Tuesday 4 March 2014

Mandala Tutorial
















I have received a request to explain how to draw a Mandala & thought that the easiest way of explaining would be to create some step-outs.  Although the following shows how to draw the Mandala String I used in my previous post, the same principles apply when creating other patterns. It's a matter of playing around with the placement of lines - I don't set out with a specific idea in mind I just start connecting lines & see what emerges.





1.
Draw diagonal lines from corner to corner as shown. Where the lines intersect is the centre of the tile.








2.
Draw vertical & horizontal lines through the centre.









3.
With the point of a compass at the centre & the pencil point at the edge of either the horizontal or vertical line draw a circle.







4.
Repeat step 3 using a smaller radius to draw an inner circle as shown.
More than one inner circle may be drawn & the points at which the circles intersect the vertical & horizontal lines then used to create the  framework for a design.







5.
Alternatively, as I have, mark points (a & b) along the straight lines & use those to create a framework as shown.






If you have any questions please leave a comment below & I shall endeavour to provide an answer.

Saturday 1 March 2014

Printemps & Golden Tulips for Spring

March's Challenge (Number 24) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group is once again a themed one, this time the brief is to incorporate something associated with Spring.


front of card

close-up of tangled tile
tangles: Blox, Printemps

angled close-up in lamplight to show gold lustre of tulips

inside of card

NB
A couple of things that didn't show up very well in the photos: The little flower sequins are actually iridescent plus the black panel on the inside of the card is edged with gold as is the message panel.


I was intending to make a Spring Mandala but lost my way as I was colouring for the colours aren't terribly Spring-like! Hence I have just two Spring elements in my design: the tangle Printemps & the stamped tulip images around the centre. The stamped lines were all but obliterated by the gold colouring so the lines were redefined with a Pigma Micron Pen. My next post will be a tutorial showing how I constructed the Mandala String for this tile.


Supplies
Stamp Chocolate Baroque UA4SP0151 Flora & Fauna (tulips).
Inks Memories Black Dye, Delicata Golden Glitz (inking various cardstock edges).
Pencils/Markers etc… 01 & 05 Black Sakura Pigma Micron Pen, Fine Black Sharpie, Gold Sakura Gelly Roll Metallic Pen, White Pentel K118 Hybrid Gel Pen; Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils with paper stumps & Sansodor.
Cardstock W H Smith 220gsm white; black & satin gold from stash.
Die Spellbinders Nestabilities Splendid Circles.
Punch E K Success (corner rounder).
The flower sequins are from stash & the pearl is Papermania.