Materials needed:

Black Card Stock – smooth surface – cut into 4” x 6” pieces – I’ll show you how

White Color Pencil

Pencil Sharpener

Compass or circle template – anything a bit less than 4” will do just fine – a jar lid, a small bowl

Beginning Your Black and White Mandala Practice

Your Creative Space – You’ve decided where the best place to practice is and you have gathered your supplies. Remember to consider starting with an opening ritual for your practice:  perhaps lighting a candle or burning some incense, listening to soft instrumental music or silence.  You will fine tune your Creative Space as you get deeper into your practice.

Cleansing Breaths and Beginning

Take several deep cleansing breaths, slowly breathing in filling your belly with air, and then filling your chest.  Pause for a second or two and then slowly exhale from your chest and then your belly.  Repeat this several times as a way of settling into the quiet.

You can do this with eyes open or shut.

Begin only when you are ready.

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Instruction Review:

1. Sharpen your white pencil.
2. Draw a circle on your black paper.
3. Use your compass or found template or even braver, free hand a circle.
4. Remember this is not about being perfect!
5. Put a dot in the center to the circle.  This is called the Bindu.
6. Start in the center – the Bindu.
7. Draw outward toward the edge of the circle.
8. Your lines can be straight, or wavy or a combination of both.
9. When one line is drawn, draw another one close to it, doubling the line.
10. Begin to shade in these areas by pressing down hard on your pencil so that it makes a bright white intense tone and then lessen your pressure so that the color is less intense.
11. Think of this drawing as simply a doodle and get lost in the joy of it.
12. Pause from time to time and hold your mandala at arm’s length.
13. Looking into what you have drawn, you might begin to see things.
14. If you see something, make it more known, accentuating its shape or pattern.
15. Follow the lead of your drawing.
16. Look at the Positive Space - the white shapes you create with your pencil.
17. Look at the Negative Space – the black spaces in-between what you have drawn.
18. You will know when you are finished.
19. Put the date on the back side of your mandala in one of the lower corners.

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Practicing:  Week One

Continue this black and white mandala practice throughout the week.

Try to create one every day as a daily practice.

Responding

Pull out your sketchbook journal. Ponder these questions before and after your mandala practice.

How did you feel before your practice?

How did you feel afterwards?

What is your favorite mandala of the week?  What is it that appeals to you the most?

Do you see any connections between what is going on in your life at this time and the mandalas you created?

Sharing

Share your thoughts in the Gathering Place at the bottom of each page as well as on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram! Mention us @CreatingBrave in your status, tweet and/or caption and include the hashtags #CreatingBrave and #artashealing. Consistent, thoughtful interaction with fellow participants in the Gathering Place and on social media allows us to explore ideas we may not have considered before and to grow into a thriving, supportive online community.

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These are the materials you will need for next week’s practice:

Previous materials

• Black Card Stock – smooth surface – cut into 4” x 6” pieces
• White Color Pencil
• Pencil Sharpener
• Compass or circle template – anything a bit less than 4” will do just fine – a jar lid, a small bowl
• Sketchbook

New

• Colored Pencil Set
• Graphite pencil
• 4 x 6  unlined white index cards

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