Mandalas created with colored pencils

Popular these days are mandala drawings made with colored pencils.

Mandala drawing is a beautiful process that mixes colors together to create the effects you want to achieve, and much easier than using paints and the traditional painting techniques.

Good color pencils have the quality to blend together. By applying pressure on the pencils one can create light or dark mandala drawings, according to preference.

Just as is with other Tibetan Buddhist art, each detail and color in this mandala symbolizes a part of the Buddhist philosophy. The mandala depicted here is the Mandala of the 5 Elements (of water, fire, earth, air, space), a simple Tibetan Mandala with a deep meaning. These elements also correspond within ourselves, to our chakras but are also connected to the emotions, colors, illnesses, styles of thinking and type of character. This particular mandala was used to explain the correlation between illnesses and their treatments.

The pictures of the mandala drawings on this page are created by the students of tibetan art teacher Carmen Mensink. During her mandala classes you will learn to work with different colored pencil techniques. Should you be interested in taking a mandala making class, you can check out the List of Upcoming Thangka Courses & Workshops.