ELEPHANT MANDALA ART

Who doesn’t love a cute elephant or two? Drawn onto a canvass in a fun, mandala style – yes please!

In many cultures, the elephant is considered to be a symbol of strength, wisdom and tranquillity. Being of Indian heritage, it is safe to say that the elephant makes up a large part of the décor in a typical Asian house, so my mum couldn’t wait to get her hands on this one. And yes, I was after another excuse to get out the Micron fine liner pens (don’t judge me!).

For this piece, I started off with a pencil sketch on a canvass; for an additional element of cuteness, I included a baby elephant, tied to the mother’s tail for a mother-baby bond. I then proceeded to add the outline and detailing in fine liner pen.

Important to a mandala piece is the use of geometric shapes, such as circles, triangles, rectangles, as well as the inclusion of lines, which can be straight or curvy.

My personal recommendations:
* Start with a pencil and outline with a pen, if you are not feeling confident.
*Go small and start with a centre point for the mandala – in this case I used a number of floral patterns with starting points being from the feet going upwards and on the face, going down to the trunk.
* The more detail used, the more intricate your mandala piece will look. For added detail, use dotting (also called stippling), slightly thicker lines and shading.

I felt that the elephants were best left in black and white to suit this particular mandala style pattern work. However, since I wanted to incorporate colour, I added this into the floral pattern work on the borders. This was achieved using colouring pencils for a softer colour effect and coloured fine liners to provide the depth and tones that make this piece more visually appealing.

Where to place this: The elephant mandala is best placed in a hallway, living room or in a workspace, if you have one, to bring positivity into the home or to provide personal growth to your career.