I think this is my least favorite mandala of all the ones I’ve drawn so far. I was experimenting with lines and overlaps, but it just didn’t turn out the way I was hoping it would. I almost didn’t post this one, but I want to be transparent about my failures, so – here it is!
Mandalas
Monday Mandala 19
I kinda feel like I ran out of steam on this one. The inner circles are pretty full, which I like, but then it seems to get less ornate as you reach the outer edge. I might have a go at coloring this one and see how it turns out.
Monday Mandala 18
This design is a little more busy than I was doing before. An attempt to make it more fun to color – the more tiny pieces it has, the more fun it is to fill in, right?
Monday Mandala 17
Another simple design – I think I’m running out of ways to describe these mandalas! Mostly it’s just me playing around and making something I’d want to color.
Amaziograph
I’ve been drawing my mandalas with Procreate, which was one of the first drawing apps I came across for the iPad. After I started drawing the mandalas, I discovered an app called Amaziograph.
It’s $0.99 on the App Store and is also available for Android. The app is made specifically for drawing tessellations and mandalas. After debating whether I needed to buy another app, I finally bit the bullet and bought it. I mean, it was only $0.99 – so if I hated it, it wasn’t a huge loss.
I’ve had it for about a month, and honestly, I’ve only played around with it once or twice. It does have some nice features for drawing mandalas. With Procreate, I use the symmetry feature, but I only have the option for 2, 4, or 8 areas. Amaziograph lets you choose the number of areas from 1-12. So it’s possible to create some really interesting designs when you use an odd number (like 7).
This is my first attempt at drawing a mandala with Amaziograph. It’s pretty rough in places, but I wanted to get a general idea of how it worked. The design features are great, since they are made specifically for drawing mandalas.
However, I found I missed a lot of things I’ve grown used to with Procreate, including the auto-shape recognition, the two-finger delete, line smoothing, and the ability to change and fine-tune the brush options. I think the line smoothing is what I missed the most, because I do have tremors in my hands sometimes, especially if I’ve been drawing for a while.
While I liked the ability to play with the number of areas, it did make drawing more difficult, because when using an odd number, things didn’t always end up connecting where I thought they would/should.
I’m not sure I’ll use it as much as I was hoping I might, but at least I got a chance to try it out and see if I liked it. I still want to play around with some of the tessellation features at some point. In the meantime, I think I’ll stick with Procreate.
Monday Mondala 16
This is a very simple design, but I wanted to play around with elements that stuck out beyond the previous rings in the design. I think it turned out pretty well.
Monday Mandala 15
When I was drawing this mandala, I thought I made it too simple. There weren’t enough layers and the design elements weren’t busy enough to make it a good coloring mandala.
But looking at it now, I think it turned out really well. I like how pieces of each layer layover into the next. And there are a lot of different pieces to color, which I didn’t see at first glance.
The first layer is a bit busy, with all the lines crowding to an almost black ring, but overall I’m happy with the design.
Digital Creativity
My brain has been getting quite the workout the last few weeks. I’ve been trying to research sales tax laws. The most boring subject. Ever.
I’m planning to do a long post about what I’ve found – maybe all my research will help someone. All I wanted was to open a simple online store and make a few dollars doing something creative. I think the days of doing that are long gone.
In any event, I needed something to take my mind off the depressing subject of taxes. So, I decided to play around again in Procreate and iColorama. I still need to find time to sit down and watch some videos on using iColorama – I know I could be doing so much more with it.
I decided to take Mandala 12 and color it in Procreate. I fiddled around with color choices, but finally ended up with this:
When I drew the mandala, I thought the design was too simple, but I actually like the way it turned out once it was colored in. I wanted a fall color scheme (though in my neck of the woods we’ve apparently skipped fall and gone straight into winter – brr!), so I chose some darker reds and greens and browns.
Although I liked the colors, I decided I wanted more depth – it just looked too flat for me. So I headed over to iColorama and played around with several of the options in the program. After several attempts, here is the final image:
I added a texture and another filter (I don’t remember which one), but I am happy with the result. Now the image looks like an old rug design and it’s got some ‘feel’ to it. The filter actually muted some of the colors, but I think that makes it look better.
After I get a chance to watch some tutorials on iColorama, I can’t wait to try it out using some of the mandalas I’ve drawn for my coloring pages. Adding texture and ‘feel’ like this makes it seem like my designs are coming to life – so exciting!
Monday Mandala 14
I’m happy with the way this mandala turned out. I wanted a leaf/floral/nature pattern and I think I incorporated some of those design elements nicely.
This mandala also looks complete, in contrast to some of my other recent mandalas. I might even color this one to see what it looks like. I think some of the design elements get lost in the black and white line version.
