This coloured mandala is from one of my earlier colouring books, Abstract Mandalas. I coloured it in a purple and grey palette with Tombow brush markers.
A lot of the colouring I do is simple like this – just filling the spaces, without shading, blending etc. I colour my own mandalas and patterns mostly to relax, not make ‘art’. I did think about only posting my best colouring on this site, as I felt a bit like all my colouring should all look fantastic, since I’m the artist who made these books. But having silly expectations like that just spoils the fun, and I think it’s better to show a range of different colouring styles that match my different reasons for colouring.
I also don’t want to give the impression that colouring should always look amazing or artistic. Many people colour to release stress, and sometimes keeping it simple is the most relaxing way to go, especially with designs like mandalas and patterns where there isn’t the expectation of making it look realistic. Not that any type of design needs to look realistic, but I’ve noticed a lot of people put that pressure on themselves if they’re colouring people, animals etc. I’m not going to post my really terrible coloured pages (and there are plenty of those :)), but if I like how the colours look together and how a page came out, then that’s enough even if I didn’t use any artistic techniques. Which is just as well, since the majority of my coloured pages are really quite basic.
Abstract Mandalas is a book for adults and older kids with 50 original mandala designs. Some are easy and others have more detail – you can preview them here. It’s available on Amazon in paperback.
See the Colouring Gallery for more coloured pages from my books.
