step-by-step (sorta)

sorry if you're getting tired of mandalas, but i've had a very long ten days at home nursing my recalcitrant back, and there's only so much HGTV a girl can watch. i've done a lot of pinterest surfing lately too (b/c you can do it laying down, lol!) and made my very own mandala pin board. i've seen some incredibly detailed and symmetrical mandalas. i love those, but generally don't have the patience to attempt them. i also always enjoy step-by-step tutorial type thingies on other people's blogs, but again... not really my forte. but at the moment i'm moving slower than usual, and needing to take breaks in between activities, so i thought i'd give both of those ideas a go and see what happened!

the finished piece... just so we can see where we're going.

step 1

even when i'm winging it, i tend to trace a lid or a cup 

or SOMETHING that's perfectly round, just so i have a solid base 

to build on. it you like the idea of symmetry, you can also 

divide it into segments, which will help with spacing.

step 2

i've traced over my circle with pen, so it'd have the 

same "hand-drawn" quality as the rest of the mandala.

of course, if you are aiming for true perfection, you 

could use a compass or template to make your small

circles perfectly round as well.

step 3

when i drew the "spokes" through my circle i made

them all the same length, so that i'd have a guide for

spacing as i worked outwards, too.

step 4

something i learned pretty early on is that it usually

backfires to work ahead too far in anyone direction... so

having gone outwards with the last set of circles, i'm now

filling in the spaces between.

step 5

buddhist mandalas tend to have some squares set within circles

and vice versa. also, i felt like this thing was getting a bit

snowflake-y... time to add a little more structure.

step 6

you'll notice there's no detail added yet: no doodles,

no filled-in bits, no patterns. it's mostly a question of

just how you enjoy working, but since those "extra bits" 

are a great way to hide mistakes, i like to save them til 

the end to see where they're needed most! ;)

step 7

one more circle on the outside rounds it off nicely... both 

literally and metaphorically, lol. now's a good time to add petals 

and start thinking about embellishment. 

(or as i think of it, "the FUN part"!)

step 8

it's nice to have some darker lines and some lighter.

you can choose where to put them based on what you

want to stand out the most... OR... on what set of lines 

you've drawn the most wonkily! the dots add interest and 

cover up any messy intersecting lines. after that, it really

is just a question of what you feel like doing. 

step 9

at this point the hardest part is knowing when it's *done* lol!

but in this case, i was pretty happy with what i had, so i

stopped here... and so will my post.

ciao, darlings! 

♥♥♥