- Mandalas: progress & drawing -

After researching some different types of mandalas, I decided to try to draw some myself.  I began by drawing a simple mandala very quickly:

Here, I began by drawing circles surrounded by leaf-like petal patterns, as well as some detailing in the third layer before the edge.  I thought this was good for detail practise, however I did not like the final appearance of the mandala as it was not very symmetrical in any way.

I began to draw another mandala, taking a lot more care in the drawing by first drawing crossing horizontal and vertical lines and then checking the symmetry of my drawing every few minutes.

Here is the beginning of my second mandala.  As you can see, I concentrated a lot more on ensuring there were equal numbers of 'petals' in each quarter of the page (separated with the lines), as well as attempting to make the detailing as symmetrical and even as possible.

                                     

I added more and more detail to each layer of the mandala before finally deciding to finish it by adding more petals on the outermost layer.  Each section has at least a basic amount of detail.  Once I had drawn the entire mandala in pencil, I outlined it in pen (both fineliner and gel pen).

I have started one more large mandala, currently only drawing in pencil.