Weekend Art and Mandala Monday

Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Mine was a busy one trying to get ready for Chanukah and starting my job search. Yes, after many years of being a stay-at-home mom, I'm going to try to join the work force again. Wish me luck!

Speaking of Chanukah...

This is my youngest's menorah. Each night, we light a different menorah starting with the kids'. I'm going to be drawing another one later today.

Here she is lighting the candle. And it wouldn't be Chanukah without latkes!

And since it's Monday, it must be time for some mandalas. The first one was inspired by the pattern on a fleece I used to make my daughter's blanket (which was one of the Chanukah gifts).

And here is the template.

This one was fairly simple to create once I realized the octagonal structure. And using only a compass and a ruler, you can create the octagonal base. Remember geometry? 

And speaking of geometry, I worked on another Islamic geometric art watching this YouTube tutorial. 

It's not complicated but very easy for things to go wrong. The backbone of this looked like this.

It's a series of squares and one hexagon. The ending pattern looks like this.

I apologize for the wobbly lines. You can either color this or add more details inside. I chose to add more details following some of Lex' designs.

Not quite happy with my work, so I know I will be working on this again. But I love how you can create different designs from one "backbone"! I hope you will give this a try!!