It took me a while before I could finish this mandala. I didn't even bother erasing the pencil draft.

A Mandala is (Hindu & Buddhist art) any of various designs symbolizing the universe, usually circular - dictionary.com

I used to create different mandalas in my notebooks before. I have created quite a few but because this requires time and concentration, I somehow had challenges finding the time to make one until last Tuesday when I was out of idea on what to write and got tired looking at the computer monitor. There's really a certain time when we go through mental block syndrome.

And because my eyes were tired of looking at the computer screen, I had to rest it by going offline. I turned to my journal instead. I found the blank page for this week's journal dates and thought of what to add in there.

Then I thought of Mandala. It's been awhile, perhaps it is the best time to add one. So I went ahead and started making one. Of course, I had documented the process as follows:

Used a very old rusty compass to draw circles which will be the basis of the art. I made around seven different circle diameters. The compass made the job easy and smooth!

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about. - Benjamin Franklin

And right away, I added geometric symbols using my mechanical pencil. This will be my guide as later on, I will be tracing them with permanent black pens!

Triangles, circles, lines, ovals and etc. I have no specific plan on what the concept is all about. I just freely added anything I could think of. Again, this is just a draft so there's a huge possibility that the design will be changed as soon as I trace them later.

If plan A doesn't work, the alphabet has 25 more letters. So stay cool!

And now, I start tracing it using my Zig black pen.

Flaws accepted here!

What's so nice about using these types of pens such as the Sakura Pigma and Zig pens is the fact that they stay in the same page, they don't create blotches to the back page.

Starting to add dark lines to some of the elements here. I actually like how they turn out at this point although I don't have any specific plans on what the outcome would be. I had to focus on the next pattern.

What I really like about mandala is that it isn't strict on what you want to create, you just have to go with the flow.

I don't really know what to do with those circles in the last part of the mandala. I just knew I had to complete this.

But I have to do other things like going to work! I had to suspend this and do it the next day.

Wasn't able to take a photo of the next things I added but I somehow found different circle sizes would be a good addition inside the big circles. I was just out of idea on what to add there. But it don't look bad either.

I had to just add a more ink in the empty spaces. It somehow created this opened pods feel to it, at least for me!

How do you find it so far?

Again, I missed to take a photo of the next step. I originally was planning to make a different design but ended up adding a shell-like pattern after the circles. I guess it was alright.

I added random lines from the base to create this shadow effect. I am not really good with the terms used in art so forgive me!

Here below is a short clip of me adding the random lines. I am not a perfectionist so I am very okay if the lines get out of the way .

After finalizing everything, here's my first mandala on this journal! I hope you like it!

Look at this cute black cat showing you the mandala! This really made me feel accomplished today.

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Check out my other journal entries below:

• You Are The Sticky To My Notes

• Journal: How's Your January So Far?

• You Are A Child of God

• Great Heroes Don't Always Win Battles

• I Can Do All Things

• Make Way for 2018

• Calendar of Family Birthdays and Events

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