We hosted a lovely mindful art session for Rhizome Artists’ Collective recently, drawing paisley Anyone can join us on Zoom on Tuesdays by booking here.
How to Draw Paisley
Draw a long, continuous curved line. Curve your line so it connects with the beginning of your drawing to draw a paisley shape. Begin to decorate your paisley. Start with a raindrop shape in the big part and a circle in the small part. Add more patterns and shapes such as flower petals. Add more detail like lines, stripes, waves, flowers or whatever you can think of. Colour it in.
Drawing a mandala doesn’t have to be complicated. Mindful art means drawing without self-judgement. Get in the flow and enjoy being in the moment without putting any expectations onto yourself.
Use our free printable mandala template as a guide. Just place some plain paper over the top and trace the segmented circle image. Then fill in the separate parts with zen doodles, patterns, positive affirmations, things you are good at, or things that you are grateful for. Check out some examples done by people who come to our mindful art groups. The important thing is to have fun with it.
Feeling isolated? Stick on an hour long video recording of one of our classes in the background, and enjoy some coffee, creativity and company. (You will need to be on Facebook to see these videos.)
Can’t be bothered to draw your own mandala? We get that! Colour in a ready-made mandala instead, included in our free mindful colouring bundle.
Zentangles® are a kind of meditative drawing; creating
abstract, repetitive patterns, without worrying what the patterns look like. This
process slows down the breathing, calms the mind, and helps you to focus on the
present moment. It’s a therapeutic way of drawing that offers peace of mind,
and is accessible to all.
The method was created in 2003 by an American couple called
Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. You can find out more about them at www.zentangle.com
The Zentangle teaching materials and tools are covered by copyright and
“Zentangle” is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc.
You
will need a piece of plain A4 paper and a black pen.
Draw
six boxes to put your Zentangles into.
Inside the first box, draw a line to make a
“string.” The string separates your square into sections, in which
you draw your tangles. A string can be any shape.
Take
your pen for a walk, and draw random patterns inside the shapes. Try shading
different areas.
On
an A4 page you might have six different boxes full of Zentangles.
There are eight steps in the original Zentangle method,
which you can read about on their website.
What is a Zentangle and why would you draw one? Watch Emma
explain here:
Skip to 25 minutes in to watch the part about Zentangles.
Alternatively, instead of drawing in squares, you could incorporate zentangle style patterns into your own drawing, as with the example above created by Cara H, a client at one of our weekly groups.
Now we’d love to hear from you. Have you tried drawing zentangles? How does it make you feel? Leave us a comment below.
Find out now, in this video micro-lesson, with Peggy and Emma.
In this short excerpt from a Mindful Art Club Zoom session, we draw mandalas using household objects, and show you some examples of both simple designs, and complicated designs, for inspiration.
Now we’d love to hear from you. What would you like to see Mindful Art Club do next? Visit www.tinyurl.com/mac-feedback to tick off the things that you like, on an easy checklist.
Our Zoom sessions are free to join every Monday at 10.00am. Send us a message if you would like the meeting link. Alternatively, watch the live sessions as a Facebook live video, as the Zoom session will be live broadcast to our Facebook page. You can join in with the guided mindfulness, and join our discussion by writing in the comments below the video live stream.
We recorded a video of this project for our clients at The Harbour Centre, which is a drug and alcohol treatment service in Plymouth, UK, where we run a weekly mindful art group.
Watch now to find out:
How can gratitude make you feel happier, and nurtured?
What is the value of gratitude in recovery from addiction?
![[Video] How to Draw a Mandala](https://mindfulartclub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Emmas-mandala.jpg)
