A lot of lines in this mandala – I’m still experimenting with elements and motifs. I call it experimenting, but really it’s getting lost in the zone when I’m drawing.
This isn’t one of my favorite designs, but looking at it closely, I might feel differently if I colored it in. It does have a lot of nooks and crannies for coloring.
The pattern feels too repetitive to me, even though I did that on purpose. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t appeal – too many similarities.
I wrote before about buying the iColorama app for my iPad. I haven’t had much time to learn its features, but I have spent a few moments here and there mucking about in it.
I know that many people color digitally, so I want to make my coloring mandala designs digitally friendly to appeal to as many customers as possible.
I took one of my Mandala Monday designs and colored it in with my Procreate app.
Here’s what it looks like straight out of Procreate. I just used the color bucket drag-n-drop feature to color in the various pieces. I like the way it turned out, but I wanted to see if I could add to it using the iColorama app.
So I opened the colored mandala in iColorama and then started playing around with various options. I had tried the paper texture previously and liked it, so I started with that.
I really like the paper texture – I can almost feel the ridges of the paper under my fingertips when I look at this image. It still seemed kind of flat, though, so I kept trying other filters and options.
This is what I ended up with:
I wanted to share what filter I used, but I didn’t note it before I saved the image, and now I can’t remember. 😦 Getting older has its downsides. 😛
Even though I can’t remember what filter I used, I’m happy with the final result. The image now pops and the paper texture I used makes it look like a photo of a physical art piece, which is pretty cool.
I’m definitely going to have to carve out some time to watch some tutorials on iColorama, because I think it will be an amazing tool to use with my designs.
Again, more experimentation with variations of shapes, rather than the more traditional circular mandalas. I think I started off thinking about a feather motif and then it morphed into more leaves and flowers.
That’s all part of the process, I think. Getting into the feel and flow of creating the mandala, rather than being focused on forcing into something preconceived.
I haven’t actually drawn one just for fun in a while, as I’ve been concentrating on producing ones for a coloring book. I think I need to draw a couple that are just for fun – find my mandala mojo again!
So far, this is one of my favorite mandalas that I’ve created. The lines, the shapes, the symmetry of it, all turned out much better than I anticipated. I feel like I found a good balance in all of the layers, as well as making it detailed enough to be a good design for coloring.
Speaking of coloring, perhaps I should print some of these out and color them and see how well they actually work. Maybe you could help me out and do the same – and then send me photos of your work to share? 😀
Off to the printer I go. 🙂
I have been playing around with different shapes of mandalas and wanted to try one that wasn’t completely circular. I like the snowflake-like shape of this one, but I’m not sure I put enough detail into the outer layers.
I have been searching the interwebs for inspiration for design elements, but I find many of them too similar. So I have also tried incorporating some elements from zentangles to fill in details.
Regardless, the process of drawing the mandalas themselves has been fun for me. So it shall continue!
I quite like the way this mandala turned out. The repetition of the shapes turned out better than I thought it would.
I’ve been working on some larger mandalas, with an eye towards turning them into a coloring book. Interestingly, as I’ve worked on them, I struggle with them more than the mandalas I was drawing just for my own enjoyment.
So maybe my own enjoyment of the process has an effect on the final product. Something to keep in mind as I go forward.
I’ve been playing around in Procreate and creating these mandalas. The symmetry and lines of mandalas are appealing to me – so much so that I’m hoping to create (and finish!) a project with them.
I love to color while I’m watching TV or feeling stressed, and intricate images like mandalas are a favorite of mine. I’ve also been experimenting with adding zentangle tile patterns into some of the mandalas.
I did some internet searching last week and found all kinds of uses for mandalas – wall stencils, wall decals, car/phone/laptop stickers, coloring pages, and more. Who knew?
