Bold & Bright

It's a coolish, greyish day in central New Jersey, which seems like the perfect time for a big, bold Mandala to brighten up your Monday! This one features Wendy Vecchi's Garden Party stamps from Spellbinders; radiant, radiating, rainbow shades of Wendy's Archival Inks from Ranger; and a whole lot of MAKE ART and Studio 490 stamps and stencils applied over and under the hand-drawn mandala shapes I rendered with my Letter It Fineliners. 

I work on mandalas in many different ways to keep things interesting, but for those interested in process, this piece went... roughly... like this:

• Lightly pencil-sketch a few concentric circles, centered on an 11x11" piece of bristol board. An old school compass is good for this, you can even trace rolls of tape or your nested circle dies, but I do also love the Helix Circle Tool!
• Apply Archival Inks with a Mini Ink Blending Tool and Domed Foams, working in rings from the center outwards and allowing them to blend wherever they overlap. Colors are: Prickly Pear, Bluebird, Night Sky, Cactus Flower, Rosey Posey, Peachy Keen, and Sunflower... then around again to Prickly Pear, etc.
• Stamp the large floral cluster from the Garden Party set in the center in Watering Can Archival.
• Add background patterns by stamping a variety of small elements and portions of large background stamps more or less randomly, in coordinating colors.
• Draw the basic structural lines with a .01 or .04 Letter It Fineliner, again working from the center outwards; starting with the two large concentric circles, adding large petal shapes and large circles between the petals.
• Add detail lines and shapes such as the rings of smaller circles and petals, plus the secondary "shadow" lines inside or outside the larger shapes.
• Using sticky notes to mask if necessary, neaten up the loose rings of color with Ranger Detail Blending Tools; for example I applied more Bluebird ink to the area around the Garden Party florals so the circle border is a darker green; I pulled more Peachy Keen out into the large hand-drawn petals; darkened the ring of smaller circles around the center, etc.
• Add more definition with a white paint pen in the form of lines, dots and small hearts, then outline with a .01 Fineliner.
• One final neatening up of shapes and shadow lines with coordinating brush pens wherever necessary.