Transcripts
1. Introduction: Do you want to create stunning
and unique mandala art? It might look complicated, but it's actually easy when you follow along with
me in this class. Hi, I'm Julie, an artist from
Vancouver, Canada. I've been drawing mandalas
and Zen style artwork for many years now and it's one of my favorite things to draw. It's a peaceful and
meditative art practice that anyone can enjoy. So join me today as I take
you through the process of creating these two
gorgeous mandala designs. During this class,
we will practice some simple mandala patterns. Then using these templates
I've created for this class, we will create two
mandala drawings. In the following lessons, we will color in our
mandala drawings, and finally, we will share
our gorgeous results. What I love about mandala art is that every piece is unique. Make sure you share your beautiful mandala art
in the project section below and browse other people's
artwork for inspiration. Are you ready?
Let's get started. [MUSIC]
2. Supplies Orientation and Project: [MUSIC] Today we will be creating these two
beautiful mandala designs that you can share in the
Class project section. What is a mandala? Literally the word mandala
means circle in Sanskrit, but there's so much
more than that. Mandalas are beautiful
geometric images that represent the
circle of life, unity, and balance, the universal,
synchronicity, and more. Mandalas can be found
all over the world, from India to South America. There are also a common
symbol in many religions including Buddhism,
Hinduism, and Christianity. Today, Mandala art
is used around the world as a
meditative art practice. With their combination of radial balance and
abstract patterns, they mesmerize both
the artist and viewer. Now we'll go over the
supplies you'll need for this class so you can create
your own Mandala art. For this class,
you're going to need these three templates
that I've created. There's a grid template. We've got a simple
mandala template and a more complex
mandala template, so I've got these available for download in the
Projects & Resources. I'll show it here on
the screen how you can get to that page and
download these templates. I suggest printing them off. That's how I'm demonstrating the class as with the
printed version, however, if you don't have access
to a printer you can also follow along
digitally on your tablet. If you put this on your tablet or on
your computer screen, and then just put a
piece of paper over top, and very lightly
trace these lines, then you can use that
template as well. The next thing you're going
to need is a bunch of paper; a couple of nice pieces
for your mandala drawings, and then at least one
scrap paper that you can slide underneath to prevent
leap through from the pens. Next, we have a couple of paperclips which I'm
just going to use to attach the templates
below the piece of paper and just to attach the
scrap paper underneath. We'll need a pencil, and a couple of sharpie, or fine liner pens, or other black markers
that you have available, and also an eraser to get
rid of our pencil line, and also a variety of pens. For this class we're
going to be doing one mandala colored in with a complimentary
color scheme, so I picked out my blue
and yellow here for that. You can pick any colors
that you want that are the opposite on
the color wheel, and the other one we're
going to be doing a monochromatic color scheme. I've got three different
shades of purple here: a light medium and dark purple and
also metallic gold pen. Our final mandala I'm
going to be adding some metallic accents to it, and you can use gold, silver, bronze, whatever
you have available. If you don't have a
metallic pen, that's fine. You can totally follow
along without that. Also, you don't even
have to use pens. If you don't want to, you can totally
follow along with your coloring or drawing
accessories of choice. You could use watercolor, other types of markers, brush pens, or even
colored pencil. Totally up to you what
you have on-hand. Don't feel like you have
to have exactly what I have here in order to
follow along this tutorial. It's totally open to whatever
materials you have on-hand. In the next lesson, we will get started by drawing some simple mandala patterns on our grid template to
warm up and create our pattern bank to reference
for our mandala drawings. We'll see you in
the next lesson.
3. Pattern Practice - Grid Template: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we
will be practicing some simple mandala patterns
using this grid template. Later on in the class we'll
be able to use this grid as a reference when we
are drawing the mandala. I already have drawn out a
few very simple patterns to practice and then incorporate into our
mandala drawing. For this, we're just going to
need a pencil and a marker. I'm just going to use this
sharpie marker and we're just going to draw
directly on the template. I do want to put another
piece of paper underneath this because my sharpie is probably going to bleed
through the paper. I might just use a couple of paperclips here
just to touch it. That's just so it doesn't move around while we're drawing. We're going to get started with these basic mandala
pattern shapes. The first one you can
see is this arch. I've just drawn it here in
pencil and it's going to practice with my pencil drawing this pattern over
and over again. [MUSIC] Now, here in the middle, I'm going to just do a larger
version of this arch shape. Just continue all the way
to the end of the paper. The next shape we're
going to practice is this petal shape,
you can see that. I'm just going to do
the same and go about halfway just
repeating this shape. Now here, I'm going to do a bigger version
of the same shape. The next one is this triangle shape I'm
going to do the same. We're practicing the drawing the same shape over
and over again. The bigger version and
then we're going to go back in and fill some of these in with different
patterns and so we can practice decorating
it in different ways. The next pattern is just lines. You can go back and
forth with your lines. Go different directions
with the lines. Just create simple
patterns really easily with super simple shapes
and changing direction. Fill it all the way up. We're practicing having a
steady hand as we draw, which is important
for drawing mandalas. The next one we're going
to do dots and circles. The simplest, is just
a plain old dot. Then you can do a dot
with a circle around it. You can have just circles
inside of each other. Lots of ways to incorporate this really simple shape
into your artwork. Will do some larger circles and just keep them
really simple for now, we're going to go back and
fill them in with decoration. The next shape is
this swirl shape. Practice smallest,
swirl shapes and maybe different directions with swirl shape compounds that way. Find the different ways. You can make really big swirls. The next one is a
little try pedal leaf. We're just going to
practice a bunch of those. Practice drawing in different
ways from left to right. Or you can start
with the middle, and we'll do a few
bigger ones as well. [MUSIC] The next shape
is this teardrop shape. Let's practice a bunch of those. I like to start from the
top of the teardrop and go around and then flick up
to give it a pointy top. Big ones. Again, next we have these lines, but they're angled lines. Not the same as these lines. There's one in the
middle that goes straight up and then two on either side that
flick out at an angle. These ones are a really great, just little fill in decorative lines let's
practice few of those. Even do borderlines smaller
around the larger one. It's of ways you can incorporate
these into your drawing. The last shape is like a lotus. It's a little lotus and it's
a big petal in the middle. Then these side petals and then even smaller
little bottom petals. Let's practice a bunch of those. You could do them rounded, you can do them pointed,
however you prefer. You don't need to be
perfect and we're just practicing and playing around with the shape here anyways. Let's do some larger ones. You could even add more
petals to those lotus, petals on each side. Now we're going to go back
over these shapes with our sharpie marker and start adding some different
details to them as well. Let's get started
with this top one. Curve a simple shape
and the larger ones. I do want to go back and fill in some different
details in some of these very simple
shapes that you could add to these
already simple shapes. Nothing super complicated about any of these shapes or
marks that we're making. Just combining different
shapes together basically. You can think about
different ways that you can fill in the spaces. Dots, lines, filling it in all the way
with different colors. Can fill this with some
of our other shapes. We have some swirls, can do a swirl in there. I like this one, looks like petals on a flower. Many combinations of shapes
that you can do with these. Just consider that as
we go through here and let's do some
of these petals. [MUSIC] I'm refining the shapes when I'm going over them because while the
sharpie is permanent. I do usually try
to be a little bit more precise when I go
back over with the pen. I just fill those with some really simple
shapes as you can see. Coming up with different ways to combine the shapes together
within these big ones. Because there's a
lot more space in here to add extra
little decorations. Do another petal. Now let's move on to
these triangle shapes. Big ones. Filling in some of these with whatever other little
shapes that I can think of, lines, dots, circles. [MUSIC] These ones you might fill in solid on one side and
leave the other side white. That creates a cool effect. [inaudible]. You can totally come up
with your own creative ways to fill these in if
you don't like mine. Let's move on to these stripes. Feel free to move
the page around just to make it easier to draw. Don't worry too much about
my hand smudging because I'm using the sharpie
and I don't usually find that the sharpie
bleeds too much. However, if you're using
a different type of pen, you may want to have a
piece of paper under your hand as you draw to
prevent it from smudging. Now with these lines,
you can fill in here black and white,
every other one. Or fill in between
with dots, more lines. Create patterns with
the lines themselves. We can go back and do the dots. [MUSIC] Let's move
on to our circles. We start with filled in circles, bigger circles
[inaudible] target. Same with the lines
you can create patterns within the circles. You could fill this with black. [MUSIC] I do one filled with the swirl. I also like to do these
flower petals inside. Next we're going
to do our swirls. We'll do some small swirls. [MUSIC] We're thinking about practicing these
really simple shapes and combining them
in different ways. Now I also like to reference Pinterest for
different patterns. We can take ones that we see
on Pinterest and add them to our grid here so that we can reference them later
without copying. If we can extract
certain patterns from artworks that we see
and add them to this grid, we're not going to be directly copying somebody else's art, but we're going to
be incorporating those same patterns that we like from those drawings into
our own original artwork. Let's move on to our petals here and our big petals. Now for the petals, I like to sometimes just add little decorations
inside the petals. [inaudible] I also like to combine these with other shapes
that put them in between. Like in between
these lines here. You can add some
of these petals. Could fill them in
if they're larger, you put more detailed
patterns in between them. Or add some other little
[inaudible] petals and our teardrops put
dots inside of them. Fill them in however you want. Or just leave them as
is whatever you prefer. [MUSIC] This can become a little leaf. Let's practice our grass. Flicking my wrist a
little bit with these just to make them
taper at the ends. Just quick movement
with my hand. I guess there's not a ton of
ways you can decorate these. You can put little dots on them, add things to the end. Let's finish off
our last pattern here these lotus drawings. We'll start with our small ones. [MUSIC] This one we had
added extra petals. Now these I also like to decorate similar to
these rounded one. Let me just go in, add extra little
things in the middle, add little pollen grains, which is simple lines or dots. In this lesson, we've practiced some basic mandala
patterns and created a reference on different
patterns that we can use and incorporate into
our mandala drawing. In the next lesson, we'll be using our
simple mandala template to draw our first mandala.
4. Simple Mandala Drawing: In this lesson, we're
going to be using this simple Mandala template to draw our first
Mandala artwork. First I'm going to be putting this other piece of
paper below this one. But then I'm going to be
grabbing another piece of paper to put above the template. You can pretty clearly see
the template for blue, this piece of paper. I'm just going to paper clip
all three of these together. For this lesson, I'll
just going to be using a pencil and these two sharpies, you can just use one size
if that's all you have. I'm just going to
start by tracing lines with the pencil first. This is where you
can freestyle and do whatever you want or you could follow along with me exactly. Basically, we're just going
to start from the middle of the template and work our
way out to the sides. I'm just going to start with some really simple shapes and then will go back in and
add more details after. I'm just starting
from the middle. [MUSIC] Now as you can see
I'm using the grid as a guide for where I'm
putting my different motifs. Don't worry about any
major mistakes here, I'm going to be going back over this with the
sharpie and that's when I really going to be more careful about how I'm
drawing this out. You can incorporate
the actual lines of the grid into the artwork
as I'm doing here. [MUSIC] Now we going to
fill this all the way in, I'm giving myself an idea of what the final piece
is going to look like. I want to read some
more thick petals [MUSIC] Now I'm looking at my
grid and thinking, what else do I want to
incorporate into this? [MUSIC] But now I've got my basic
nonviolent drawn out, I'm going to start going
in with my sharpie. I'm going to start with the thicker sharpie marker and just go over some
of these details, let me start from
the middle and work my way out. Let's get started. Now I'm just trying to be really slow and methodical about this. As I mentioned before, drawing mandalas is a
meditative practice. Can be very relaxing. You can see as I go over
it with the sharpie, I'm being a lot more
precise and working slowly, not a big brush here. [MUSIC] If you made a couple
of mistakes here, don't worry about it too much, you're still going to have
a really nice mandala and, most people are
not even going to notice if you messed
up here or there. Just keep going with it. You're going to get
better up at this, as you continue to
draw mandalas and to practice your hand-eye
coordination. That's what's really great about these templates I had created, you can literally just
slip them under a piece of paper and just start
drawing right away. [MUSIC] I'm refining my petals as I
go over with the sharpie, not following my pencil
line 100 percent. [MUSIC] Now I'm going to switch over to my finer sharpie marker here and just add a
few little details. We can go back to our pattern sheet of you if
you are stuck for ideas, so those little petals
that I'd like to add between and in this ring, I'm just going to add some circles. You can just add whatever
little details you want, or even just leave
it, how it is. For this, you can
just skip around, we don't have to go in
the middle outward. I just work wherever and
jump around back and forth. Keep in mind as
you're working that we're going to be
coloring this thin so you don't want to have
any majorly tiny details. [MUSIC] Do some of those Lotus. I just add the details
where are they seem to fit. Just going off of instinct. Just take your time
here and relax, and enjoy the process, I really like to
number the drawing, other relaxing activity if
you're feeling stressed out, or you have anxiety, or even if you're grieving. Well, I've used art in
general painting now under the drawing to work
through personal grief. I've had pets and friends
pass away and art has always helped me work
through some of those emotions. It's definitely something
to keep in your arsenal, just if you're
having a tough time, you just want to relax, do something mindless, but also meditative
at the same time. You don't have to worry about drawing something life-like, even making it perfect, you're just doing this for you. [MUSIC] But just take it easy. Take it easy on yourself, take it easy on your body if you need to take breaks
while we're doing this, I'm certainly not doing
this all in one go. I'm splitting up the filming of the past over several
days in fact. I'm going to add some
of these swirls here, and like I said you could follow exactly what I'm doing here, or you can make it
completely different, whatever you want
to do with this. That looks good to me. I think I'm just going
to leave it here. In the next lesson, we're going to move on to using our complex
Mandala template. If you need to take
a break or anything, go ahead and do that now. We will meet you in
the next lesson.
5. Complex Mandala Drawing: [MUSIC] For this next lesson, we will be using this more
complex mandala template. To get started, I got my piece of paper underneath and then
I'm going to slip another piece of paper over top and paperclip them together. Now you can see we have a
lot more lines to work with, so we can create a much more
detailed mandala design, and for this I'm only
going to be using the pencil and the
finer sharpie markers. Let's get started
with lightly tracing some details with our
pencil, and again, I'm going to use this
grid that we created another different patterns
that I want to use for this. Let's just get started. I'm just going to start with some very simple
circles in the middle. We don't use every single
line in this template. Should have probably drawn
a little bit lighter, I was a little bit firm
with my hand there. I really like the
style of petal, I don't know, it just makes
it look more like a flower. Now again, I'm very
loosely adding some of these details because
I know I'm going to go back over it with my sharpie. Again, I'm using elements
of the grid itself in my design just by
tracing the circle. I'm also keeping
track of how many of the motif I'm putting
in the section. For this one, I'm just
putting two per section. Again, it doesn't
have to be perfect because we're going
to go back over. I'm going to do some petals
like this and then we can build the inside
with decoration. I like to do big
petals on the outside, I just think it looks nice. It gives it more
of a floral look which is what I'm going for. It's okay to repeat
your motifs, honestly. You can do same motifs
over and over within the same mandala and it actually
makes it more cohesive. You don't have to always be
coming up with new patterns. I'm not even going to go all the way around because I'm going
back over it anyway, I'm just giving myself a guide. I think I've got a
good start here. We're going to start
drawing with our sharpie. Look, we'll start from the
middle and work our way out and you can add details
any where you see fit. Let's get started. I'm going to start with the circles
in the middle. I'm going to just be adding
extra details on the slide. Here for example, I'm going to fill in with some
of these lines. Just use that grid template
to help come up with ideas. Again, you can follow along
with me exactly or if there were some other patterns that you want to
incorporate into this, feel free to go ahead
and make it your own. You could also use the
thicker sharpie in some areas like the
[inaudible], for example, if you wanted to add some variation in
the line thickness, definitely feel free to do that. I'm just going to
be working with the thin one for
this mandala design, but again, it's up to
you, it's your artwork. Remember those little
spiky lines we practiced? [MUSIC] Again, we're being a little
bit slower and more methodical as we go
through with the sharpie. Now I'm just going
to continue going through this process and adding some little details and we'll be back here
in a few minutes. I'll just speed this up [inaudible]. Again, if you mess up here or there, it's not a big deal. It really could add to the
organicness of the artwork and you share it on
social media, fun to do. I spot the mistake, and then people can
guess and it increases your engagement on that host. [LAUGHTER] I'm just going to continue
adding some details. I'll just speed it up so you don't do lots
of these things. Just keep working on your own mandala and I will meet you back here
in a few seconds. I think this is
looking pretty good. We're going to move on
to the next lesson. We're going to go back to
our other mandala that we created and start coloring
it in. We'll see you there.
6. Colouring the Simple Mandala: [MUSIC] In this lesson we're going to be coloring our simple Mandala design using a complementary
color scheme. It means that the two colors are across from each other on the color wheels
and you can select your colors based on that. I'm going to go with the
classic blue and yellow, always a good combination, and also consider black
and white as colors. Before we get started, I'm just going to erase
my pencil lines here, so I'm just going to go
ahead and do that now. [MUSIC] I'm also going to have my blank piece of paper
underneath and paperclip that. I'm actually going to
start with my black because there's a few areas
I just want to fill in, mostly just this
line right here. [MUSIC] Now for the fun part, we're just going to use these
two colors and then just go back and forth as we
go out from the middle. I'm just going to go
ahead and get started. [MUSIC] Now just have fun
with us and relax, there's no pressure here. You're literally just
going back and forth between two or four colors. I guess you can just zone
out and enjoy the process. [MUSIC] Also thinking about what's going to come next. If I do, this is yellow, then this is going
to be blue and it's right up next to each other , I don't know if I want that. So I think I want
this to be yellow, which means I'm just going
to leave this one as white and these little
dots, I'll do yellow. [MUSIC] Now I'm going to
fill this part with yellow. [MUSIC] Again, you may want to put a
piece of paper under your hand so you don't
ruin your drawing. From this part here, I was thinking of doing
every other one with blue and then leaving the
ones in-between white. [MUSIC] In here, I'm going to do yellow and then blue and then yellow again. [MUSIC] I think I'm actually going to
go back and fill this in-between
parts with black, so I'm just going to do that. [MUSIC] Kind of want to
balance out the colors, so I'm making sure there's
black and white throughout, interspersed with
your main colors. The whole idea of the Mandala
is balance and unity, so you want to reflect
that in your design. [MUSIC] Now back to my blue. [MUSIC] I'm just going to
continue back and forth and leaving a couple
of other areas white. [MUSIC] I really hope that yours is turning out
as nicely as this one, I'm pretty happy with it. [MUSIC] I've decided to leave these little
petals here white. [MUSIC] Last round of yellow. [MUSIC] Now we have
our finished Mandala art and I'm pretty happy with it. I also wanted to share the other one that I did in
preparation for this course, though this one is like a
blue and orangey-red color. They both look pretty
awesome I think. That's just another
example of what you can create following
this tutorial. In the next lesson, we're going to be coloring in our more complex
Mandala and we're going to be doing it in a
monochromatic color scheme. Then I'm also going to be
adding some metallics to it. I'll see you in the next lesson.
7. Colouring the Complex Mandala: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we're
going to color in our more detailed
Mandala design using a monochromatic
color scheme with some beautiful metallic accents. I have this gold paint pen
that I'm going to be using. Basically a monochromatic
color scheme means within the
same color range. I'm going to be using purple, you can use whatever is your favorite color
or whatever colors you have available
where you have a few different
shades to work with, so I have this
purple highlighter, that's going to be my lightest
purple shade and then I have a medium purple
shade and a dark shape. For the metallic part, you can use a paint pen
like this if you have it could also use a
silver or a bronze, or you can use paint if
you have acrylic paint or omit it entirely if you
don't have a metallic, I just really like working
with the metallics, I think it just adds a
really beautiful addition to the artwork. I've actually found
markers like this at the $ store so just take
a look in the arts and crafts section and
you can actually pick up some really cheap
metallic pens there. I'm going to go ahead and just
paperclip these together. Before we start, I
just want to show you the other Mandala that I created in preparation
for this course. This is the look
that I'm going for. You can see how shiny it is
and how pretty that looks. I'm going to start by
shaking up my paint pen. I like to test my metallic marker on a
blank sheet of paper. Sometimes you can just get like blobs of color and we
don't really want that. When we work with the
metallic pen, as you can see, this doesn't have
a very sharp end, so you can't really go in with the very fine details
with this pen. If you're using a
gel metallic pen, that might work better. I'm just going to start by
adding down my gold color. [MUSIC] As you can see, the metallic has covered
up the black line. I'm just going to go
with that and just fill it all in as one shape. [MUSIC] I usually want to be careful with the paint pen not to smudge it with your hand. [MUSIC] Another
thing you can do if you don't have a metallic
paint pen is just throw another complimentary
color in there like a yellow. [MUSIC] I think going to get
started with my colors now. I'm going to start with
my lightest color and go from light to dark
varying each one. Obviously, light, medium, dark. We're going to start
with the middle [MUSIC] and also this time I'm not going
to use any white, I'm going to fill it in
completely with my colors. [MUSIC] I'm just going to keep
going back and forth with my three colors and
filling this Mandala in. [MUSIC] I think it's turning out really nice already. [MUSIC] For this outer section, I'm actually just
going to switch up the colors a little bit
because I don't want this outer petal to be the dark purple so I'm
just going to go medium, dark and then light again. [MUSIC] Just filling these in with
kind of circular motions. [MUSIC] Great, let's draw. [MUSIC] Now we're all done coloring in our monochromatic
Mandala with gold. Doesn't that look stunning? Now before you take off, make sure to watch my next video where I'll just be
discussing how you can share your Mandalas both with the
class and over on Instagram where I will share your
artwork if you tag me. We'll see you in
the next lesson. [MUSIC]
8. Conclusion and Sharing your work: [MUSIC] Wow, you really
did a great job today. We created these two
stunning mandala designs. We also created a
pattern bank that we can refer to for our future
mandala project. I hope I have given
you the confidence to create your own
mandala artwork. Don't forget to share your
beautiful mandala art in the class project section. Don't forget to click the
follow button next to my name, so you're notified when
I publish my next class, and make sure to check out
my other classes as well. You can find me on Instagram, @julieerindesigns, and on other social media as
well under the same name. If you upload your finished
project to Instagram, make sure to tag me, and I'll share to
my Instagram story. Thank you so much for taking
this class with me today. I'll see you in the next one. Cheers. [MUSIC]
Julie Erin Designs, Artist and Entrepreneur
