Mandala Tote Bag Anyone?

A few days ago I posted about my mandala tote bag project and showed you the sketch of my design, here. I wasted to made a tote bag for my niece, with a mandala design, to be unique and interesting as well.

As I'm not an artist and this would be my first project of this kind, the most suitable option was to create the design on paper first. It took me a couple of days because I did not like the outcome and changed it quite a few times. Good think I was drawing on paper and erasing what I did not like was easy.

After I got an acceptable pattern, put it aside to think about if that was what I wanted. It helps to think it over as once you do it on canvas, there's no going back. Looking at the pattern for a few days gave me the push to finalize it, so today I finally did it.

In my previous post I said I would never draw lines and circles to aid my drawing, which is valid for paper, but drawing on canvas for the very first time is a different thing, so I draw a few guiding lines, you know, like at first grade.

I used a regular pencil and to my surprise, drawing on canvas seemed much more easier than I thought. Don't use a clutch pencil as you will break it the first 10 seconds.

This is the part where I cheated and used a cup, to get a perfect circle.

I'm not going to lie, I was very nervous when I started drawing, but after some time I forgot about it as it was quite easy to draw on canvas.

The biggest surprise however was when I discovered that you can actually use the eraser on canvas, quite efficiently. Can one ask for more? I don't think so.

This was the phase till I followed my previously created pattern. Then I went rogue again. What a surprise!

This was the final design I said I'm satisfied with. There are parts I could have done better, but ... as I have no talent, this has to be good for now.

It's a bit pale as I did not want to press the pencil harder as this was just a sketch, to guide me when drawing with ink.

This is the marker I bought, it's specially for textile.

Then I took a deep breath and started drawing with the marker.

The marker is 1mm thick, so I was surprised how easy it is to use it. They had a thinner one, but that would not have been suitable for this type of canvas.

What you can't see on the photo is that there's a chopping board wrapped in plastic, in the bag, to stop transferring the ink to the other side. I don't know if there's a risk as i haven't looked inside the bag, to check the back of the canvas, but better safe then sorry.

This is another detail you can't see. No worries, you can wash it off with alcohol, but at some point I had to stop and let the canvas dry, to avoid getting the canvas dirty.

And voilà! After like 20 minutes, the masterpiece was finished. I still have to iron it to make the paint stick permanently, but at least the drawing is done.

There's room for improvement, regarding precision, but I'm glad there were no major mistakes made. It was a fun project and I'm glad I did it.

Drawing on canvas is not so difficult after all, so this may not be my last one. I'm planning to practice mandala and zentangle too. Practicing will help me draw with more precision and who knows, maybe I'll create another masterpiece 😂

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