Simple Mandala Drawing Tutorial - 1

Hello my name is Kathy and today I'm going to do a brief demonstration on how to draw a mandala.

So this is a very simple practice.

I love to draw mandalas when I'm feeling like I just need to ground into my creativity a little bit and the practice I'm going to offer today is available to anybody.

You don't need to have any artistic experience.

In fact I hope you don't and I hope learn that we are all capable of being creative and doing creative things.

It's in all of us.

We all used to do it as kids and I think sometimes it gets shut off as we get older and so I encourage people to reconnect with that creative aspect of themselves.

So today all you will need is a piece of paper,

Any type of paper will do,

And a pen.

I'm going to be using a piece of computer paper and just a black ink pen and let's go draw a mandala.

Okay so we're starting with just a plain piece of paper and a pen.

As I already mentioned I'm just using a black ballpoint pen and we're going to begin by just drawing a circle in the middle of our paper.

Now not worrying about being super exact here we're just going to draw it semi in the middle of the page.

I'm using an 8.

5 by 11 just a normal piece of computer paper,

Nothing fancy here.

So we're going to draw a circle in the middle and then I'm going to draw a little foot as a guideline at the top and the bottom and then the left and the right.

So it's going to look like that.

And then next we're going to draw our petals on.

So we're going to want this first row of petals to come over the top of our guidelines.

So we're going to draw a little petal up and a little petal down.

Then we're going to carry that around our circle so a little petal up.

I'm going to actually draw up on this side too.

I usually flip my page when I'm drawing my mandalas but because I'm videoing this for you I'm not going to flip it because that would make the camera go wild and it would get confusing and it would be focusing in and out.

So you feel free to flip your page as you need to because that does actually help you draw your petals more precisely I believe.

But also speaking of precise petal drawing I do want to mention that this is just for fun.

We're not drawing a masterpiece here.

We're really just learning this new skill.

We're just coming in here to have some fun and draw a mandala.

So try not to get too caught up in the fact that your petals may not be the exact same size.

They may be different shapes.

One may be wonky.

It's really all okay and what makes it organic and unique when we do our own individual art is is those little imperfections.

So when you notice that mind chatter happening about you know oh that didn't turn out good take a deep breath let it go.

You can always correct it with your pen as well and then come back later and color that in so you can hide the imperfection.

That is up to you.

Okay so now we've drawn our first inner circle of petals.

So we have a circle in the middle.

We've drawn our four guidelines and we've drawn a petal over the top of each of those guidelines.

Now next we're going to go to our next row of circles.

So we're going to go in between two of the circles that we've already drawn and we're going to draw another petal and then we're going to carry that around the circle.

Now I'll just mention again feel free to twist your page if that feels more comfortable for you while you're drawing this.

And now we have our second row of petals and isn't it looking lovely?

It's already looking a little bit like a mandala.

Definitely looks like a flower and then we're going to continue on.

So we're going to just do this process as we continue out.

So in between these two petals we're going to draw another petal and you'll notice as we start getting into the outer circles the petals do start becoming bigger it's a natural part of the process and there's row three done.

Moving on to row four.

As you can see mine are not perfect so just a reminder to watch that mind chatter and if your mind starts telling you how yours looks horrible and it doesn't look like mine these are what I like to refer to as a couple of the dark caves we're comparing.

Comparison is never going to make our mind and body feel good.

We're being self-critical again not going to make your mind and body feel good so just try to let those thoughts go especially if this is your first time doing something like this.

I have drawn mandalas a lot so and I'm still not perfect with it.

It is I don't think you're ever going to be perfect with it.

I mean you have you would have to be really super diligent and it would just it would take all the fun out of it so just reminding you this is for fun and this is not we're not creating a masterpiece here.

Okay I'm going to move on to the next row so in between the two previous that I drew I'm going to draw another petal again making them bigger each time as we come out which does happen naturally because the petals before it are bigger and as you come off of them and I'm generally drawing it in the middle-ish to the middle-ish of that prior sideline here you it there that's not an exact science either and I don't think too much about getting it you know making sure that my next petal is exactly where that other petal to the right or left started just pausing to give everybody a chance to catch up I'm going to go on to my next row oops the paper a little bit sorry about that now on this next row because this paper is a rectangle and not a square we're going to end up drawing off of the edge of the paper and I think that's kind of cool I mean I think that that can make your art look you know interesting but you could also just stop at that row that we just did here I mean this one's going to definitely be very off the piece of paper so that that is an option and that is for you to decide and there is our basic mandala and I hope you have enjoyed this basic mandala tutorial I will come back with another video on how to how we can decorate this mandala and you can feel free to watch that or not maybe you just want to work on your mandala drawing and you like just the simple black and white option or if you feel so inclined you can watch the various ways you could decorate this and fill it in again my name is Kathy and I am so grateful you've joined me for this simple mandala making practice and I hope you've enjoyed it and I hope you have a beautiful day