I’ve been working through the video lessons from Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain.  My skills have improved for sure, but the lessons are pretty boring.  As a consequence, my pace for going through the lessons has been one lesson per two months.  As part of my “reinvention” subsequent to being laid-off, I am committing to drawing at least once per week.  This may be a lesson from the series or it might be some other drawing exercise I’ve run across.  This week, I decided to draw a Mandala.  Several months ago, I saw a video by Paul Foxton on drawing Mandalas as a way to foster creativity.  I thought this might be a good break from drawing chairs and doorways and whatever else I should do as part of the Right Side of the Brain lessons.

One thing I liked about Foxton’s lesson was the emphasis on entering the meditative state while doing the drawing.  He doesn’t use a ruler or traced circles as a template like some how-to videos on Mandala drawing.  So it is less about achieving rigid perfection/symmetry, and more about experiencing flow.  This was appealing to me since the pressure of trying for realism (in the Right Side… course) was stressful.  Trying for perfect symmetry seems equally stressful.  But just meditating as you draw, well, that sounds very relaxing.

My drawing paper is too large for my scanner and I drew all the way to the edge of the page, so here is a not so great photo.