P is for pencil

Alice attempts a very small mandala

The purpose of today’s post is to show one use of pencils to create a design. I chose to use a pad of charcoal paper. The paper was very small, and, as it turns out, probably too small for my project. At some point, I’m planning on redoing this mandala, but on a much larger surface, and probably with acrylic paints.

My original plan was just to draw a bunch of geometric shapes and then go from there, with woodless pencils. I started with an HB pencil, which is the equivalent of a number 2 pencil. But, as I was drawing, I realized that I was actually making a miniature mandala. A mandala is an ancient meditative symbol that reveals the connectiveness of nature. There are many ways to create mandalas, including with colored sand. The sand mandalas are generally destroyed, and the destruction of the sand mandala symbolizes impermanence.

Once I am finished with the initial pencil drawing, I outline the entire mandala in black, by using a Sharpie pen.

Here, I use colored pencils to help the image come to life. Mostly the pencils are Prismacolor and Faber Castell. I have tried to maintain a pattern as best as possible. I think that this was a fun project and am looking forward to doing this as a much larger image, as a painting. I’m going to treat this image as a color study and I’m looking forward to doing the same or a similar image as a full-sized painting.