Week 3 - Creating a traditional mandala: drawing a "skeleton"

If you want to draw a traditional mandala, I find it helps to have a structure to work on, so I first draw what I call a "skeleton". It's a framework of concentric circles cross-crossed with radial lines over the center point, drawn very faintly with pencil so it can be erased after the mandala is done.

If you're a mathematical whiz, you can very carefully measure and position both your rings and your radial lines to get a specific result. However, I've found it's not necessary to be so perfectionist in order to draw perfectly amazing mandalas. I tend to vary the distance between the rings for variety - it gives me short sections and longer sections to work with. I do try to keep the lines crossing the center equally spaced, but I've seen some quite beautiful mandalas that broke all these "rules", so don't let the math scare you ~ start with something simple and learn as you go.

In the handout below I give you good basic directions to creating your own mandala skeleton, but if you find it too intimidating to pick up a compass and a ruler, you can print out one of the pre-drawn skeletons further down. The one true advantage of creating your own skeletons is that you will be able to erase the pencil lines, whereas if you use on my skeletons, the printed lines will become part of your finished mandala, unless you cover over them when you colour them.

And here are some skeletons for you:

Have fun, and draw some amazing mandalas!