples of my own mini man dollars to provide you with a little bit of inspiration. You'll need some basic sketching equipment, such as a pencil ink pans. Set of compass is some paints, maybe some colored pens and, of course, paper or a sketchbook. Let's get started 2. What are Mini Mindful Mandalas: So what are many mindful mandalas? So in this video, I would like to explain exactly what mindfulness is and how many mount dollars are a way to achieve this. So let's start with mindfulness. Mindfulness is simply being aware or bringing attention to the present moment. It's a practice of observation without judgment, and it's a conscious direction of our attention to the current moment in time. The aim is to calmly acknowledge and accept one's feelings. Thoughts on bodily sensations I know that might sound simple. Sometimes, being entirely mindful can be quite hard to achieve. Our minds are super busy, and hundreds of random thoughts pop in on pop out within the space of just a few seconds. So learning to let these thoughts pass and no actively think on them and just not think about anything. But the present moment is what mindfulness is all about. And the reason that drawing works particularly well as a way to achieve mindfulness is this . It provides a very simple, repetitive task for the mind and the body. To focus on drawing is also really accessible to all people. If you can hold a pencil and make a mark you can draw. I tell this to my students along the time. If you could hold this, you can draw so with during you have something to touch, you have some sounds that you are hearing you have something to see, and you have the experience of roaring. Whether it's drawing quickly or slowly, you've got time to focus on things, and that gives you the opportunity to stay in the present moment. So now let's talk about what a man dollar is, say mandalas, a circular design symbolizing the notion that life is never ending. They said to originate the represent the universe on, and they are said to originate from sort of Hindu on Buddhist cultures, so mandalas are usually circular in structure on. They work from a central point in the middle, and then the circular sort of concentric circles spread and work out. It's got overlapping patterns, so let me bring you up another example, just here with one that's just been slightly mawr and sort of filled in circles, going around a central points on lots of pretty pattern designs in the middle. So think of it a little bit like a Spider's web, where you've got your construction lines in the spider gradually works outwards, but with a little bit more pattern and fat Steenis in them. Okay, Eso mandalas can be simple or they could be complex. They can be really small. That could be really large. They could be black and white or they could be full of color. But what's different about the way that we approach the drawings and these circular designs in this class, is that a drawing? These will give your really handy formula for mindful creativity. We're keeping these designs small or pocket sized, so that you can finish them quickly. Andi, that they're a portable sketching activity. It means that your tools fit into ass more handy pouch. So I usually have a selection of thes that kind of a five size of, let's say, 15 by 20 centimeters, maybe six by 10 inches, five by 10 inches, Something that to give you a rough idea, um, so I can keep all my tools and materials in this little pouch, and it can carry around with me. So I've got things like my sketchbook. I've got my pens, my pencil, and more tools and materials that I will talk about in a video just in a moment. So it means that you can do a little bit regularly rather than have to set aside a whole afternoon or a full day to complete this very complicated big piece of work. So creating a little mini mandala every day is almost like journaling in a sketchbook were sort of drawing mindfully on a piece of paper or in a sketchbook. Now I love drawing many mandalas and finding new ways to explore their shapes and patterns , and I hope you enjoy it, too, and start to see some of the wonderful benefits. 3. Important Concepts Before You Start: before we jump into the materials and the techniques required for creating these little artworks. I want to talk about some of the important concepts behind what we're doing in this class Now. The first thing is all about process, not perfection. This is the most important concept of bear in mind when we're carrying out a mindful drawing activity. The important thing is that the process of drawing is the point, not the end result, not perfection or jumping. Had to think about the end result. Goes right out off the window. Never worry about the end results what it would look like, what the Finnish Man Dollar is going to look like, or whether you've got some wobbly lines or it's not completely symmetrical. None of this matters. You want to get totally caught up in the present moment alone and let go of what you are actually drawing. Now, when you're drawing in this class, it's important to let go on. Observe the senses so you want to pay attention. Toe a love your senses as you draw observing but not judging what is there and perhaps she as you hold the pencil, you notice each of your senses one by one. So your site what you see smell, touch, hearing and taste. For example, watch the thickness of the lines being drawn. Listen to the sound that the pencil makes as it moves across the page. Notice the sensations off your fingers, holding the pencil, the speed which you draw, or the light or the warmth in the room. How hard you hold the pencil. Just don't judge yourself if your pen or your hand wobbles is your drawing or you accidentally make a line you didn't intend. Teoh just move on to the next line. So the whole point is to simply observe your drawing. Observe what you're doing and there is no right or wrong. There was just experience. Now the other thing I'm going to urge you to do is to slow down by slowing down the way that you draw you. Give yourself time and space to fully observe and notice rather than rushing to reach the end. This will also encourage you to slow down your breathing rate. When we slow down the breath, we start to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, which we call the rest and digest system and this system is responsible for relaxing the body and helping with deeper recovery and rest. So when you begin drawing one of these little Mount dollars, it doesn't actually matter if you finish it in one sitting. So I've got lots of these here that are in different stages of their progression. Some of them are just pencil lines. Some of them have got pen, and some are waiting for color to arrive. So what often have two or three designs on the go at once? And sometimes I'll spend sort of 10 minutes just drawing these sorts of foundation lines from drawing the circles and foundation lines for maybe 345 or even six man dollars. And that would be me done for the session. So there is no right and wrong on really, really do not put pressure on yourself to finishing anything. I certainly wait, so please don't do that yourself, either, really do enjoy the process or during these mandalas, um, on the final concept I want to talk about is quantity, not quality. Another sounds ought. But when we approach drawing in a mindful way, drawing as being a mindful tasks, it's better to do little bits regularly. Now. Mindfulness is really hard to do for two hours straight for a long period of time, but still a few seconds of ferment, few minutes. It's incredibly achievable on this, therefore takes the pressure off you having to allocate a special time or go to a particular place to go into your drawing. No need. You just keep a little pouch like this of all your materials on you. So here I keep my pencils. My drawing on either keep a sketchbook or happy is little bits of paper with my men dollars order. But my pence saw all the little bits that I need in here. You can keep all of this with you, and then when you've got five minutes, you open your power to get your tools out, and you can sit and do a little bit of drawing of your mandalas. So some people try this on the train to work and they're commuting. It might be just after breakfast. Some people do this in the lunch breaks or the tea breaks, or even just before bed is really nice. So whenever you have a little bit of time, maybe get out this activity, this mindful drawing activity and just, you know, in drawer, doing a little bit more on one or two of your man dollars. So a little daily, mindfulness, little daily, bit of drawing in this manner can go a long way to de stressing the mind and also boosting your creativity. 4. Tools and Materials: they're actually just a few simple tools and materials that you need for this class, many of thes you have already, most of mine fit into a handy pouch just like this one here, kind of a five sized, maybe 15 by 20 centimeters, or sort of five by 10 inches, like and carry this around with me. I have a selection of essential materials and tools, the ones that fit into the pouch and come around with me everywhere. On a few additional extras. It's all talking through them. One by one, it's the first thing that is essential for this class is a simple pencil. Andi, I would probably ask you to find a hard pencil, so one that has something like an H on its you want an H or A to H three h four h so pencil that is on the harder scale rather than a soft pencil, such as in a B pencil to be three b. The reason I like an H pencil is that it produces a really crisp fine line, so that when we are drawing things like our foundation lines here, we get a really light fine line that doesn't smart rather than a very thick, sketchy soft line that would smudge when we go over with things like our ink pen marks here . So in a church hard pencil And of course you want to make sure it is sharp, so a pencil sharpener comes in handy. We will also need and a razor for when we rub out our pencil lines, one to become to sort of finishing off almond. Others so he could see, is an example of one more. I've actually rubbed off the pencil lines already. Okay. The other thing that's essential for doing many Mandela's is a set of compass is Andi. This is something you can buy very easily from a station in short bookstore will cost you. Maybe a pound or two on this enables us to draw accurate circles. It takes the guesswork out of it. It makes it quick. It makes it easy, so you don't have to think if you want to get started and you don't have something like a set of compass is, you can, of course, use circular objects to draw around, such as coins or small cups. More plates. Anything circular and small will work it just might be a little bit more awkward than using . A very simple set of compass is now what I also like to use for drawing my mini man dollars as you can perhaps see here is ink pens, and this is very much a personal preference. Currently, the ones that I'm using are these unique pin pens on Guy Have a selection of them. I have very fine ones, not 0.5. I have no point. Eso no, but not five. I have not put one more point to I have a range. The ones that I use the most are my not point run and not point to for doing these types of mandalas that I'm going to explain in this class. And C may not have these exact pens. That's absolutely find it doesn't matter. I also quite like these pig mur micron fine liners. And again they come in a nice range. Andi, I'm not going to say specifically you have to use it, not put one or not point this. I'm just going to say use what you have. Enjoy what you have on use what you personally enjoy using. Um Derwent Also do a really nice pack of pens, these line maker ones. So maybe try looking at these sorts of pens now. A quick note on these pens is you want your pens to be permanent. So if you look on the UNIP in one's, it says water and fade proof. It's important to have fade proof and waterproofing ink pens because when we come to coloring almond dollars later on, so during one of the later videos. So let's have a look at something like this I will have used here watercolor pencils. I'd have colored it in with pencil and then used water and a brush to activate the paints and make them stand out. Now, if our pens are not waterproof, they would have smudged all your beautiful line. Work will have sort of disappeared or smudge on what worked quite well. So if you're going to be working with color, which is quite fun to do, but again, you don't have to. Then I would suggest using a permanent marker pens permanent ink pens to make sure that your lines stay in place. It can also be handy to have a rule of any sort of straight edged something will work. Perhaps a protractor. Now, these tend to be my essential things. That AIPAC, in my case, my fine line upends my pencil a razor sharp inner instead of compasses. And then, of course, my paper or my sketchbook. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about paper on, and you could spend a lot of time researching paper. Andi looking for the best quality. But I don't want getting the right paper the right tools to be a barrier to you. Starting now, I use a variety of different things on very strangely. Sometimes I find that when I buy something cheap like a very cheap sketchbook, I actually drawing it more. I feel less afraid of it on. I seem to draw more and more and more. So this is an example of a square sketch, but that I fought for just a couple of pounds from a local shop. And I have used this purely for man dollars. So you can see in here I have a range of mandalas pencil based pen based on, and I've also got some colorful ones as well. So this paper is nothing. Expressions, maybe 80 to 90 GSM I would recommend getting a sketchbook on. If you're using water colors or watercolor pencils, pencils that require activating through adding water, then I would certainly recommend getting a thicker paper. I personally like a smooth paper rather than a sort of watercolor textured paper, because I like my fine lines to be nice and clear on a watercolor paper has a textured effect on for me. That's not quite what I like. So sketchbooks a great you can get them like this so you can get them part back. I've got number of hard work ones, actually. So let me grab Mawr is another hard back. I have a thing about working in square, which for me is really great because we're working in circular form on here. I've got some very free, hand drawn mandala type shapes, which had just done with pen and again. This is a sketchbook, this ease cartridge paper 140 GSM. This is 140 by 140 millimeters, and it says on the outside, it's an all media one, so it's seats, pencil, pen and ink and paint. So this might be something worth looking out. Is looking for these little symbols to make sure that the paper that you use will take the materials that you use. But again, if you've got cheap paper, if you've got a four paper, any sort of paper will work. So these just some examples of some Freehand ones. But this is a nice hard back one. I do like a hardback book because it protects your work so it doesn't get bent or damaged. The hardback actually protects it on. These sketchbooks fit quite nicely into little pouches, but you can also work on small pieces of paper or small pieces of card. Andi, the mandalas that we've got here, just down to the right hand side here, have been created on little pieces of card. You could buy these already precut. You confide just nice pieces of white cards. These are quite fix it again. They they just maintain their quality. They don't get degraded or damaged or holes in them. From when you start putting additional layers on, it's lovely, smooth card. It takes the pen. It takes the pencil very well. So these are artist tiles. I think they're around sort of 10 8 10 centimeters big. So they're not very big a tool, and that's something that we will come back. Teoh slightly later on is just talking about what sort of size we're going to be working on because I don't want us to be working very big. So I mean, I have some lovely sketchbooks that is sort of this size. These are maybe because that that's probably 20 centimeters squared. These are lovely sketchbooks. These are more skin ones. I love mosque in sketchbooks. But I would say this is probably a little large for our project, although of course, you can always work on a large piece of paper with a small design. In between the Mac, you see lots of lovely space. If, for example, we did a little let's say this is seven or eight centimeter, Mandela, will this lovely space around that actually looks quite lovely too. So I'm not going to restrict you, Teoh. You may only use small paper. Big paper is fine. Whatever paper you have ever sketchbooks paper as long as it's lovely and smooth. Obviously this paper you can see here is little cream on this here is very pure, crisp white personal preference. OK, so you want some sort of paper or sketchbook to be working on? I like having both. I work on both, So those I would say, your essential tools. There are also what I would call your non essential tools, a couple of little bits and pieces. And first of all, I've got this lovely little It's from Tom Bow and it's a little pencil, a razor that's got a little detail here. So it means that you can rub out very fine lines a bit like if your razor was a pencil. So I find this very handy for removing tiny little details rather than a big rubber that might smudge other things. So this is a handy tool if you want to have it. I also quite like having a bulldog clip. A bulldog clip is really handy for when you're working on a sketch book, you can open the sketchbook. You can clipped the pages using the clip, and it just holds that open so you can work without all these pages coming back on you there a couple of handy things. Now I'd like to talk about color now, in the later videos within this class, I'm going to talk about adding color to your pieces. Andi, you can do this in any way that you prefer. I would suggest if you're coming to this for the first time, and you haven't done much of this that you simply use what you have in your art stash at home. This might be colored pencils. It might be felt pens in my bees and basic acrylic or watercolor paints. Whatever you have, we can experiment with and we can use to color in our Mini Mandela's. And at that little sprinkling of color, I will just share a couple of things that I personally use and I will be using and demonstrating in the latter videos just so you can see where we going with this. So, first of all, I've got some lovely watercolor paints, and I simply have ah, small pallet. These aren't too expensive to buy. You can buy them in art shops. You get a range of colors and you usually get a paintbrush. So this is a paintbrush that comes out. I just need a little tub of water. You can dip is in the water, and then you can start using the colors, so that's a really great way of adding color. It's also portable these my portable water color paint, So I use this foot my mini band dollars. There was a lot of brush pen. I love brush pens. There's some examples here. Brush pens usually have a fine line at the top, which again you produce for creating your lines of your Mandela on. They usually have a brush end here, which creates a lovely thick mark, and you can use it to color in. So let me quickly grab a sketch, but can also show you what sort of marks please make. So if you've got, let's say, lovely, designed to say that's a piece of your Mandela, you've got some lovely designs like this. Whatever they might be, I'm just drawing some ink outlines. You can then use your brush pens, just sort of coloring, and these give sort of quite a different effect. And then the other ends. Let me get will do the same sort of lines. But of course you can work in color so you don't have to just have black and white ink pens . You can play with all this lovely color brush pens or something that I quite enjoy playing with. Of course you've got about it. Pens. You have coloring pencils. Something that I love. Love, love our watercolor pencils. My favorite type are my intense Derwent pencils. I got lovely pack of them here. They work exactly the same as watercolor pencils. I'm just gonna own from them up on d show you. So here is my lovely selection. So you've got simply a They're basically a coloring pencil, so you just color in, you fill in on, then you get a paintbrush. Just you could use that same watercolor brush that was in the PAC earlier. Dip it in water and you can activate the pence of these are really great. You don't need a victim like this. Although you could get bigger tended. It's very exciting to go station or Hindu art supply shopping. You just need a few colors. Perhaps so These are a really good thing that I love to work with. But as they said, anything that makes color you can use for your man dollars on I don't want materials to be a barrier to you starting If all you have is a pencil on a piece of paper you could start. Or if you even just got a buyer. Oh, or single pen, you can get started. As I said, these are essentials pencil sharpener, rubber, couple of ink pens and a compass on a bit of paper. And you're good to go. The other stuff you can build up with time as you really get into doing your man dollars. So I hope that makes sense on we'll move on to continue with e further fit. Videos on DWI will get started with creating our man dollars. I'll see you in the next video. 5. About Preparing the Body and Mind: hello again. So before I introduce the mandala drawing techniques of this class, I believe that it is also very important to pay little attention to the physical body, especially the neck, shoulders, wrists and hands that he used went drawing to carrying out some very simple mobility exercises will help to relieve any tension from these areas. Relax the mind and help settle you so that you are ready to carry out your drawing. It will put you in the right frame of mind and make entering into a mindful state easier because you are checking in with your body and how it feels before starting. And we will also pay attention to slowing down the breath, which is something I mentioned a little earlier. Therefore, I will now demonstrate very short sequence of movements that you can use pariah Teoh Um, drawing as a way to warm up and relax. Um, these are derived from very simple yoga practices and could be done from a seated position . I'm sat on a chair at the moment, for example, on you can revisit these movements at any time. For example, if you if you're drawing and you find yourself getting carried away and your neck and your shoulders start to creep up here will begin to wake. You can just return to these movements and have another little practice to just reconnect with the body and those senses and release any tension. And so I'm going to demonstrate this as a sequence. But of course, you don't have to do these routines as a sequence you can pick a movement on. Give it a go when you need it on one final note before we start. Of course, if you have any neck shoulder injuries, do check with your GP before doing any of these things, just in case they aggravate any pre existing conditions or injuries. But they're all fairly simple things that hopefully most of you should be able to join along with me. 6. Exercises to Prepare the Body and Mind: So before you begin your mindful mound dollar drawing, I just want to show you a few basic exercises you can do for your head, neck, shoulders and hands. Andi, to slow your breathing down to get you in the right frame of mind and to loosen up the body and release any tension. So I'm sitting at a desk and I am ready to do some drawing in a moment. I'm just going to begin by taking a few slow breaths in through the nose. Breathing in. I'm breathing out with every exhale I'm relaxing Now. We can do this to account of six so we inhale for 654321 Exhale 654321 Inhale 654321 Exhale 65 for 321 and continue counting in your own head, inhaling for six, exhaling for six, making the breaths full and deep and slow. Do one more round of this and then we'll start moving. So what we're going to do is we're going to inhale and gaze up to the ceiling on Exhale, gaze away down to the floor, drawing gender, chest and again inhaling looking up lifting gym, exhaling, gazing away Do this one last time inhaling exit kid and I bring the head all the way back to center Lovely from here was gonna release my hands down to my lab, Take my shoulders all the way up to the years Great big sign and again on one more time. And one more thing for the shoulders. Some really simple shoulder rolls trying to take very big, exaggerated movements so that what we're doing is really we're activating muscles, releasing all tension and just let your mind stay focused on the slowness of your breath on the sensations through the shoulders in the body. Fantastic. I will release that. They're they're going to look at the hands were to do something with hands. When we draw, we use the hands and fingers. So I'm just going to stop every slowly, circling the wrists in one direction, a breathing steadily, as I do say, I'm in change directions, but I can hear my risk doing little cracks and creaks, but I'm just moving slowly on. Then I'm just going to open and close the hands a few times. Just press the thumb onto each of the finger. So just a few gentle movements and you can do these very slowly and just be aware the sensation of touch through the fingers finally shaking hands, theorists, the arms out kid. So those are a few basic exercises that you can do to release tension toe, wake up the body and prepare for your mindful drawing. 7. Drawing Foundation Lines: when we start drawing. Mindful Mandela's, I like to begin with some simple foundation lines that I draw using a hard H pencil that I mentioned in one of the earlier videos. Now these lines provide the structure off the mandala and take the guesswork out of creating shapes that have balance and simmer symmetry. For this class, I will show you one simple way to set up your foundation lines, dividing the circling eight sections on as many concentric circles as you want. This simple method fits in with our many mindful approach here. Of course, if you're familiar with this method, you can experiment and change the way you start. So we often prepared several Mandela's at a time when I am working, just like I've done here have done the foundation lines for several off them. But you can, of course, start with one following along and go from there. You'll need a piece of paper or sketchbook. Go to sketchbook, care to demonstrate as well. You'll need a pencil a rula on your set of compasses, which also needs to have a hard H pencil in it as well. So, talking about paper, I do find it easier to work with square paper, whether this is an individual piece of paper such as this or whether it is a square sketchbook, these and my preferred ways of working on the reason is that it makes it easier to find the central point. The very center, the middle off your circle. So you conceive him some a man dollars. Here we have a central point from which everything works out the same with all of the's ones. There are different designs, but they start from a central point on Dwork outwards. And this is the first thing we need to find when we beginning almond dollar work. So I'm working in a square sketchbook such as this one here. I simply draw a line from corner to corner off the sketchbook. And here is my central point from which I'm working. Okay, as you can see, is I turn the page. I've actually done this several times in a row. It's that I could begin straight away with working on my Mandela's when I opened my sketchbook. So let's do this on a small piece of paper here. Now you notice also have a cutting that here this is handy because it has lots of straight lines on it on when you're working on individual pieces of paper, this makes the process of finding the central points, Andi drawing your guidelines nice and easy. So let's start by finding this central point, I'm just gonna take my little ruler and I'm gonna draw, just like we saw in the sketchbook from corner to corner. Now, this paper is a little bit, but it's got these little corners clipped off. So I'm just taking my best guess. I'm not going to get too het up about it being out a millimeter or two here and there there because this is a mindful, um, experiment into drawing and creativity. I'm not going to get het up. And these are no accurate computer drawn images. These are hand drawn designs. So once I've got this, I have my central point, which is just here right in the middle. Now I'm going to divide all off our mandalas for the purpose of this class into eight on. The reason I'm going to have the eight sections is that it's the easiest way off setting up your your base, your foundation lines you'll see in a second. So what I'm gonna now don't do is drew a line across vertically on a line across horizontally, and I'm just going to line up my paper with one of the lines on the cutting that pop the ruler across the central point on, sort of lining up against thes lines. So I out during this, but I but my cutting mat just gives me a handy guide. They didn't have the cutting that it is not a problem at all. I very often don't have a cutting that underneath. When I'm doing this stage. I just kind of have a little look here, see if it's roughly straight. If I think it is there, we go on there. You can see we have the foundation lines, a bit like our spider web that we're creating where the spider works and spirals outwards thes of the foundation lines that we need to begin. So that's the first stage nice and simple, so you can see why square piece of paper is handy because you can just drop from corner to corner. If you don't have a square piece of paper. What you can do is create a square on the paper. If you have something like a set square, these types of things or even just a pure ruler, you can measure a square on your page and then work from there. Okay, So what do we do next? Well, what I'm gonna do a show you some examples off what we do next. So what we do next is we start to draw. Our circles are concentric circles. Eso here is an example of one idea slightly earlier today you can see I've got 12345 different circles spiralling outwards. Some of them are far apart. Some of my close together completely Doesn't matter now in this one here, I've done circles spiralling outwards that roughly the same distance. I have not measured them. And this is important. I just want to let go off. Sort of worrying about thes being inaccurate, distance apart. It doesn't matter. And actually all notice here. I've got a little bit wrong. The compass moved as I was doing it. So this is where our little handy razor comes in. I can just get rid of that little line just in case I get confused when I'm drawing. In case that distracts me, I can just get rid of that additional line that isn't required. Okay, Um so I think I just like to get started and show you how I do these now. So let's go back to this. Our nice, divided into eight sections. Piece of card. I'm going to grab my compass with my h pencil. Um, I'm going to stick the point right in the centre, off the circle on this part. I like to do completely randomly. I do not pre plan wall of my mandalas, a unique, that different. They kind of go with the flow of the mood I'm in. Sometimes they're very straight lines. Sometimes they're more botanical or curvy. I literally just whatever is in my head just comes out, OK, sometimes these dots lines, curving marks, arcs it's totally different. And the same applies to these foundation lies. I'm just gonna pop the and shall up into the compass here on DPA Pithy pencil. I'm just gonna do a circle where wherever this compass happens to bay Now I'm just gonna turn the but I find it sometimes you turning the paper on the campus but inferior. You toys. All the compass from here. Okay, I've drawn a first circle. Great. I'm gonna change the setting on the compass. Just make it a bit smaller. Pop it in and go again. Draw another circle mines just moved. Does happen sometimes the M cutting my is quite handy here because it gives you a base. Just beware if you're doing this on a beautiful wooden dining room table that you don't stick a little pin in and damage your table. So I've now got a couple of circles. I'm gonna change the compass setting again. I think I want an even bigger circle around the edge. And this might be my very edge one. I'm just gonna draw another circle here. Um, right. I'm gonna do another one. So this process is very random. I think this is where you can just take a few deep breaths. It's kind of watch what you're doing. Listen to the sound off the pencil across the paper, and in my case, I twiddle the paper, so I'm allowing the paper to move and I'm watching. That is quite hypnotic. No, I think that's quite nice. That's a good starting point for me. So I'll leave that one there so you can see, even just with three examples here, the foundation lines all look very different. And sometimes they might look similar to others. That's absolutely fine. So I'm gonna have a guy do you another one? Um, just to show you the same process again. So I'm just gonna draw We got too many man dollars here. Just gonna draw one there on. I'm gonna go a little bit bigger. So this really is just giving yourself a base to work from. I don't think too much about this. And as you can see, I've done two of thes within the space of just what a couple of minutes so it doesn't take long. So what I often do is draw several of these in one sitting because I got a pencil out. I've got the compass out. I'll just draw several of these in one go and then next time I come to do stuff, I might do the actual Drori do the next stage slightly, So that looks cute. So I think that's fine for some different examples off our foundation lines. Now, a couple of extra things I want to mention sometimes what I quite like doing ease. Creating two circles very close together. So you can see here on this one. I've got two circles very close together. Now, if I bring out some of these slightly more drawn man dollars, you can see here. Got two lines very close together. Andi here again, I've got a couple of lines very close together, quite like this. Double double line effect. Okay, so when you're drawing, sometimes do some very close together and sometimes do some lines very far apart. Sometimes they're very evenly spaced now. What you can also do is continue to use the compass to draw additional circles on to your mandala. So this is an example of one idea just a moment ago before starting this video. So I've created my cross lines I've created my concentric circles on. Then you'll notice here. Right in the middle. There are an additional four circles. One to three four. Okay, on these have given me this sort of leaf like pattern. So if I show you this one you can see here there is an additional circle. An additional circle on additional circle, an additional circle and then I've played with that. Okay? And again, I think this one as well would have had these additional circles created all around, as has this one here. This is very similar as a starting structure to this one. You can see here, you've got the leaf and you can see here where the circle has crossed this one. You've got this leaf shape in the middle so you can continue adding circles around your Mandela or even semi circles. This one here has circles around the edge. I think this one would have had semi circular shapes going through here as its traditional starting design. So let me just quickly demonstrate this so that you can see exactly what I mean. So let's take this one here. I'm going to grab my compass. I'm just gonna place this point somewhere on one of these cross lines. It can be the straight one or the diagonal one. I'm gonna pop this in. I'm gonna line it up, perhaps with this other one, and then just draw thing circle hit and then going to move this to the opposite side. So this is where you have to just carefully count on through all the same again. And I'm gonna come to the said I worked from the diagonal, so I'm gonna work on the other two diagonals, find the points drool this little circle find the point drool, this little circle And so you can see I have these four circles on these leaf shapes Don't join the center. They crossed somewhere different whether you touch these lines here. So even something very simple like this creates a very different starting structure from what we work from to create our final mandalas. Okay, so what I recommend you do next is you get your piece of paper, you draw your cross lines, your horizontal line, your vertical line on your diagonal lines, and you start to draw your concentric circles. And if you want to, just one option drew a few additional little circles with your compass. Okay, on that is your foundation lines complete 8. Practice Shapes and Lines: Welcome back in this video. I want to just show you how simple some of the lines and shapes are that I use in these mini, mindful man dollars. And I'll break these down for you to practice is a separate exercise and then show you how I use them in the mandalas themselves. So let me just turn the page on one of my sketchbooks here. This page here on this was me playing with a selection off the different pens, ink pens that I use and that I mentions in the tools and Materials video earlier in the class on, I've got three different brands of pens, all of which I use regularly. And I was just playing about with some of thesis imp a lines and shapes that will use in arm and dollar. So I started with my dough into graphic line makeup ends, which are these ones here. I started with the finished one. I had worked up to the thickest and just using the pen, I drew some simple circles, little curvy arc shapes, some ciggies acts, straight lines and then these little leaf shapes. And this in itself was a really relaxing, mindful exercise because I simply opened my sketchbook. I lined up my pens one by one in order took the lid off. I just worked through the exercise on. I did this with my graphic line maker pens. I did it with my UNIP in fine Linus. I did it with ease. Pickman Micron pens as well on de Noel. The same thickness is there? Well, slightly different. I literally just grabbed what I had the time. So if you don't have the same exact pens, it honestly really doesn't matter if one of the things you have is Vairo or whatever pens that you've boards, or if it's the brush pens that I've got to find near been color on the end that I demonstrated in the tools and materials section. When you do this with all the different colors that you have, that could be really lovely as well. So that's a really lovely exercise to just get used to handling the pens, because if you're not somebody that usually works with ink pens, it can seem a little bit daunting. Toe work straight onto your foundation lines and get cracking with doing mandala work when you're not really comfortable with using ink pens. So just creating these simple circles arc, shapes, zigzags, little lines, even dots can be good. You don't have to use these exact marks. You might have something else that pops into your head. But I'd certainly have ago doing an exercise like this in a sketchbook of some description or in a piece of paper experimenting with your tools and materials. So have a go at this. Now. What I also want to do is show you these marks in the Mandela's to show you where they are used and just show you some of the most common Marx, Andi, um, sort of design elements or shapes that I use when creating mandalas, and it will basically give you a vocabulary of marks so you don't have to think when you're doing your mandalas, you can go. Do I want a circle an arc straight line, adopt a zigzag and then you can think, OK, I'll use this here, and I use that there when it just becomes a relaxing, creative exercise, and something that I certainly often do when I'm working is I will have a collection of my other mandalas in front of me, which, of course, when you very first start out, you're not going to be able to do. But as you progress and as you get your collection of Vandals, even kind of flick through and think, Well, I like this. Maybe I'll try that on this one. It's just a way of giving you some inspiration. So first of all, let's have a little look for some circles. So here we have some simple circles. I don't think I have many six acts in these particular ones, but let me look in here. See if I can find a few six acts, see some circles here. I've got some circles from bigger to smaller six acts of his exact exactly circles there again on a lick. Six Next, like, actually used too often in my but they're really good use off sort of straight lines, two straight lines. I do use quite a bit, and you can see here I've created between these two circles just some simple straight lines , and again here you can just see this some simple straight lines coming this way. You can see straight lines running up here on straight lines, running up here on straight lines. Generally, I do use quite a bit on Di do hand draw these. I don't use a ruler, so I will simply, you know, pick a point. So let's say we've got um Yeah, I could do something, like from here and from here to hear Michael do this in Penn, actually, so you can see it better is I could draw a straight line all the way up to here on a straight line away up to here. So it's just a very simple at all. Is the straight line okay? And again, I could you straight lines. Um, coming down here. You can just start to see straight lines. Simple, simple, simple. But there a good way of using them. Okay, now, arc shapes, curve, shapes. Those are also really, really helpful. And I use the's a lot, so you can see here on the outside, have done little curve shapes here. Okay, you can see also, there's lots of different sort of curves joining different points here. Andi, there's lots of different curve shapes joining here on. I've got kind of curve shapes on top of curve shapes. There. Okay. Dots or something. I sometimes use just a simple dot, dot, dot dot are sometimes run that a long line, or I'll fill in a space. So, like here are filling a space to almost shade, but without shading. I'll do that and he can see my sort of arc shapes. So when you break down the mandalas individually, although when you first look at it can seem incredibly complicated, they're actually really know. They're very, very simple. Curves, lines, dots, arcs and sometimes leaf shapes. Leaf shapes, a quite nice shape, but they're basically a curve. Um, so I would I would say, if you have an opportunity, if you got a couple of minutes, open your sketchbook or even take one of these little pieces of paper if you're working on paper and just practice some of these marks separately and take this as an individual separate, mindful exercise and let me show you this on a piece of paper, I want to take it away from the mandala shape and just do this as a It was a mindful exercise, So maybe try just doing some a little circles, maybe work away across. Just watch as you're doing so don't forget that we're doing this for mental wellness, for relaxation, for staying in the present moment and letting go off anything else. I'm literally watching the circles as they're created, and although it's the same movement that I'm creating, they're all slightly different, their unique and that's great. Let's look at doing some little lines, do some lines. I'm taking slow breaths. Maybe I'm breathing in for accounts of 65 full, three to one. Exhale 654 32 Once I'm just slowing the breath down, let's look at six acts. Let's look at some tools exacts said part off Mandela. Creating in this way is pattern making, finding ways of creating patterns. And all we're doing when we were working in the mandala structure is that we're putting it into a circular structure. I'm gonna do a little. It's the exact slightly East based out. I don't even if you dio sewing or use exact stitch in a sewing machine, you've got different settings. You can make the stitches really small up and down like this, or you can make the stitches thin, very close together, like a satin stitch so you can dual difference types of six acts, even though this is the same movement, some of them it'll short close together. Same comes with arches and curves and arcs. The's are used along the time to run from different points on the concentric circle. So where the concentric circles join the cross lines? This is where I dropped her. So I drew a couple of curves here, or I'll draw one big curve here. And, of course, whenever I go in one section, it gets repeated across the sections. OK, zigzags could be here. Obviously, this isn't a real mental. I'm just showing you where things have to rent a car. Arcs could be really spaced out. They could be really shallow arcs, and these are great movements to practice. It's so good to get your hand on your I coordinated and familiar with these particular movements because you'll use thumb a lot. You want them to be smooth as you're working, and I might just join these up in the other direction. That's where those leaf shapes came from. I was just playing okay, and they're not all identical. Does it matter? Not particularly, quite like it, and there's gonna move to a thick not 0.8 pen on. I'm just going to draw some little dots. These dots, because the pen is bigger, Great, slightly bigger Does great. Okay, so that just gives you some ideas and some shapes that you can sort of play with. I have used in some of my man dollars, I Sometimes you sort of more floral based sort of shape. So Well, do you and leave within a leaf or I'll do a little curly, swirly thing like this. They're quite nice. Sometimes I do very sort of plant based type things like this. And this is where you can sort of make yours very individual, very different. Um, whatever goes really triangular shapes acquit nyse thes happen quite a lot. Triangular shapes. So I would say, Just have a play with getting comfortable with mark making with your ink pens. Um, I like these sort of upwards of lines that fill space is quite a lot as well. He's a good um, and then you can if you've done this in the sketchbook, you've got it is a record. Or if you've done this in a piece of paper, you can just pop it up here And when we move onto the next video in the class, you conserve. Use this as a reference guide, Teoh. Okay, I've got this part of my mandala. Maybe I was exact here, or maybe a lot in a little swirly Werleigh, that kind of thing. So this is a really handy exercised practice, your mark making to practice, getting comfortable with your pens and and sometimes just deciding which pens you enjoy. Um, I have a particular preference for thin pens. I like the 0.1 not point to and even the really, really thin No point No. Five. Others like to use more chunky, thicker pens of that works brilliantly for them. And again, there is no right. There is no wrong. It's what? Whatever feels good in your hands, whatever is tactile and correct for you. And don't forget, you could always practice in your pencil as well. So you could practice some of your marks some of your shapes just in pencil as well, just as a way of practising your marks. If you haven't got your pens toe hand or you've got is a pencil, just practice and pencil to Okay, so have a go. It's a mark making separate. If you're working on a man dollar on, I will rejoin you in the next video. Have fun. 9. Drawing Lines and Shapes in Pencil: I have here a few man dollars where the foundation lines have been created already. I will pick one or two of these to start with to start adding some simple lines and shapes . Now I start from the center, and I work out with generally, just like a spider creates his work from the center and working outwards. In this video. I'm going to work in pencil, but I very often work straight in ink pen at this stage within companion. Obviously, commit your lines permanently from the start, which actually really Likas a mind for technique because you just go with the flow. There's no rubbing out is no Rome. It's just going straight for it. However, Sometimes it's nice to experiment with pencil and then go over with ink pen afterwards, and especially if this is the first time you've done this type of drawing. Working in pencil first can be a great way to build your confidence on. Then take the ink pen as a separate stage, which is how I'll demonstrate this class. The bear in mind either way, is great. Now, before you start this stage, you may wish to go back and revisit the video on preparing for mindful drawing. Taking a few slow, deep breaths, I'm making some simple movements for the neck, shoulders and hands just waking up the hands, the neck. I'm just preparing the body in mind for this stage of the process, so you are relaxed before you start. Your mindset is so important in making this a mind for drawing activity rather than it all being about creating a piece of art where you think about the end result or worry about the end result. I have many man dollars where are, perhaps don't like the shape or have gone wrong, and I've just filed them away in a sketchbook has experience. This is all part of the process. It is the process, not perfection. The process. This stage of doing it is really important, not what they actually look like at the end. Okay, so that's grab a pencil and let's get going. I'm going to start wears. Let's start with this one here, and I'll clear these two out of the wait for now and will return to their is in a minute. So, as I said, I'm going to start in the center as a few different options for how we start for you. Different shapes for what we could use. So I think what I would like to do is draw a tiny little circle by hand in the middle. Andi oversea I'm working in pence are gonna press as hard as I can to get a good, strong line so you can see it. I normally would work very light so that I can rub these lines out easily. So I'm just gonna start to ring some sort of a little curvy, I suppose. Star spiky lines from my little mini circle spiralling outwards and what you might be up to see here. I've got my example. Um, practice patterns in front of me to look at and refer t for ideas and also just off screen , I've got a little row of mandalas in front of me again. Just for idea is an inspiration on what you notice I'm doing is once I've made a mark in one of the sections, I turn the mandala around and create it in a way the other sections on this is very much a muscle memory. What I tend not to do is do this and then turn. I tend to move the paper so that I'm doing the same movement up and down and up and down in each of the sections. Crazy. That's my sort of starting point. So from here, I think what I'll do is I'll durable a curve shape, find a drawer curve shape here, joining these points again, turning the paper during a calf, turning the paper, joining a car, kind of saying that now I'm in a little hypnotic trance, turning the paper during a cast. This is where it starts to get nice and relaxing. This is where it's nice and repetitive. And I'm just strengthening the lines so that hopefully you guys can see it. Okay. Okay. Now, I think what I'd like to do here is work with some more curves. So I think I'm gonna take this point here in this point here and draw a curve here, and I'm gonna work that again away around, and I'm not drawn this mandala before. This is a totally new one. I'm not copying any of the ones that are here. I just like to use them as inspiration for you different lines that I could make. It's quite nice. And then I'm gonna draw the matching line down the other side, turning the paper, drawing a line, turning the paper, drawing the line. Now, the nice thing about working in pencil is that once you've drawn all these lines on, do you continue to work all the way out to the edges? You can choose which lines you actually then draw in in pen, so I don't always go over the pencil circles in pen. Sometimes I rub those out there. My guidelines. So your foundation lines are temporary. You could use them. So you can see here this this line, this circle here waas one of my compass drawn construction lines, and I'm just strengthen it because I'm actually going to use that. How much you gonna use that line? Okay, I think I might put little circle in here little dot around all of these and something that I do quite often. He's if I use on my teeth in the center, I'll use that motif again towards the outside just cause I think it looks quite nice in it , and it matches. So I tend to sort of work from the center all the way outwards. And then I go back and I'll add on a second layer of detail just to sort of add in an extra layer. My will break that down in a second video. Okay, so I think what I might do here is create some curving leaf shapes. Let's do that Here, Do that here on each side again drawing the same curving leaf shape, turning the page, curved leaf shape and turning. And this was one of the foundation lines created in one of the earlier videos. So you might recognize it. It had the two lines quite close together there and then slightly separated lines it enjoying this down. Stein to really relax and slow my breath down. Fantastic. I quite like this. Um, sometimes another thing to remember is that you can always add in additional concentric circle. If you decide. Actually, want another one there. You can you can add that onto. So let me think are too long. And don't do a couple of little arc shapes here between each one I'm gonna do to between h one empty. Now, if you're doing this yourself at home or in your studio where if you work your outside your work, you're sitting down on a train. You might want to go a little slower. I'm trying not to go too slow, just so you can see how this comes together in a very quick, short space of time, kid. Now this too little lines here, I'm going to keep them, and I'm gonna draw in little lines. Okay, so that's what will happen. And I do that the ink pen stage. Right? So what else do I want to do? I think what I might like to do is draw another curve. Yeah, So I suppose this first stage is really me drawing in some of the big overall marks on D shapes. And you can see this He's not really taking to, you know, I'm coming up with this. Design is not taking too long. It's a sort of 5 10 minute process really on. And I just keep going, adding in lines as and when. And you can make thes simple so you could stop at this stage and go, Yeah, that's great. That's all. Done. All you could continue on and at in other marks and shape. So now I mentioned a moment ago that I repeat motif sometimes of these dots and circles, I'm going to put them in just above here. There are three shapes and again here so that that motif is repeated. I'm gonna about it away around on all eight sections. Okay, so our pieces are completely symmetrical from all sides and all designs. Okay, so I quite like that. I'm also gonna think Can I repeat this curvy sort of arc shaped? And I might repeat it here. But do you want to three little curves? 123 You're going to hear me now? Say 123 Lots of times. Eight times in fact, won t three so you can see the repetition won t three as we work around. No amount. Ah, 123123 No. So I think for this one, that is probably where I will leave that one as our initial lines in creating the man Darla and I I'm gonna take another. The one I'm gonna take this time is the one that we created with four additional circles are quite like this. It gives me four leaves in the center toe work um so I'm gonna strengthen that it first of all, I like those leaves there. Quite nice. Um, I'm gonna strengthen those leaves. I want those leave leaf shapes to show. I'm trying to press hard with my h pencil harder than I'd normally press say you can see on the video. Okay, I quite like those leaf shapes, but I might also do is create sort of another leaf coming up from here. Sort of a second leaf coming out lamb and oversee with with these mandalas that divided into eight. But you've still got the sort of cross lines, the diagonal lines. You still got fours to work with as well. So you can work with fours and eights in terms of reflection. So this one is quite different to this one in that I've got a four petal for petal shape. And where I've got the four circles, that's what's kind of creating this. And I've just had a glance up. I've seen these swirly were lease on this particular mandala, and I'm gonna borrow that and use it here. So I'm gonna draw a swirly whirly here on a swirly whirly here. And I only need to use four times cause I've only got this space on four sections off the mandala Crazy. I'm just gonna do that four times on already Thes are so different, so, so very different. Now I've got some nice little crosses where the's circles across the concentric lines here . So I think I'd actually like to make those sort of tall points that come out here and I'm gonna turns the opposite side Find those same cross points. So one technique I use of drawing little dot gives me markers from which to draw my curves from and to. That's sometimes where things can not go as planned. So sometimes what can happen? I'll show you what you can do is you might then draw this 12 here by accident to this one ends up being short of the knees. What I do in that situation if I'm in pencil, great. I could just get up, Didn't want that. Let me run out and I just got to hear. So that's where working in pencil can be helpful. If I was working in pen, all I simply do is say this line was here is I would draw the incorrect One around. Forfeits un end up with the double line on. I do this a lot. What? I'm working in ink pen. Andi, I do something. Not quite right. I end up with a double line or a different way of doing it. That's fine, Is good. So I'm gonna strengthen these circular shapes. I quite like thes I'm gonna strengthen those No. Is with circles created with the compass. No way. I'm going first faster than I would do this if I was doing it at home. Because what I would do is I would sort of stop. I look at the design. I take a breath. I don't want to do next. Wear on a drawer. Where? Don't want to put my pencil to paper. How is my hand feeling? How does this sound? Mikage. Okay, so that's looking quite nice. Quite different to you. The others. I think what I might do is this space here. So I think I might do some noodles arcs coming up out in those little spaces. I did three somebody to three hit three and three here. Okay, so let me think. What would I like to do next? I'm just deciding what of these lines are much you're gonna have. And I think I'm gonna have thes one's quite like these lines. They're quite nice, but I'm not going to use these lines inside the leaf are up those out later. Um, I also don't think I'll use thes lines. I'll just let voters go as well. Let those pass. But I will. I use this line here, so I'm gonna strengthen up. And these are just such decisions are making right here right now. I have not preplanned this. I never pre plan this. This is my fun relaxing, chilled out drawing. Okay, so, um, what I want to do next, Let's have a look. I think maybe what I'll do is I'll create line like this and this so that I've got a sort of pointy shape coming out. It's a slight curve. Might not be exactly the same on each side. Um, just just a slight, pointy, cov type dudar technical term that do, you know, like Sai. It was quite interesting shape. Um and then I'm also going to do around curvy shape that joins the same points. So I've gone from the same point to the same point, but with the different shapes. Just seeing what that does to it. A way around. Carrie. I was looking nice. And then on this outside, what would I like? That me see? So this is where I sort of think. Okay, what haven't I used yet? What shapes? Can I refer to you one here that I haven't quite used yet? Well, actually, I haven't used the's sorts of shape. So when I probably do at some point, and maybe in there is create the sorts of lines. That's quite nice. It's quite a nice shape. So do those here lovely. And I've got this very outside circle. So what I might do? He is actually just go with straight lines away around two straight lines. Crates will continue their away around gives me my basic construction lines my basic, um, motifs and outlines for me to work on further with ink in a moment. So grab you'll piece of paper where you have your foundation lines done from the previous video, grab your pencil and start using some off thes marks and patterns to start creating the basic shapes, marks and lines for your man dollars on. Have fun with this. Have fun. Really enjoy 10. Ink Demonstration 1: during inclines over the top of your pencil shapes is where your mandalas really start to come together. Therefore, what I will do next is work on top of these two mandalas here that have their basic lines and shapes already penciled in. At this stage, I also usually add in a few extra details and fine lines. You can see the sort of things I mean, he had little dots on the little lines here, basically working further into the pattern. As before, I go with the flow, and none of this is preplanned or copied. This is the exact process that I use myself for mindful drawing. In fact, sometimes I even skip the pencil schedule together on, go straight in with pen or just do a few simple lines and then grab a pen. So when choosing a pen to use, I will refer back here to the page in my sketchbook that I showed you earlier where I tested out some different thicknesses of pens. From here, I can select the lines I like and select a pen to use. Sometimes I used a thick pen like this one, sometimes a thin one. Sometimes I combine and use a mixture of different pen brands, types and thicknesses. And don't forget that you don't just have to use black pens. All different colors are available. For example, I have one here that I did with a C P a pen recently. Just a quick note here on these particular pens. These ones are permanent ink on. You can see this one says it's some water and fade proof pigment ink on. The reason I select thes is that should I choose to work further into the design using some sort of water based paint or pen? It means that the lines wait smudge. That means they're permanent. Whether I'm going to stay black and white or whether I'm going to add color, the lines won't might move. They won't smudge when we work into further. So for this demonstration, I'm going to select this pen, my uni pin not 0.1 pen so you can choose whatever pen you want when you come to doing this yourself. This is just one that I quite like using, right, So I've got my pen and I've got my pencil lines and I'm going to keep some of these other man dollars around just for inspiration on. I'm also going to have my little card that we drew earlier that shows some of the different marks that I could select from. It's quite a nice little reference to go t. So I'm just going to begin looking at the mandala on deciding where I want to strengthen with inclines. Sometimes I choose to go straight over all of the pencil lines. Other times I sort of play around. I add a little more, or I can sort of change the shape of a line if I decide, actually want this a bit bigger or smaller. So first of all, I pick out the elements that I definitely want to keep, and I do usually begin in the center. So what I'm going to do is just drew the central circle here. And then I'm going to work on this little star shaped item here on Just work again, a way out from the center, repeating in all eight sections off the man dollar, the points of this Eighth Star. Now it's important here also that you've you've got lots of different choices to make with your pencil lines. Which ones you keep and which ones you actually decide you don't want to use so very often these construction eyes the diagonal on horizontal and vertical lines. I don't keep them. I don't draw over them in pencil. I choose not to select Thies to go in ink. Other times I use them. I think actually these might enhance the design. So at the moment I'm selecting most of the pencil lines I made already. My pencil lines give me some lovely guidelines to work from. And I'm just working around, creating a lot off the lines that I wish to keep on my mandala. Now, the great thing about these types of ink pens is that they give you a lovely, consistent line. So your line will be the same thickness all the way around, which is a really lovely thing for working in this manner. If you're somebody that wants to experiments, perhaps it might be worth looking at things like your nip you the pens with a sort of nips on Do you could get bottles of ink and you can dip the new pope in the bottle of ink on what happens there is when you press the number of the pen down. You can get thick and thin, like the hardy press, the thick of the line and this concave you a very different quality of lying to this consistent line we have here. Um, so it's completely up to you what you use. I love these sorts of pens because it gives me a thin, steady, consistent line all the way around. But you might be somebody who just really loves that thick and thin quality. And don't forget with mindful, drawn with thinking about how it feels in your hand. The, um with slowing of the process down the texture of the paper. You know those ink pens with nips. They create a little scratchy sound, and they do also make you slow down because you have to pause, dip the mute in the ink and then come back. So there's some some really wonderful benefits and lovely benefits to the experience of drawing that pink can be gained through different pens and different things that you like. I like these pens. These work great from my hand for the style of drawing that I do. But it's important to choose what you like This is an activity you're doing for fun, for enjoyment, for relaxation, for wellness. So it's important that you enjoy the pens that you use on and that they give you You know what you want And you you don't get frustrated with, um um So, for example, with the depends where you dip the end in the ink, they can sometimes drip or stain your fingers within which, for some people can be annoying home for others. They don't mind it. And they love that experience in that quality of getting covered in ink. Great, lovely. So I'm beginning to work around. As you can see, I'm working from the center on. I'm just beginning to build on all my lines on your notice. Some of these lines I'm doing here these were the compass lines that were created to begin with, So I will be using those construction lines. But I'm probably not going to be using a lot off the horizontal vertical Andi exposed. This section lines the lines that divide the mandala into its different sections. Cool rates. I'm working around lovely, some quite liking this and this process is quite relaxing cause I've already got most of the shapes in, so I'm really just strengthening the lines. I'm really making the design pop out on the page. I am somebody that likes to turn the paper as I work. Um, I do turn if I have a sketch because Wells I will turn a sketchbook around. And it means that you can kind of do the same up and down, up and down, turn and then get up and down, up and down. There's a repetitive quality to it now. If you remember in this one, I'd started to think about doing little lines down here. When I did the pencil lines, I just marked a few of them. Where is now in my pen? I'm going to mark a lot of them and go away around like this. I'm just starting to add in a few more little lines and details. Now, when I'm doing this video here today, it's important to note that I'm probably working a little faster than I would normally work if I was sat at home with a piece of paper or a sketchbook in front of me on doing this on the reason I'm going that little bit faster is because this is a demonstration I'm oversee , drawing on talking and showing you my process and the things that I do. So for me, this is a little less mind for the normal, because I'm demonstrating on talking where, as always, if I did this at home, I would re breathing slowly. I would be taking my time watching the lines as they unfold, pausing every now and again to sort of step back to look, to see how this is going and just to sort of enjoy. And I suppose, also see shapes within the shape. See where the shapes joined, see where. If I look at it one way I see stars or if I look at another way, I see Arc shapes. So it's really just looking at what you're doing as well as doing what you're doing. Great. Now I do want to use some of thes construction lights. I think I'm just going to draw the's in through these leaf shapes. Um, so you can see I'm selecting to use this line here through the leaf, but I'm not continuing a way through the whole shape itself and expecting he's really looking lovely It's coming together now. Lovely. So I'm going to carry on working. I'm gonna draw these arc shapes here on this process. This this sort of many mount olive process, it gives you an opportunity to be creative, to relax. But there are also things that you can finish quite quickly. So you don't need hours and hours of time and you can just pick up. You can do a little bit. So, you know, for example, I had, you know, stuff to go and do you now and I need to pause there. I could just, you know, stop my drawing there and come back to it later. It's absolutely no problem. You've got to pick it up, put it down whenever or however you need Teoh. Lovely. I'm enjoying this. So I'm gonna carry on, and I'm going to strengthen these lines here. And sometimes when I'm doing this, you know, I don't always finish with a circle around the edge like this outside line here. Sometimes I will do something like this where I've got little arcs all around. So it's not a perfect circle. It's another example here where this little arcs all around and it's not just, you know, the edge of the circle itself that finishes. And here have got little six acts that are at the edge. Um, and then on this one, we've got little points coming outside of the line. And on this one, we've got these little sort of arc shapes that at the edge there doesn't have to be perfectly circular around the edge could be completely different. And I know it's, you know, these are these are mandalas. They are circular structured shapes. But if yours doesn't have any circles in it at all, that also doesn't matter either. These are foundation lines, and concentric circles are simply framework from which you can add in and work with pattern . It's, um, you know, you could work in straight lines on in squares to play with patterns. He doesn't really matter. These mandalas just give a beautiful framework for mindful drawing. It's like doodling in a circle, if that makes sense, doodling in a circular shape. Lovely. So we're really getting there with this one. Now I'm going quite pleased with how this is going, but also deny. Don't worry. If things don't look, the same will weigh around So this outside line here, here it joins here it misses is a couple of millimeter space. You know, that's fine. That doesn't matter, because this is a hand drawn mandala. It will not be perfectly symmetrical because you're doing this by that. It will have a hand drawn quality. Andi, you know, sometimes you look at them and your thing. Actually, it looks like you should be this way up, not that way up. And that's fine, too. Now, this one is going to be circular, and I do like this line here. It's not going to draw it away around. And once I've drawn this external line, I will come to the point where I've actually strengthened most of my pencil lines on This is the stage which I could decide. Okay, that's finished, Robert, my pencil lines. Or I actually want to add in a few more little details and shading and things like this. So I am going to look at this. I like the little dots that reflect. That's quite nice. A dating. I need any more of those. But I think what I'm going to do is do some sort of leaf shape marks on his actually make thes look like Leafs on what you'll find sometimes is when you're working, you'll end up repeating certain motifs yourself that you really enjoyed drawing. Um, personally, I'm somebody use a lot of curves and leaves and things like that. But equally there are lots of people who love the sort of more straight lines, star shaped structures. Maybe you're somebody he uses mawr zigs, acts and lines. You know, maybe you have your signature motifs that you that you find you can just kind of draw and switch off and enjoy. Okay, so I quite like that. That's quite nice. Um, I don't think there's a lot more than I want to do, but I think what I might do is just for the purposes of demonstration. Just add in a few little dots to this section here, and it's almost a bit like shading in without actually using a pencil or color, just creating a little pattern within this shape. Here again, I'm doing it all the way around like that, so it just brings it together so you can play. You can have little details, so I might just add little details like this. Sometimes it sees they'll find tunings. He's fine touches that make the mandala appear finished. And I know, um, its not necessarily about coming to the point of having a finished piece of work and viewing it as a finished artwork. But sometimes the little details just really lovely. They really work. So do one final thing. I'm just gonna have a few more little lines in like this. Okay, so I'm just going free hand with the pen. Now. I'm not penciling these in first. I'm not grabbing the pencil back again on going in again. I'm simply adjusting this on adding in little bits. You know, these little lines again might look very different on each of the eight sections, but as a whole, it's all pleasing, and I'm enjoying it, and I think that one is complete. So what I would do now is I would leave that to drive. These pens do dry very quickly, so I don't need to wait for an hour or two, literally a couple of minutes. Andi, once that's dry, I would then rub out these pencil marks or, you know, maybe I believe it, and I just leave that close my sketchbook. Move on. So this one is complete. I hope that does explain how we add on these inclines to our man dollars. 11. Ink Demonstration 2: in this video, I'd like to show you a man dollar as I have inclines to it. So this is a second demonstration off turning our pencil lines into pen lines. I don't choose to different pens. Now I'm going to use a 003 months. Pigna Micron pen on a thinner pigment. My competitors, if I draw a couple of lines using these pens, you can see the difference. So we have our slightly thicker line and we have our thin alliance. I'm going to work with both of these pens for slightly different reasons. So I'm going to begin by first of all, strengthening some of the central lines on the mandala. This is very similar to what we did before going over the lines that are already there. We got one leaf, few leaves, three leaves, four leaves, and again, I'm using the thicker of the cheap ends to begin with to create the structural elements. The first parts off the mandala. Andi again, As with the previous demonstration, I I'm working a little faster than I normally would just so that I can get this demonstration done on. It doesn't take me about three hours and now my Mandela's don't generally take me three hours, but at the speed and pace that I go with the pauses that I take to breathe to give my hand arrest aunt to just have taken where I am, What's going on? It might not be quite as useful a demonstration video as this'll. One will hopefully be. So this mandala we created by doing our foundation lights, our concentric circles. And then this one had the additional four circles in the center created using the compass and R H pen, so it will hopefully look a little different to the one we went over a moments ago. In the previous video kit. This is coming together again. You know, there's a few little wonky lines here and there, but I'm not too worried about that because I'm actually just enjoying the process of holding this pan. And you know, I'm just comparing it, Teoh how some of my other tens feel, and certainly for myself if I'm taking in this whole experience, Andi taking it is a mindful activity. It's quite a different experience for me as an artist creating a piece here which is being filled on I'm talking at the same time to the slightly more quiet, slowly paced, no solitary activity, but suddenly activity where I'm in my own thought space and I'm simply taking on board what I'm doing. And it's quite a different process. Another see here I'm making sure that hopefully you can see all these lines. Is there being created on? I'm hopefully aiming to give you tips from things along the way. Um, roughly so. This is coming along very and so far, what I'm doing is I'm using the thinker of the chief hands. I'm going over the main lines that's were created in pencil ready. So a moment it very much is a process of just simply working around the mandala, creating cubs and strengthening out the pencil lines that I've previously done. So they give me a set of guidelines on this stage of the process is probably my favorite stage. This adding the pen lines because I've done some of the call it hard thinking. But I've made some of the decisions already on where the shapes are going to be laid out. Where is now? I'm sort of adding in the detail, so I'm gonna put away this thick a pen. Now on, I'm gonna take out the thinner pen. I just want to change the quality of line slightly. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to draw down here with a thin A line, and we'll start to see how thin a line contrasts is. Not a huge difference because we're talking about fine line pens, but it feels very different from my point of view. Holding the pen. It's a very delicate on Penn this one lead the end, the North Point north 51 very delicate, fine end. So it feels very, very, very different. And I'm going to start adding in some of these I like to go instead of whispery, feathery lines. Mike, we sort of shading in before we actually perhaps use some color such a shading in Great Andi, I'm going to add in a few these extra picks. Okay, so what I'm doing now is I'm simply adding the extra details on and final lines, but using my fine line pen. So here I'm going to add some more of those little whispery monks. Andi, I may have mentioned in a previous video that where I add a motif somewhere in a mandala. I often do it a couple of times, so I've done that here. I'm doing that here on the outside. But again, that's my personal way of working. It might not be what you end up doing. Fantastic. So what I'd like to do here is I've actually decide. I'm not going to do this outside a bit that I thought about earlier. I'm going to do some tiny little curly. Were lease coming out of here reflecting a little curly were lease that you're in the center. I'm basically choosing not to use their is outside lines that I drink. And I thought about doing now one thing I've just done there whilst I was talking is that actually put those curly were lease not in the wrong place, but in a different place. So now what I'm going to need to dio he is actually drew a little curly were lease in this spot here, too. And that sometimes it's something that I do. It's often something I do. Very, um, you have very often, actually is I'll be doing something and I'll just as I turn it around I do it in a different place rather than in the spot that five just on it in. So these sorts of things happen that I call them my happy Accidents. And actually, I think that looks quite nice for those little curly whirly things there. Fantastic. So I'm going Teoh, then finally just draw a few little tiny weeny circles coming up those leaf shapes. Is that another little detail? And it's with this very, very fine pen that I can get those particular shapes and marks What I'm not doing, Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. But I'm no actually counting the number of little circles. But come up there. I'm just going by I and just roughly doing the same amount up and it might be the same. It might be different, and I'm actually not gonna go back and count. It doesn't matter to me. Fantastic. And I think that what I'll do here is due some extra little curly were lease in the final pen. So all it is doing what I'm doing is simply using too different thicknesses of pens in one drawing on these have a little bit of a difference there not the It's not the thinness pan on the final, the thickest pen that I own, but it does just give a little bit of contrast. OK, so I'm going to pause. I'm going to leave that one there. If I was working on this myself, not for demonstration, I would perhaps at a few more dots, a little lines and things like this and work into it further. But for the purposes of demonstrating, using a thinner and the thicker pen in one mandala, I hope that this has demonstrated that this is possible and it's something you can experiment with have fun. 12. Rubbing Out The Pencil: just a quick reminder here that once you have completed adding your inclines on top of your pencil lines, what you want to do is take a rubber and then rub out your foundation lines so that you've got a nice clear background. Sometimes I don't always do this. I might just finish my Mandela on, believe it, and it's done. But certainly if you're adding color on which you'll be the next stage of this class, I would recommend rubbing out all of your pencil lines so your background and everything is clear. Sometimes what can happen is if you add on your color and then go to Robert, your pencil marks. You can't get your pencil marks because they're locked underneath your color layer. So do you remember to remove your pencil lines at this stage by using a rubber to erase them? 13. About Colour: now, when choosing what colors to use to add to your Mandela, there are several options. The first option is just to simply pick one color and add a little bit of a single color, such as this one here. This was added by using watercolor paint and just swirling a little bit of yellow, so just a single color on you could add it to specific areas. But just a single color could be a lovely way of working. You can also just pick colors at random, so just pick two or three colors that speak to you. Pop them in wherever you want and off you go and you don't have to color in everything. So there are some white spaces. For example, on this one here on there are others where I have colored in everything such as this. Now something that I like to do quite a lot is to choose a limited color palette on by this . What I mean is choose to sort of complementary or very closely related colors and work with that. So let's choose this one here. This one is a good example of greens and yellows. So what I would do is our it's select. Maybe we got here sort of between three and eight. Coloring pencils or brush pens or pain. So here I've got some water color pencils, and these are very similar palette. What I've used here, greens, bit of yellow, Um, Andi. Then I would just use Thies to color in, and then all the colors are very closely related. If you have a color wheel, yellow and green are very closely related on the color wheel, the colors next to each other, so those were quite nicely. Another example of a few sort of very closely related colors again is here. I've used blues and purples of only selected blues and purples, and then use that as my my color palette can also be quite nice to have some contrast in colors. So, for example, on this one here, I've got some very nice bright yellows, bit of orange, and then equally I have some red and some purple, which contrast quite nicely, and I also do quite like having a little bit of light and dark. That juxtaposition of the light and dark really make different elements off the piece. Stand out. So where I've colored in darkly the edge of these Patil Zell's on these edges here that makes this whole section stand out like a petal. It would have been very different. How actually created or painted or colored in this area as purple or dark on these edges is light, So it's quite interesting to play with and see where you add color, how different elements pop out and how different elements go backwards on a just in terms off warm and cold colors. Of course, please use whatever you want, but what you tend to find is cool. Colors go backwards on a warm colors. Come forwards. That's just a little tiny bit of color. Three. But I don't want to get into too much color theory because I don't want you to be too technical. Overthink this process. I want this prop this process about in color to be quite intuitive, to be quite simple, not over thought, so you just simply select a few colors or select a huge rainbow of colors and use all of them so you can go randomly. You could have your limited palette of contrast ing or complementary colors. You could choose a rainbow, so you could do a whole spectrum of colors or something. Also, that is quite a nice way of choosing. Your color palette is to almost meditates on DSI. What color comes up for you, and if you know something that meditates again, don't over think there's too much. But maybe just since with your mandala in front, so few whichever one you're going to be working on and just look at it for a few moments, take a few slow, deep breaths and then just decide one or two colors to just see what comes up for you. Another thing I like to do sometimes is just to grab a few of my pans and just draw some colored lines. And then, from there, I sort of select. Sometimes it's harder to choose the pens from, um, you know what's on the outside, but actually looking at the colors they make could be a really good way of choosing. Or sometimes I literally just open my pencil case, grab a couple of brush prints and go OK, Those are the two colors I'm working with today, so that just gives you a few options for how and why you would choose color. Some people love to work with color. Maybe you're one of these people that is, just loves color, loved working with color. And this is the bit you're so excited about. Starting in which case that's brilliant. Andi. I'm really looking forward to see the play with color that you have, and it's important to maybe remind you this is a play with color. It's the process that's important. It's the playing. It's the adding on. It's not worrying about making sure you color in the lines and you don't go out to the lines and getting worried about that. Or does this color match this one? It'll always look good. It always represent your mood, the here and now. So come back to thinking about this being a mindful process, not about You know what colors you need to make this because this is to be displayed in a frame on a wall. That's not what this is about. This is about just choosing what color is called to you that day. What colors you fancy working with you? What you happen to have on you? What Penn did you happen to have with you? what paints you own. I'm not going to tell you to go out and buy. You know, these five specific, um, you know, green paints that you're going to need to create this specific mandala here. It's choose whatever cools to you, whatever works for you. But equally, if you're somebody that doesn't want to work with color, then you don't have to. You can stick to your simple lines on and, you know, do your drawings, your Mandela drawings in black white enjoy the process and have a great old time. So I hope that just gives a little bit of a background on collar where I come from in terms of the process on, Then I'll join you in the next few videos to show you some specific demonstrations. 14. Adding Colour - Colouring Pencils: Hello and welcome back in this video, I'd like to talk about adding color to your mini mindful Mandela's but using simple coloring pencils. The benefits of using something like a little pack of covering pencils such as this is that it's a really portable Andi, easily accessible way off, adding color that you can carry around with you. So in addition to your little pouch of materials that have your pens, pencils, compass in, you could maybe have a little set of coloring pencils and can add color quickly and easily . So this is just a set off watercolor pencils that I'm used on that I do have a slightly larger set of pencils here, which I'm actually going to use for this demonstration. Now here I have a few examples off land dollars colored in using coloring pencils, and you'll notice on both of them. What I've done is I've chosen a simple color palette, using maybe 34 or five colors that sort of compliment each other. So with this one, I've used greens and yellows on this one, mainly blues and purples. So that's what I tend to do because it makes the process of coloring in for me a little simpler. I select maybe five or six colors from my tray of colors, and then I just use those to color. Am I Look for a light colored a dark color and some medium shades as well. So that's what I'm going to do now and demonstrates this coloring in this blank one here. So let me select a few colors, and I think what I'm going to do is go with a green color palettes very similar to this one here. They're gonna pick a couple of light colors, a couple of yellows. I'd like a couple of medium greens on the Let's find a lovely doll. This is a nice green as well on this is quite dark green. So I think this is probably quite a nice selection. I'm just gonna remove this tray out off. Wait. So we have space to work. I can always get back into my color pencils. If I actually decide, I'd like a few more options or I want to highlight color Stickley's rollaway. Right. So let's take home and dolla. So let me begin by taking our yellow on, and I think I'd like these sections here to be nice and yellow on when you color in using coloring pencils, you can do this in any way you want. You don't have to start in the center. You can start anywhere you like. And in a way, when you color in your mind. For Mandala, it's like picking up one of those mindful coloring books. And there so many of these beautiful books around that you can just pick up, grab a few pencils, coloring pens on, just get curry. And that's really what this process is. It's adding a little bit of color, Um, in a in a very simple, easy way. So that's lovely. Love that brightness. So let me choose a slightly darker color. But I'm gonna take this color over to here. Um, and one thing that's that's pretty handy to know with colored pencils is that the light of you press the lights of the color. The hardy press, the darker the color. So even though I'm going to be using the same coloring pencils throughout to the same yellow, the same few greens, the way the colors display the wheeler use, the colors will look very different, depending on how hard I pressed home. So I'm gonna reuse this same green but in the center and just go very lightly across the set of leafy shapes. Very, very lightly. Greats, Miss changes the field through my hands. Um, the sound And these are all things were paying attention to when we do mindful drawing is the way that this is so sometimes I use circular movements sometimes up and down movement. Sometimes the press hard, sometimes soft. So this is the interesting thing to play with when you come to coloring in your mandala. So again, I'm gonna get very light with this color in the center somewhere they says a strong, strong green and where I've got these little wispy bits coming out just gonna strengthen from the center. But you can play with color and you could also use sections on leave sections that don't cover them in. So maybe I'll leave these little bits white here, like this green on dso There's thes bits here with these little Swee'pea marks. I'm going toe replicate the same color in the same sort of part of the designs of this bit also has these little sweep yuppie marks again. I'm just gonna use the same color on what was also does if you're looking at it from a design point of view, which again doesn't matter because it is a mindful during task. But just replicating the same colors in similar design areas of your mandala gives it a lovely balance and symmetry, which may be something you wish to achieve. And so you can see as we add color, it comes together quite quickly. It starts to really look quite different to how it did when the very first started gonna switched his light green and she start a little bit of lights like color over the top here . And I'm keeping a very relaxed hand as I do this. So I'm not creating tension in my fingers through gripping the pencil too hard. Really light. Easy grip kids. I'm not thinking too much. I'm not overthinking this process because if I put a color somewhere, does it really matter? You know, it doesn't matter where we place the colors. This is just, ah, fun drawing exercise. It's a way of just spending some time being a little bit creative, making some marks on paper. I'm paying attention to the sounds, sights, smells tastes around us as we draw as we color in now. Lovely. I'm really enjoying doing this right now. I'm really enjoying coloring in and for me, I think this has added a little something to this man, Darla. But it's, you know, it's not everything. It doesn't have to need it after coloring your man dullness. Um, I do quite like this bit left white, but I think I might just add maybe just a few little lines here so you can also draw with your coloring pencils so you could add, um, lines, dots shading with your coloring pencils. You don't have to do all of your drawing in the ink pen stage. You can add little bits in here. So for here just got a little little shading lines all the way around kids. And I think I'm thinking pretty pleased this I might add a little dark line here, so I'm gonna press very hard with this pencil now so you can see when I press hard with this pencil, it gives a very, very different effect. And I think I might just strengthen this line here, so sometimes it's just tiny little touches that you sort of odd I'm playing have not done this before. Not drawn this mandala before. It's all totally new. Totally nude Mandala. Fantastic. So I think that is complete. As you can see, I used a selection of just six coloring pencils in various shades of green and yellow on Ben. This is my end result. 15. Adding Colour - Brush Pens: Hello and welcome back. I'd now like to look at adding color to your man dollars by using coloring pens or brush pens in particular. Now, the reason I love adding color using brush pens is that the color is incredibly bold on a bright when you use it again. It's also every portable easy way off, taking around coloring tools with you. And you may have already used some of these sorts of pens when drawing your lines if you actually drew them in color rather than just simply using black and white inclines. So I do believe that these mandalas look just very different. Teoh adding water color or adding coloring pencil or leaving them black and white, such as this one, it just makes him different on again. It's simply a process off coloring in using the ends of the brush pens on bush pens. You combine all CIF different colors and order for brands, but there's just a couple of things I want to mention on some of the ones that I particular use not really really doesn't matter what brand you use at all. Whatever works for you, whatever you can get hold off. But there's this. Generally two sorts of types that I look for first type is this type of brush pen that has a nice brush end is a bit like a felt tip pen, and then on the other end it has a fine liner in the same color. On This is very handy for mandalas, where you have very tiny details that you also want to color in on like this fine line here . You'd probably used the the fine line end of the Penta color those, and it's really handy if you're Mandela's a super detailed. There's a couple of different brands here that I use Tom, though a very well known brand of these, these very easily accessible and again they have the brush in. That's like a felt tip pen and then the fine line it end here. Now the other type of pens are sort of mawr like paint brushes, so I've got a bunch of those here, a little tray off the These are our Taser brand, and these are more like paintbrushes. So can you see here? The end of the brush is like a paintbrush that splits into the little individual bits, so It's like painting with a paintbrush, but it's obviously in pen form, so those are really lovely to pay with. And because these are water based ings, you could also add water on top to blend the colors on play with getting a little bit more creative so you could have things like this, which is a watercolor brush. Penny put water in here, and it's a paint brush here, and then you can blend the colors. Okay, so those are a couple of options available to you again. Play. Have fun. It's absolute personal choices to how you use thes brush pens and what colors but experiment. Have fun. You don't need to buy a particular brand. You don't need to invest in hundreds of pounds worth of materials. But of course it's fun buying stuff. So what I'll do quickly now is just show you how we color in some of the sections of a mandala using brush pens. Remove this one out of the way. I use this collection of brush pens here that are in a range off oranges, yellows, reds in a bit of pink. Okay, survive these guns out of the way here. Just is there was inspiration on. I'm going to have a look at this one now because this one has lots of little fine areas. I've chosen these pens that have the fine ends as well as the brush ends. Now, when you're using, um, brush pens, it sometimes is a good idea to trauma out your colors on a separate piece of paper because the color that is here isn't always, um, the color that comes out of the end of the pen. So what I do tend to do is just try out the color first before applying it to my mandala. Andi brush pens. Although they sound like they're sort of paintbrushes, they do. I had a flat color on. This feels very different to using coloring pencils where we use coloring pencils. The hardy press, the dark of a line, the light. You press the light of the line. It's different here with a brush pen. It's a flat, solid color, but it's lovely and bold and bright Sigh. I'm just filling in this section here and again. It feel different in your hand, using a brush pen, and you'll get to learn as you progress through and you do more mandala drawing what you like to draw it. I'm not going to say you must use brush pens or you must use coloring pencils. Use whatever works for you because this is for enjoyment. This is for relax, ation. So with this one, I am using the fine line End of my brush, because this little section here, it's very fine. And remember, when you're doing this, go slowly. Take your time. Breathe deeply in and out through the nose, relaxing your shoulders, your face, your neck, your jaw so that you are really enjoying the process of doing this, that you're finding this relaxing so that you're putting aside any thoughts that are in your mind. And you're just focusing on the physical process off, drawing the way it feels, the way it smells, where your hand is moving in your letting of all thoughts unnecessary to you quite like that color. So I might do that again. Up here now, the one thing with brush friends that is quite nice is you can do very thin lines and then very thick clouds. Let me quickly dummy that separately. So if I just use the tip of the pen. I get a fine line if I press a bit harder or use the side of the pen. I get a, um, bigger line so you can do kind of teardrop shapes. You can play with the pen, so you just give you a little bit of fun control and difference in the way that the pen is applied. I'm reusing this red again, but I'm just using the brush pen end. Very not likely. I'm just using the tip of it. There's a better way to describe it. Just using the very tip of the brush because it's the brush pen has appointed the end, so you can use the point to create a very fine line on the thing that it's worth bearing in mind. Here is just don't worry about going over your lines or going wrong. There is no wrong. There is simply coloring. There is simply drawing. There is simply experience, and that's what this is all about. It's about enjoying this experience. This is beginning to look rather lovely, So let's have a little bit more orange in here and I think I think I would like to have some orange here. That's a lovely bright orange I'm going to add. So the process of adding color, Yeah, add it to one detail. And then I turned the paper around and add it to the same detail away around my mandala. However, you could, of course, color in a lot of different sections, so I could color this in in all different colors of the rainbow. That might look really, really lovely. Um, I'm not gonna do on this because I'm a little bit of a person that loves a bit of symmetry , So I like my mandalas to be symmetrical, but that's a personal choice. That's not a rule. There are no rules. So if you are somebody who loves Alvar colors, you do not have to choose a limited color palette like I'm doing here. You can choose a lot of colors on and in each section. You can make each section's likely different, so you could have ah, red section a a blue section, agree in section a yellow section and really, really play with what color conducive for you. Um, you know, maybe that for you is the most exciting thing about this whole mini man. dollar process is the way you can play with color and sort of create little mini Vestberg. Rain bows in your workers is you create and as you draw on is your experiments that I do urge you to experiment. This is such a fun process on going to replicate this same green up here just because, unlike it's really nice. Now, I've used a pale green here to complement the oranges and green. If you're looking at a color wheel is on the opposite side of a color whale to orange, so the colors complement each other. They work well. They're not next to each other on the color wheel like reds on orange are, for example, but it's opposite. So if it works, basically, um, Onda, I'm not going to go into lots of color finery. That's not what this is about because actually fused clashing colors and colors that are kind of crazy and, um, out there, that's that's great as well. So I think I'm just gonna add this tiny little detail of color here, and this spit is not going in the lines. It's just a little flick of color on. I am no knowing I'm ready. What more? I was gonna leave it there, but then I saw this little bit and I want to go out in here. Um, just out that little flick of color into those little dots on then? No, I'm going to add a little bit here. The white, the centers looking a bit pale. I was gonna stop there, and then I was that Well, no, actually, it's color all that, and I think great. So I'm gonna pause. I'm gonna leave it there because the main thing is that you you understand the process. The process is adding color in using brush pens, using the fine and using the brush end and adding color wherever you want it. Just turning your man dollar around to color, the same bitten if you wish to, or experimenting with creating different sections of color. But, you know, get creative, have fun to try out these brush pens on. See how it works for you. Enjoy 16. Adding Colour - Paint: Let's talk about adding color to your man dollars using paint on. There are lots of different types of paints that you can use as a critic. Paint gouache on also water color. Now it's very much a personal preference again, if you are, somebody loves doing acrylic work, watercolor work. Then, of course, you're going to be familiar with those tools with those ways of working with those paints on, do you know, add it to your mandalas? I'm just going to demonstrate. Using watercolor made me because it has a bit of a special quality on. Also, it's possible I have a little travel set here, which just has a number of colors in it. I've just got 15 little pallets of paint. Andi. From just this really simple collection of colors, you can create a few different effects and things with watercolor on your mandalas. No, I don't tend to use watercolor too much with my mind dollars. I'm bit of a brush pen and colored pencil person. The reason being is that I feel I have more control with watercolor. You have to relinquish control because the water does its own thing, which actually is really rather lovely. One thing that's quite nice to do with watercolor is to just add a little bit of color here or there. So this land I'll here, this is actually colored in using mandala and what I simply did was took a little bit of yellow watercolors and mix and water some yellow, and just did a swell with yellow. And that was it. That's all I wanted to do for that particular one added a little flash of color. So that's one thing you can do. The second thing you can do is actually create a background before you start to do the process of drawing your pencil lines, your concentric circles, your details in the pen and ink like this so you can create yourself a background so you can use just normal paper. You can use a sketchbook all there are some very nice little packs off watercolor postcards or small sketchbooks who can get. So I'm just gonna quickly demonstrate, creating a really, really simple background that you could use for working your mandala on top of So I'm just gonna wet my paint brush with a little bit of water on going todo a mixture of color. So I'm gonna start with a little bit of yellow. You could do a bit more water and then I'm just gonna do forced her little bit. Great. That's fine. That's no problem. So let's actually then add a little bit of green. Try it out there. Just kind of do a little splotchy. Your that try different green. And with a watercolor pen paper, you get slight texture to your paper, which adds a little something different to your piece. Humane Off had from the smooth paper, and this again is play experiment Do It works for you. This is quite relaxing process in itself. Just simply creating a little background on it literally is. I'm just grabbing a little bit of a color is quite water down and I'm doing a little split . So I'm just creating a background to work apart. And, you know, this could work really nicely as a simple background, and I'll just give you an example of what this can look like. Andi. Yes, this isn't a man dollar, but I use this often for Christmas cards, things like this so you can see the Penn Line over the background wash. So here again, you got pen lines over the background wash. This could work very effectively so you could just simply create a background such as this using a few bullet that's taking me. What a minute to do, If that s so. That's one way you can work. Another thing I quite like to do, you know, this could get a little bit messy, is actually flick a little bit of paint, and you can see this is happy. I've done this on these particular mandalas. So I've done a bit of coloring in using watercolor, but also flicked some paint. So what I'm gonna do so he's gonna get a paint brush wet, get a little on, just load the paint, brush with paint so it's really full, and you can just brush the paint brush and create some splashes. This again can work as a background, or you could do it over the top of your mandala when you're finished. So that's a really simple technique. I quite like it cause it's uncontrolled. It's free on Sometimes it just had a little bit of something, so this little splatter. Sometimes I'll add a complementary color so Let's see what might look nice. That a little bit green maybes again. Lots of water. Loaded brush spot A bit of green on that tape. Great. Now, when you're doing this, of course you're gonna get messy. Never mind. It's all good. So these little splitting could be really good. Either on top of your man dollar or as a background on you will need to leave this to dry or give it a little blast with a hair dryer. Let me move that one out of the way. Okay, so that's a couple of ideas for you. Creating a background. I wash using a big paintbrush spotting, flicking, um, swirling around. So I got off swirling just using a single color. But then, of course, we can simply color in now the challenging thing with watercolors. If I'm looking at watercolors s, a specific tool is the water is the fact that the water means the paint will flow, and that often means it's gonna float outside of your lines. So to try and control the paint so that it stays inside your lines, you want a little less water, and then you can just paint inside your lines like this in case you can. He's a very fine brush. Choose some little areas on pain inside your lines, so you'll find that when you do this, you need a little bit more pigment and a bit less water to control the paint so it doesn't float everywhere. On this would be how you would use a critic or gouache paint, which has quite a lot of pigment in his less watery. The fun thing with watercolor is the water element. So sometimes when you use it like this one is kind of bled outside the lines. And yeah, I don't mind numbers while I was playing with and here I ever had, a red paint that's blended into a a yellow and I splattered on the top. So I haven't painted in the specific areas of the Mandela. I've just put a little bit of red, put a little bit of yellow and sort of wished it all together and blended it, and that can work really well. Okay, so with this particular man dollar I'm doing now, I'm using a very fine brush, a little bit of water. Ah, lot of paint on and just coloring in and again, This could be quite a nice, relaxing process, just as you said have moved the brush penises. This is a beautifully delicate brush, so I've got to have very fine motor control. Find control of the brush. Very light touch with the brush. Andi. In some areas where I placed the paint down, it's going to be darker and full of pigment in other times, just that little bit lighter. So it's obviously completely up to you. How you how you play on this is where it does get quite creative and fun and exciting, and there is no wrong way. You add color to your mandala Is total personal preference. It's a bit of fun. It's optional. Don't have to add color. You know, you could have skipped all of these videos on the course about color. Just simply stick with doing your black and white mandalas. Couple of ink pens, pencil really simple materials. And it's something you do on the training to work in the morning or you doing your your breaks at work. And that's that's just simply what you do, you know. So that's great how you choose to take away the information within this class and use it and take it out into your your practice into your mind for drawing practices is up to you. These are just starting point suggestions things for you to play with, giving you options, options and ideas. Um, so I'm I'm not going to color in this whole man dollar with you watching just because it might take a little bit of time? I do. You know, I often go quite slowly when I'm doing this sort of thing, and sometimes I will do a section and then leave it to dry and come back to it another day . Don't forget you don't have to complete a man dollar in one sitting, and I've often got lots of these on the go at once, which is pick one up, have a play, pick another one up, have a play. Sometimes I just dual pencil lines one day. Sometimes I just color in one day, but this gives you the idea of what you can do with with pain. It's very, very fun, very similar to use. Um, so, you know, you could did not start to add a little bit of lighter color on this Scott. Bit more water in it now, some starting to sited, not lose control. That sounds very dramatic, but it's just starting to be a little looser. Um, in the way that the paint is being applied and new. That's great. Nothing is perfection. Everything is playing and enjoying. And, you know, I find this incredibly relaxing, incredibly relaxing. Okay, so, I mean, that's the everything. You could leave the mandala completely like this. You may not want to add any more color a toy, you know, it could just be you add a tiny little bit of color, you know, just adding, I actually think on something like this. I'd probably just add a little bit of color here, and I'd leave Alvar Backgrounds completely, completely free of color leave from white. Sometimes Les isn't warn, you know that that's good, too. So I'm just going to finish out in this last bit of yellow to this final little section of the Mandela. Is it spins around for me. No, that's it was a really good start. I would leave the man dollars Vergis with those highlights, could have a little bit more in, or I could combine some other things. I could have a little bit of brush pin in there. It could add a little bit of coloring pencils, or I could actually splatter. Flick the pain over the top, creates and paints Blatz. But it's it's all yours to experiment with and have fun. So have a little go a water color Acrylic goulash. Any other paints that you like? I would recommend getting some sort of small brush, a medium sized brush and maybe a big fat brush. This could be flat or round on. This will give you you know a good enough range of paint brushes to create and add some color, maybe a little set of of water colors or other types of painter have. Whether you don't need huge amounts of materials, a few materials here and there, you can do amazing things with on some of these things. You may even have a home, so have an experiment with creating some backgrounds with slick in a bit of paint everywhere, Andre Agassi said of coloring in as well, adding a little touch of color using your paints. Have fun with this Andi, enjoy 17. Thank you and Project: a huge thank you for joining me in this skill share class on creating mini mindful man dollars. I hope that you have found the videos have shown you clearly the techniques that I use myself, and you have a good idea of where to get started with your Mandela drawing for the project in this class, I would like you to create your own MiniDV Mandela on a piece of paper, just like the examples shown here. Now remember to begin by breathing slowly and deeply, taking a few basic movements for your neck, shoulders on your hands and then get started. Begin the process by drawing your foundation lines, the horizontal and the vertical lines and the diagonal lines here that divide the paper into eight sections at a number of concentric circles chosen at random using your set of compasses and then use a hard H pencil to begin making your marks and creating a design just like here. I would like you to strengthen your lines using an ink pen, such as here and then finally at some form of color to your Mandela, and you can use any of the methods as described in the class to add some form of color throughout the process, work slowly and pay attention. Toe all of your senses treated as a mindful activity rather than worrying about completing a finished piece of art to display as a project. When you do share your projects, make a few notes as to how this made you feel and perhaps photograph a few stages of the process. Because, remember, it is the process rather than perfection that is important. Now. Feel free to go back and re watch any of the videos again, where and whenever you need them or message me if you have any feedback or comments or want any help. I am very excited to see how you get on with your many mindful mandalas. See you seen.