Week 3 ~ Creating a Traditional Mandala - drawing on the skeleton

Okay ... got your skeleton drawn or printed out? Here's where it gets fun. Like the best of games, the "rules" for drawing mandalas are very basic:

1. Draw a line that connects one "intersection" to another "intersection".
2. Repeat that connection around the whole circle.

An "intersection" is anywhere a line crosses a circle. Find an intersection and start by putting your drawing pen on it. The easiest connection to draw is to make a line (straight or curved) to another intersection nearby, usually on the circle above or below the one you started on, and on the next line over (either going right or left). You can cross over more than circle, or more than one line as well if you like, but make your connecting line one you can easily repeat as you go around the circle.

To make the mandala, rotate the paper slightly counterclockwise, put your drawing pen on the same circle you started on last time, but move over ONE LINE to the right. Now draw the same line, ending up on the intersection ONE LINE to the right of where you ended the first time. Now just keep rotating the paper, drawing the line, always moving one line to the right as you go. When you get back to where you started, you will have gone all the way around and you'll start to see the pattern of your mandala forming.

Your next step is to decide what kind of line will work well with the first line you drew. If your SECOND connecting line goes the same direction as your FIRST connecting line, your mandala will tend to look like a swirl ~ spirally and active If your SECOND line goes the opposite direction (and especially if it starts at the exact same place as your FIRST line) your mandala will tend to look more like a flower head ~ static and restful. For example: here are two mandalas I've drawn:

The top one was made by drawing freehand, making zig-zagging connections back and forth between two lines, moving from the outside edge down towards the circle center. I added a little circle at each intersection as a kind of stopping point to make it interesting. It looks very swirly and active.

The bottom one was drawn using a ruler and I chose to mirror each connection to make star points. This one looks very static in comparison.

One thing to remember is that every time you make a connecting line, you're also adding more possible "intersections" to connect to, so you can keep on adding more connections and making your mandala more and more complex. But it only needs to be as complex as you like.

My advice is to keep adding connections as you like, and if you notice that there are "bald spots" that look too empty, divide them into sections, either by a radial line towards the outside edge, or by filling them with a shape (I like to use circles for this).

Here's a 1-page handout for your convenience: