Making Mandala Art with Kids
Over the last few months I have been exploring creating art with a circle formation or mandala art. Creating mandalas is a delightful, beautiful and easy activity which you can do almost anywhere and at anytime. All you need is a small collection of materials – I prefer natural found objects such as shells, pine cones, driftwood and sea glass. You can use any collection you have be it coins, sticky notes, hair clips, or cutlery!
How to make Mandala Art:
- Start your circle in an area which will allow your art work to grow, such as a beach, a field, a grassy knoll or a space of floor at home.
- Once you have determined your area, gather your materials nearby so you have them in an easily assessable space.
- Choose the central piece for your art work and sit this in the center of your working area. For all of our creations we tried to select a large item or an item we only had one of to be the central piece, such as a large price of sea sponge or drift wood.
- Choose another collection and form a ring around the central piece much like a tree ring. This may be a circle of shells surrounding the central coral piece, or pine cones surrounding the large flower. The main focus here is to make sure you make a complete ring around the first piece, therefore the inner piece is completely contained inside the outer circle.
- Continue this pattern adding new circles made out of different items until you believe your piece is complete. A minimum of 5 rings is usually required for visual impact.
- Take a photo so that you remember your mandala and you can share it with family and friends through email or Instagram. If sharing on Instagram, you can join many others who create and share their mandala art on Mondays by using the hashtag #mandalamonday .
For little ones who enjoy creating Mandalas here are a few additional things we’ve tried (or would like to try!)…
- After creating a few Mandalas, we created one using fine liners and water color paints.
- We read stories from books we had gathered at the library. The Mandala Book was the first book I shared with my littles before we began creating.
- There are some adorable coloring in books available such as Everyone’s Mandala Colouring Book , World Mandalas, and the soon to be released Mandala Colouring Book (this one is on my wish list).
- Create a mandala to be a permanent piece of art and glue to a canvas.
- Use man-made collections to create mandalas such as toy cars, marbles, or buttons. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.
Enjoy!
