Transcripts
1. Introduction To Mindful Drawing: Hello, my name is China and welcome to a mindful during class with oxygen. Now if you're anything like me, you might find it difficult to meditate. As a creative and an artist myself, I am constantly thinking of new ideas or how it can be creative. And sometimes I just want to mindlessly do something such as drawing or painting or even cooking. Something that I already know how to do. And I don't know the thinking. In this session we're going to look at a few different styles that you can employ in your own drawing when you just want to switch up. So long as you know the foundations and the different roles that you set for each drawing, you'll be able to mindlessly switch off and hopefully get to a really nice calming stick. You should have everything you need, a pencil, a roller, and maybe a fine liner or buyer. That is all you need. You don't need any fancy equipment to get started. And hopefully you can just start straight away. In this course, we have three different classes. So first of all, we're going to look at how shading can improve on. And also just to give us a little insight into how we can practice our technique as an ascus was not really having to work so hard. Next we have mn dollars. So some of you might already recognize men dollars. And you might know the benefits of the spiritual healing that they have. Drawing and repetition and encircled helps us to read, Navigate operands, and to recenter it into our focus outward. Finally, we have mindful mountains. Now, this concept might sound challenging, but when you start, trust me, it is really, really nice. There's so many different ways that you can adapt your mountains. So long as you said rooms, then you'll get to get. The most important thing about this course is that you can't go wrong. So no matter what you are, beginner, intermediate, advanced, doesn't matter. So long as you focus, you follow the process. You will be able to get to the end. And you might find that some things don't work for you and others will. And that's great. It's about finding that connection between you and the work. We hope this can benefit your mental state. We hope you can get a lot out of it. So enjoy the course and let us see what you do.
2. Meditative Shading - Introduction: So let's look at shading. How can shading the, uh, mindful practice? Well, all you need is your pencil and piece of paper. And we can treat it a bit like coloring in, except we're not using colors. We're using different shades of gray. You've got the white of the paper and we've got the blackness of the pencil in between that we have all the different shades of gray. So we have everything we need already. Now, I'm going to show you a few shapes that you can draw just so that you can have a lovely practice with your pencil. Shading is very therapeutic as you don't really have to think too much. You don't have to observe an image to start drawing it. So let's see what happens when we draw some different shapes and start shading it in.
3. Shading Squares: So let's start with something simple. I'm going to draw a square, and I'm just going to use something I already have that is a square shape. So grab your square shape or use a roller and create your own and just draw around it like so. Next, we want to add a square in the middle. So I'm just going to use a rule that you can go free hand or you can do the same as me. So I'm just gonna go in 1.51.5 and I want to make sure that that is the same all the way around. And just get yourself a square inside your square. Okay? So let's do that one more time. You can keep it the same length if you wish, or you can do slightly bigger, slightly smaller. This is completely up to you. So I'm going to do exactly the same as I did before. Now what we're gonna do is we're going to alternate our shading and we're going to work on our gradient. So the top of this alpha square is going to be really dark and as we get to the bottom is going to be really light. So this will be what? Then the square in the middle. We'll start dark down here and work our way to be at the top with are exactly the same in this middle square. And we should have this alternating contrast between light and dark. So let's get Celsius. Now it's really therapeutic because all you're doing is focusing on the shading and you don't have to think about anything else. Why is shading so important? Well, there's quite a few reasons, and for me, I look forward to shading, monitoring the most. I like it more than when I'm constructing it. When I'm deciding on the composition, I find that when I'm at the shading stage, that means everything's really coming together and coming to life. And once you understand light and jog and the difference between high-contrast, low contrast. And you're really into a different sort of ballgame and exercises like these. Push your ability to see the differences and to make those, those gestures is very therapeutic and it's very calming and it's really nice when you master this stage and go into drawing things in real life. So whether you are drawing portraits, landscapes, objects, architecture, whatever is, the shading is like the cherry on the cake. And it's something you should look forward to, something that you should have really enjoyed. Was really good to experiment with little things like this and just remember the whole practice is so therapeutic, so calming. So you just want to make these edges a little bit idea, just add a tiny bit of pencils so it's much easier for you to shade in between. So as we travel down this channel to start to release the pressure so that it becomes a lighter and lighter and lighter. As I move down and not pressing as hard and loosening my grep little bit. And you can see that this becomes nice and soft and very, very light. So when you're doing this, make sure that you're really using full range from dark to light. So it's not a case of it being black at the top. From the bottom, you're really extending that darkness into light. And you're making it really smooth, ER, really subtle so you can't see any edges, any lines. And so that's a first layer done. Now, I might want to just tidy this up because it's much lighter here compared to there. So I'm gonna do that, but it's completely up to you. This is your square, your gradient, so it's your choice. Now. I'll just do month to keep it and I get much better. Okay, so let's work in this bottom section now. So we're doing the opposite was sought enough job at the Boston and working our way through a lot at the top. So we don't have that full length that we had in the l square. Which means you've got to make sure you're making it lighter much earlier on. So I don't make it the same tone. All of this section will start to loosen up pressure quite quick. Can I just give myself a little help? Myself some outlines and then I can shade away without having to worry. Okay, great. So the final square, let's do the opposite again. So back to the top of the dog bit. And you can see that we really don't have much space at all now. So we're going to hit Y fairly quickly. There we have it as a first shape. Now, there is an option for you even more deeper involved in this drawing. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to change my pencil. I started with a 2D, and now I'm going to go for two h. So h is really good because it's hot and it's quite dark. And this means that we can just get in all those little white bits that the paper is showing. And it just evens out the drawing so that you can really see the different shades of different colors that we've just done. So you want to do is rubber Olivia drawing. And it will smoothen everything out and look great. So hopefully you can see a difference already. We have just that top section. Now, continue along the rest of your square. And it's just really satisfying. Just a smooth your whole drawing owl and just to make it tidy and cleaner. And again, you don't really have to thank You know what your aim is. You're just you're just doing a just filling in the gaps which just shading in those squares and trying to get that gradient nice and smooth. It's one of those tasks needed to think about it. You just know exactly what you're doing. You're not looking for a reference patient, you're just getting completely lost. There's our first shape is really good to experiment with little things like this and just remember the whole practice is served therapeutics, so calming and it is really satisfying to get that gradient and know that you've created something so easily. And within seconds.
4. Shading Circles: Let's create another one. So make your square once more, either with a ruler or something that you already have in your house. Make it nice and easy for yourself. Okay? And this time, add something circular. So I'm going to use a candle based. So just pop that in the middle. It can be as big or as small as you would like and just try and get Central. So this time is going to be a little bit more challenging because what we're gonna do is we're going to have a center point in our circle. And I'm just making a tiny, tiny dot so I know roughly where it is. And I'll shade is going to start dark on one side and it's going to end up a light on the other. But instead of it being the full width, it's just going to be half of that circle. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to start with this dark area here. And I'm going to work one side first and then the other side seconds. So just like we did with the square, I'm going to thicken edge. Just makes it a little bit easier when I'm shading. It means that I have something to kind of hit. I got a barrier just going to protect that this side. And remember, it's going to be the light around his with dirt. Really want to go too far up. Okay. So let's move left vest. Daniel, putting on the pressure when you're at the starting point. And then you just want to ease up little bit on the pressure when you move your way around. So make sure that you're coming back to that central point that we made at the beginning, that little monk. And you want to make sure that it's nice and even so it is dark all the way down to the outside of the circle. Then it just gets lighter and lighter as we move across. As we start getting into the shaded, I want you to know that you really can't go wrong. Maybe yours is a bit dark in mind. Maybe it's a little bit lights it, but it doesn't matter because you could always fix it or you can just keep it. So just take your time and don't worry, do much, allow yourself to enjoy this process. I'll tidy this up in a second, but first I want to set those shades on the other side, just see if it's balanced. I see whether I need to push it anymore. See whether the shape is good. I'm setting the rules and then all I need to do is follow them and you can set your own rules. To. The whole point is that process of shading and folks in and taking your mind off the actual sinking and just really focus in on the exercise itself. See already I can tell that this side is much lighter. And that's really helpful to have it on the right-hand side so I can just compare. Shortly. So we're gonna go lies for the light to. This creates almost like a cone that you don't even realize it's going to do that. But then when you still adding the shade and you're like, well, this 3D, It's pretty cool. To me. The shading is the most amazing stage of any drawing. I find that I can just completely zoned out. And it's where my drawing starts to come to life. So whenever I add shades, I make that contrast between light and dark. Like Jordan really starts to pop. And it exercises like this that just get me engaged and get me excited to reach the end and to see what I've done, see what I've achieved. It really is the most amazing quote, the drawing. So just tidy up those edges. Make sure you're matching the shades. That's in the a section. You are not just make it a darker around the edge. Well, you can again, if That's a rule that you've set. And again, case and let's work on the sweat. Now we're going to do the same as we did previously, where we have job in the top and liked in the button, see that transition from light to dark or dark to light, light to dark. So it's all these contrasting shades next to each other, all in one space. So there's a really nice transition and try and work on that gradient. Get it nice and smooth. We don't really want to see any edges. If you want to challenge yourself. Here is a value scale, so this shows all the different shades from white to black. See if you can just reach all those different shades of gray. And if not, don't worry, again, there's no pressure. There is no right or wrong. But if you want to push it a bit further to see if you can spend the time just even out. Okay, so then we have a lovely shaded shapes is no pressure. You don't have to think too hard. And it's just really nice to shade in the lines and practice playing with the different types of shades in that. Now, again, this is completely up to you. If you want to push your drawing even further, grab that sharp pencil to hate if you have it and just really work in their little tiny bits of white papers showing. So this should really help to make your drawing a flatus smoother, more accurate. So just give that a go. Spend as much time as you want on it. Remember it's all about the journey. And you just don't even have to think about it and go to Shading away. And Ukrainians lovely, passing this really wonderful organic shape. So satisfying. So that's a really easy example of how we can make shading mindful is something that you don't need to have a reference image for all and there's no pressure to get it right. It's up to you. Getting it right can be whatever you decide. So get yourself some shapes, make some squares, triangles, circles, just shade them in. Maybe you want to be organic and just create a random shape is up to you. But just grab a pencil style shading and just be completely lost in the accuracy.
5. Drawing Mandalas - Introduction: Let's look at Mendota. Now, Montana is created on the base of a circle and they have spiritual meanings within Hinduism and Buddhism, they are meant to represent the whole of the universe and can be used as an exercise for meditation. Now that might look complicated, but when we break it down step-by-step, that actually quite easy and very meditative.
6. Mandala Structure: So what I want you to do is I want you to grab a few things in your room that CUA, and that's going to help us to construct element dollar. Just make sure they are different sizes, small, big, medium, so that we get a good range. And then we'll start to construct our drawing. If you have a compass with a pencil, by all means, you can use that. So we found for objects and hopefully it should create more than full circles because I could turn them around and get different sizes. What we're gonna do is work from big to small. And that way it just means that we can align our circles perfectly and then we can work away inwards. The biggest thing is my masking tape. I'm just going to place that in the middle of the paper and just draw a very gently on the outsides. If you want to know what PennSim on using, it is a to B. So this is a nice soft pencil. And just means if you make any mistakes, we can rub it out. So I've done the outside. Now we'll just do the insides. And then we have a very nice, great. So the next size in my collection is another candles. Let's get that sent. Okay, Good. Now again, draw yourself an outline. Right there. We have three rings. Now, I'm going to try this candle and c, k. So that's a little bit too big. It just fit perfectly. If I switch it this way, it's much better. Try to line that up. And then again at Troy, the outline. Good thing about drawing around candles is that it smells so good. I highly recommend. Brilliant. So my last shape is this aroma therapy tub. And I'm going to go the biggest area first, trend line that up and then switch it over. Just to get a nice tight ring. So just been a second or so now just to tidy it up and try and get it nice and even.
7. Meditative Mandalas Part Two FINAL: What I'm going to do now
is I'm just going to draw my Mandela in pencil and
then I'll go over it in pen. It's completely up to you
if you want to follow my patterns or if you want
to do whatever you want, so long as you're going in a
circle and you're repeating that circular motion with
your drawing, then Excellent. That's what it's about. It's about getting lost
in this pencil drawing. Manga art is all
about repetition, and that is why it's
so therapeutic. So it might be an idea to rotate your paper as
you're going round. Or you can try it as it's
standing up on an easel. If you have just like me, be as creative as you want. You can copy mine or
you can reset your own and see what Mendel
is really appeal to you. Let's start with the middle. I'm just going to start with a central circle just to
give me a little base. And then let's have
a look at some of the populace shapes. Almost like a petal. If I go around as if it
was north, east, south, and west, then that just helps with the symmetry, really sets it in a good place. Then I can fill in those gaps. Brilliant. Then circles here. Brilliant. So that's a first circled done. So let's have a look at
some new shapes now. They can cross over into
other circles if you wish. For now, I am going to just start with a shape
that is within this circle. Okay, great. So I've got a little bit of shape
going on there. Now I'm going to cross
over in these gaps. So let's think about some
nice organic shapes in here. So take your time. Your video is now going to
be on a bit of a time-lapse. So you can just see
the journey and see how mesmerizing
it really is. So you can either follow my pattern for you can
do whatever you want. Hopefully you'll find that the more you go round and
the more you draw it, the easier the patterns. So you're building
that muscle memory and know what it feels
like, the gray that shape. And by repeating it constantly, becoming an expert at
your own mandalas. Okay, so we've done
the hardest part. We've done the design
of our Mandela. Now it's time for the good fit. You will need a fine
liner or a black biro. If you don't have that, then what we're gonna
do is we're gonna go over the whole thing. So you might find at the stage that you
want to add something. Maybe you want to color
some little bits in. Maybe you want to keep
it in nice thin line. It's completely up to you. It's your many dollars. Now, what I'm gonna do
is I'm going to put this on a time-lapse so you can
see the whole process. And hopefully it will
inspire you to tweak yours or improve yours in
any way that you can enjoy the process. And hopefully you really
enjoyed this exercise. Okay, So it's
looking pretty good. The final thing that
we have to do is rub out the pencil and
then there you have it. Your wonderful Mandela drawing. So well done. You
might have a bit of handcraft, but it's worth it. Hopefully, you
found the benefits of that style of practices.
8. Mindful Mountains - Introduction: For this episode, we decided to use landscape as a mindful during practice. The reason why this is good for you is because when we see nature, we become really grounded and really calm. Now the other reason why this is really therapeutic is because we just set one or two rules, pest section. So for example, in our dock areas, we decided to put the lines close together and going in one direction. And the light areas of the drawing, we open up those gaps and we send the lines going in the other direction. Funnily, that was a feature. So we wanted to add a moon. And it was really nice just to color in and get that nice and dark. Really easy to follow, but really a massive when you get stuck in now any of these stages, you can change the rules. It's completely up to you. You conquer wrong in this drawing, set yourself a rule and see where it takes you. So all you need is a picture of your favorite mountains, whether that's one that you took on holiday or one that you have seen on Google. Grab your picture, a pencil, and a fine line or viral, and get completely lost in your own natural landscape.
9. Mindful Mountains Structure: So let's start with something simple. The outline. Now, mountains of very bumpy. So don't let any straight lines happen. Allow your hand to shake. Don't worry about that. And then just try and get a vague outline of the mountains. Now, I've chosen Everest because it looked the best on Google. I've never actually been there. But I'm sure a lot of people will recognize this. So I thought it was a good, a good mountain to true. So once you've got the top of the mountains and work your way down, really get in the shapes of those shadows in as well. Whenever we're drawing is really good to kind of learn about shapes of shadows that very random, very organic. And in this particular exercise, very useful, create the idea of depth because of the use of the shadows. And we want to make sure that we are making it clear when we draw a shatter and when we draw the change in direction. So I'm looking for those peaks on the mountain, and then I'm looking for the shape of the shadow. And the good thing about mountains is that because we, we don't look at them every day. So we can get away with it. Lot less pressure on accuracy for this, which is exactly what we want. We don't want to stress a sells out because the drawing is too complicated for us. We just want to give ourselves a break and give ourselves the chance to enjoy the drawing. Okay, brilliant. So now we've got the outline. It looks very random. It's really difficult to understand that this is anything at this stage, what we've done is we've decided that these lines are given here. This is the edge of the mountain top and there's a few lines there. So what we need to do now is show the light source. So what we've done previously is we've outlined a lot of the areas where the shadows are and now we can get creative. So in those areas, I want you to come up with something that represents that as the shadow that could be aligned direction that is maybe all going in one way. Or maybe you want to shade it all in a solid color. It's completely up to you. For the purpose of myself in my drawing, I going to look at line direction. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to think about. One individually, each shape individually. And let's start with this. This is a nice, easy point. Now the direction of the mountain is going down. So I can do straight lines or I can do wiggly lines. I've decided to get for wiggly lines. And I'm not being too precious to add that in. And I want to get those lines. Well, I want to put loads of lines in that just to show that this is a shadow. So once I've done that, I'm going to move on to another section and I'm like, okay, where is the direction of the lines go in here? So actually, in my mountain here we've got two directions. You've got left and the right. Moving onto this section here. So this is in shadow. How do I want to represent them? Create a direction. Nice was starting to get some really good movement. So this shadow and here, again, we want that direction to go. I think I want a little show lines going down here. And then followed by that. This one gets said this one is a nice, easy peaks. Let's get lots of lines going out of it a bit in here. Go big slide guy down there. That is looking good. So let's move on now to the light area. So it's up to you. You can leave it if you want to. All you can just add a center line or more gaps in that line. So I'm going to try to go the other direction and I'm going to make the gaps quite big. So again, I'm thinking about the direction that the lines going. And it's thinking about, well actually looks good. How do I show movement in this drawing without losing the beauty of the mountain in the first place. So I can slowly 10 my line around. Let's get this going down. So the more opposite these lines on, the better is to see a difference. Don't be afraid to add lots of movement into you. Move onto the right-hand side. Note many shadows on this side, which is absolutely fine. Still keep my movements little bit wavy. And then here there's like little bit of a faint shadow. So I might just add a couple of lines in there. So that is looking good. I'm very pleased with that. In the shadows. I've got the lines much closer together and they go in one direction. For the highlights, I have them going in the opposite direction and the gaps are bigger between each line. So the good thing about having a mountain range is that we can be fairly organic and loose with it. We don't have to draw it accurately, would be fine if we don't. So hopefully yours is looking at very similar. If not better. Now, you can leave it there or you can join me in my next tutorial where I'll be showing you how you can add more texture and definition.
10. Mindful Mountains Outline: Now what I want to do is add something in the background just to give it a bit more depth, a bit more of a feeling of it being situated. So I'm going to add a moon. But what I want you to do is decide way you're going to situate your moon, whether you want to put it behind the peaks, maybe top right-hand corner of the picture. So I'm actually going to put mine behind. The peak. Could be a son as well. They don't want to discriminate against. Moons and Sons. Hopes that in there. Now change your texture. Do you want to keep with this wiggly line? Do you want to maybe add some dots? I'm actually going to make mine a solid color. So I'm just going to shade that in. And remember is pencil so I can rub it out. It's just about being creative, not having to think too hard and just seeing what comes out in your drawing yet see the pencil is telling me, looks all right, charter, but you can make me better. So what I might do, I'm gonna get my fine liner. And then I'm just gonna go over the mountain. So let's start by going over the left-hand side. So you can keep it organic. You can add some extra lines that come halfway down. You can do whatever you want. You can be thicker at the top or just leave it, whatever. So just take your time and don't worry, do much, allow myself to enjoy this process. Remember, it's all about the journey. And Ukrainians lovely. Passing is really wonderful organic shape. Fill so much data. Is it done? That looks great. Now I'm going to do the same for the light areas. I'm just gonna go over it with my fine liner. And hopefully that will make a huge difference on the outcome of the drawing. But also a super satisfying. Just to have something to kind of trace. We've done, say, hard work, very loosely, done the work. And now we get to enjoy the benefits by going over what we've already done. I'm really enjoying and have a nice lines that go and offset so you start to travel in one direction and then they change. And it really helps to kind of capture the movement of the mountains because marketing is so random, very, very difficult to paint and draw that when you do it is so satisfying. Okay, Looking good. Now, last thing for me to do is this beautiful noon. So just get the outline nice and you could draw around something that is round as loud as well. So yeah, starchy in this and it looks amazing if I do say so myself. For the nicest graph, just gotta coloring them on. Okay, great. So I'm going to add some texture in the background. While I'm going to do is add some random dots. So I'm going to keep it nice and area at the top. And then as I move down, just going to add more dots in between the gaps. Again, just fill those gaps. And even more wicked. Right? So there we go. There is our mountain range. It's got different textures, but lots go and on. Before I go though, I showed her about the pencil is so grab your rather and do this. Okay, so I'm very happy with how this has turned out. Even though I've got lots of lines going everywhere, I still have the idea of light and dark, which is wonderful because it didn't take much thinking. I was able just to kind of follow a pattern. And that really helped me to create this image. So in the shadows is lots of lines is going in one direction. And in the highlights there's still lots of lines, but there's less, and it's going in a different direction. It's a really nice technique. So keep practicing, keep drawing, and I can't wait to see what you've done.
China Jordan, Art Teacher
