A Hand-Drawn Mandala

I recently purchased this book on Mandala Art from Amazon:

Since I am exploring art with my hand this week, I decided to try a hand-drawn mandala:

First, I drew my hand and then reduced its size on a copier.  Next, I started with my flower pattern in the center, moving outwards, something I learned from the book.

Note:  It helped to copy my reduced image of my hand on card stock for a stencil.

I used my stenciled hand to create a pattern on the rough grain, 140 lb cold press watercolor paper.  I used a purchased stencil for the heart and tulip.  I drew the diamonds and swirls free-hand as you can see above.

Experimenting with Ecoline liquid watercolors, I used yellow, red and green directly from the bottle without diluting it.

WOWZA!  That red is so vibrant!! ❤️

I used Winsor & Newton Watercolor in Pernament Magenta for the flower petals in the center and Colbalt Turquoise Light for the tulip shapes – that I diluted with water.   Interestingly, the yellow Ecoline color bled when I applied the turquoise color on top but not when I applied the Ecoline red undiluted on top of the yellow.)

After the paint dried, I outlined my pencil lines with a .05 Micron black pen for definition:

I’m not sure that I am done so I will let it rest a few days…

Have you ever created a Mandala?

Cheers! 🙂