Celebration of Light

I’ve been a bit caught up in the mechanics of website maintenance for the last few days and have been neglecting my mess-making creativity! Thank goodness for the Monday Life Book lesson from Dion Dior this week – it was just what I needed to get back into mess making again!

Starting with a piece of black paper, I drew a handprint and mini mandala using a white watercolour pencil, then shaded between two using an assortment of dry white media which included a neocolour crayon, a soft pastel and a jelly roll pen. It was great fun and I think I’ll be playing with this concept some more over the next few days!

Just to add a bit of colour to the post, I had to show you this.

It happened when I was preparing this image for uploading yesterday. I accidentally pressed a few extra buttons … well maybe I did mean to press them … but it looks rather pretty, don’t you think?

Green Mandala!

Today I felt like drawing a mandala – they’re so meditative to create!This one decided it wanted to be green.

I drew the outline in pencil, then inked it using a uniball eye pen. I coloured the mandala using Derwent Inktense pencils. I originally planned to add some doodling at the end, but I rather like it just as it is. What do you think?

Freehand Mandala

Playing catchup with the Life Book Course, today I followed Tam’s Freehand Mandala class from week 36.

I hand drew it in pencil, then coloured it using Derwent Inktense Pencils. When I had got to this point with colouring it, I couldn’t decide whether to colour the rest of the background in or to leave it as it was. So I scanned it in to the computer and added some digital backgrounds to see what they looked like. This is my favourite – it really seems to make the colours pop!

After all that, I decided to leave the original as it is. But it was fun playing.

Playing…

Today I felt like playing digital! I took the last two hand drawn mandalas that I created and played digital blending with them – great fun! I think my favourite is the top right one. Which one do you like best?

Another Seed…

Here’s my version of another Seed of Life mandala from the talented Guada.

I had a lot of fun making this one! I drew it in pencil then coloured it using a mixture of Derwent Inktense Pencils, Lumiere paint, acrylic paint, graphite pencil, uniball eye pen, and uni paint marker. The colour was built up in layers which gives it extra depth. Thanks for another brilliant lesson Guada!

Seed Of Life

I’ve just finished colouring in the mandala I drews for the first part of Guada’s free Seed of Life course.

I love her classes and the meditative discipline of creating these mandalas. I drew this one in pencil then coloured it using Derwent Inktense Pencils and a graphite pencil. I’m looking forward to starting this weeks lesson.

Another Mandala

I so enjoyed making Guada’s mandala the other day that I thought I’d have a go at another one.

I used the same template just joined the lines up differently. all the techniques were the same as before – neocolour background, Rapidograph pen and Inktense Pencil lines and shading, but the result is so different. I’m looking forward to starting Guada’s free course on the 8th October!

Guada’s Mandalas

I love Guada’s mandalas, and so was thrilled to have a lesson from her as this week’s Life Book class. Her instructions are always so easy to follow and even though I started out copying her design the end result is so totally different!

The background was created first using neocolour crayons on copy paper, blended using a watercolour brush. When the background had dried the paper was a little crinkly, so I ironed it flat (much more fun than ironing clothes!) and printed Guada’s template onto it. Then following instructions, I created the mandala and coloured it using my Rotring Rapidograph pen and Derwent Inktense pencils.

I just love the result. If you’d like to have a go, Guada is running a free course starting in October called The Seed of Life. Click on the button on my right sidebar for more details. Thank you so much Guada 🙂