Looking for an absorbing coloured pen project? Try creating this vibrant mandala with EMOTT fineliners.
This marvellous mandala design step by step shows you how to display your EMOTT colours with style. You can also explore a range of shading and colouring in techniques with these beautiful fine line pens.
EMOTT fineliners are really good coloured pens that look great and perform brilliantly. The EMOTT’s durable tip doesn’t bend or split so you don’t have to worry about your pen pressure. These hardworking pens draw and write with clear line and deliver good colour coverage and vibrance on the page. Plus they contain water-resistant, non-bleed and fade-proof ink so your work will look crisp and colourful over time.
Vibrant mandala with EMOTT fineliners, get started
For this decorative coloured pen project, you will need a pair of compasses and a ruler (we suggest getting a geometry set from London Graphic Centre) plus a set of EMOTT fine line pens.
To create your colourful mandala with EMOTT pens, you have to set your template out. Use your compasses to make concentric circles.
You will see that first central disc had another with a 5mm gap, then a 10mm space, then a 15mm and 5mm space.
Now you’ve drawn in your concentric circles, make inter-sections in the discs. First make a cross in the centre of the circles, effectively quartering the shape. The make diagonal lines between the quarters. Then make another set of diagonal lines between those sections. These will form the basis of your design and make it easy to create intricate marks.
Making shapes and colouring in
Now let your pencil guide be your basis for building your mandala layers.
Use your coloured pens to draw in a central flower design. We have used our guides to draw in four central petals as shown, then four smaller shapes and eight curved petals all in different colours.
We have coloured in our shapes using a combination of colour blocking, and lines as shown. See how the combination of filling in methods creates interest in the design from the off.
Experiment with mark making
To really construct your vibrant mandala with EMOTT fineliners you should play around and have fun with your mark-making.
For example, see the images above and below. We have added dots along the inside of our blue petal shapes, then on the outside of our smaller teal curves. We’ve then made some simple scallop edging along the inside our larger teal circle.
Play with shape and tone
To create texture and shape within your coloured felt tip design, vary your shapes and colouring in methods.
In the picture below you will see that we have make six pointed curvy petals, colour blocking three alternate shapes.
We have then used a combination of stripes and cross hatching to fill-in the other three petals. We have then intersected them with straight-edged shapes, framing them with a solid circle. You can see here that we’ve used our EMOTT pens to create contrast in shape and tone, making the piece more interesting.
We’ve finished off this central circle with a dotted edge. This echoes the design in the inner circles and creates an eye-catching central motif.
Create your petals
Now you have designed your central motif you can layer petal shapes on your mandala. We have used the quarter lines as a guide to plus added petals in-between. See the image below for your reference.
We have then layered these with more curved, pointy petal shapes.
Creating colour tone
The amazing thing about your EMOTT pens is you can create a great variation in tone by layering lines over each other and applying a heavier pressure. This results in a more interesting design
You can see we have used a combination of light and heavy pressure to cross-hatch lines over our petal shapes to make further depth and colour coverage on our petals. We have also drawn in different line effects on our petal edges to add more interest.
As you can see the in the finished mandala below, the overall effect of employing different line effects and colour coverage creates a more dynamic design. It also illustrates the variation in line effects you can achieve when working with your EMOTT fine line pens.
To see how we made this vibrant mandala with EMOTT fine line pens take a look at the video below.
