In honor of back-to-school week, this Mandala Monday is brought to you by a fab set of Faber Castell highlighters that I had somehow managed to forget I had; which is a pity because they're such beautiful, vivid colors! (No unicorn clicky pens were harmed... or indeed used... in the making of this mandala, but being such perfectly matching shades, it had to be featured in the photo, right?!)
It's a Simply Symmetrical Mandala Monday with a hope that your week is off to a smooth start!
Ok, technically there is NO actual candy in this post, but I did use my beloved set of Bright Zig Dot Markers, which always remind me of those candy dots, which came stuck to a narrow sheet of cash-register-like paper, that we had as children in the 1970's. For the record, I don't think I particularly enjoyed eating those candies... (they were basically just sugar and food coloring and didn't have much in the way of flavor) ...but they were so fun and pretty I always enjoyed having them anyway! I hope your week is off to a sweeeeeeeeeeeeet start!
It's a Rambunctiously Rainbow Mandala Monday thanks to big messy smooshes of watercolor goodness from some of my most vivid Tombow Dual Brush Pens. I hope your week is off to a bright and cheerful start! ♥
It's a flashy, splashy Mandala Monday with LOTS of spritzed and smooshed watercolor, from my Tombow Dual Brush Pens, plus a bit of White Dina Wakley Gloss Spray on top. IRL it has a magical shimmer which my phone photo utterly fails to capture; but trust me, it's kinda cool!
The lines are super simple, and frankly stretch the bounds of what is or is not a mandala, but I'm ok with that! And on the plus side, thanks to my Helix Circle Maker, it's as close to 100% symmetrical as I am likely to get in this lifetime.
Once again I noticed belatedly that I haven't remembered to do a blogpost for the last few Mandala Mondays, so today there's a bumper crop to savor!
A few years ago, my friend Paul bought me a Magic Pencil at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it instantly transported me back to grade school art class and the joy of simple, colorful, fun supplies. Since then, Miss Stephanie has found several different versions, including the astonishing set of Koh-I-Noor Tri-Tones that you see in the photo. Amongst the many things that Magic Pencils are awesome for is drawing and doodling, because it really allows the "magic" of the random color distribution to shine.
Somewhat stretching the boundaries of a mandala, in this case lots of mandala-style circles are cascading from the top and sides of the sketchbook page.
PS: The Helix Circle Tool is my favorite (& most used!) tool for drawing mandalas, because it lets me draw perfect circles in a range of sizes AND it has the 360 degrees on the outer ring, which is handy for evenly spacing the "petals" on a more traditional mandala.
ORANGE you glad it's Mandala Monday?! This one's bright enough to melt the rest of the weekend's snow off my driveway! :)
Remembering the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King this Mandala Monday, “We must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.”
It's the first Mandala Monday of 2022, so let's start the year off right with some bold color:
Presenting the absolutely slowest and least efficient way to comply with this fortnight's Jingle Belles ban on commercial patterned paper. Unless... you really, reallllllllly feel like doodling at a time when what you actually need to do is make a holiday card.
As a matter of fact, one of the things I especially love doodling is snowflakes, although irl, they never turn out to be classically elegant like the ones I imagine, they're usually a bit wonky, as you can see! I drew all of the basic shapes on Strathmore Watercolor Paper with my thinnest Pitt Artist Pen (XS= extra superfine, it's .1mm); then smooshed Cerulean and Violet ColorBurst on top. When the panel was absolutely bone dry... (if you use a heatgun, be sure to dry the back as well as the front; watercolor paper has long fibers and the core of the paper can still be damp!) ...I added details with a slightly heavier Pitt (.3mm) and with a few sizes of white Posca Pen. To finish the whole thing, I selectively painted on Frosted Lace Stickles and added Hero Arts Enamel Dots in several sizes and shades of aqua, before machine stitching the panel to a mat of divine white Non-Shed Glitter Paper from Paper Anthology, a larger mat of dark teal cardstock, and a white A9 card.
...and here are my index cards from week four of the Index Card a Day event. i hope your week has been both fun and creative, as well!
day 18: off prompt
when i started this, i *thought* it was going to be a mandala, but after i had attached the white doodle circle to the pink card, it seemed like it would be more fun to try to connect up the design outside the circle. so i did.
day 19: parallel
considering i started this card with three smallish scraps of patterned paper and NO PLAN... i'm fairly pleased with how this came out!
day 20: off prompt
this was the day i finally got to the garden center plants to go on our deck, next to the mailbox, and by the door... so obviously i needed to celebrate with big smooshy pink flowers.
day 21: mandala monday
most of the time i trade speed for accuracy when it comes to mandalas, but on this day, i used both the circle tool and a ruler to increase my symmetry; then had fun varying my line weights and embellishments!
day 22: chartreuse
flashing back to a prompt from last week, although technically i think i've used EVERY shade of green EXCEPT chartreuse, lol.
day 23: off prompt
apparently this summer i'm going to spend several nights each week cutting random shapes out of patterned paper scraps, sticking them to an index card and sewing on them.
