Making Mandalas Find the middle of your poster. Hint

Making Mandalas Find the middle of your poster. My paper is 8.5" tall and 14" wide.

Making Mandalas Divide the width by two. My width is 14" so 1/2 of 14 is 7". I am going to make a small mark on the top and bottom of the paper at the 7" mark.

Make a dot in the center of the paper. Making Mandalas Place the ruler against the top and bottom marks. Now, find the vertical middle. Since my paper was 8.5" tall, the middle is 4.25". Make a dot in the center of the paper.

Making Mandalas These are compasses. Compasses are used for drawing circles or arcs. They can also be used to measure distances on maps. There are many other uses for compasses.

Making Mandalas Using your compass draw a circle with a 3" radius.

Making Mandalas Draw the diameter. (A line across the circle that passes through the center.)

Making Mandalas Find the hole at the bottom of the protractor and line it up with the center dot on your circle. Make sure that the black lines on the protractor's bottom line up with the diameter. YES! NO!

Making Mandalas Keep the protractor in this position and make a mark at every 30 degrees. Flip the protractor over and make a mark at every 30 degree mark so that you have marked all the way around the protractor.

Making Mandalas Your circle should look like this...

Making Mandalas Using the ruler, connect the marks at 90 degrees so that you now have perpendicular lines.

Making Mandalas Continue connecting the marks all the way around the circle so you have 12 congruent 30 degree sections.

Making Mandalas Now, you will draw two more circles. One with a radius of 4" and another with a radius of 6".

Making Mandalas Your paper should look like this...

Making Mandalas For this step, use a pencil with a sharp tip. Focus on one wedge, draw a simple design using lines and geometric shapes.

Making Mandalas Repeat this same design in the remaining sections. This is RADIAL SYMMETRY! Radial Symmetry means the same shape repeats all the way around.

Making Mandalas Using the ruler and pencil, lightly extend the sections out to your outer circle. These are your guidelines. You may or may not want to use them as part of your design.

Making Mandalas Using the guidelines, draw another design.

Making Mandalas Continue the design in the remaining sections, making sure to line everything up as carefully as possible. Use the guidelines to help space things out.

Making Mandalas Once you have your design drawn, you need to choose 5 or 6 colors so that you can color your design. NOTE: Do not use dark colors next to each other - it doesn't look as
good as dark next to light 
colors.

Making Mandalas