I’ve had lots of people tell me that I should make coloring books. Coloring books for adults. Last weekend I had lunch with my longtime friends Louise and her husband, Bruce. Bruce has been really successful doing this, and he shared some tips. They pretty much convinced me that I should be publishing my own line of coloring books. How cool would that be?

Right now I’m trying to figure out categories and themes that would showcase my style. Of course mandalas are the first thing that popped into my head. Why? Because they are so much fun to draw! Relaxing. And I think they would be relaxing to color as well!

Here is what I’ve been goofing around with even though I have a million other things that I should be finishing! HELLO, what about those initials, Mary? haha! I’m actually working on those as well.

I print out a square and concentric grid in light gray when I draw my first designs in pencil. I don’t have to get out a ruler and measure if I have guidelines. So much easier! Like in the above picture, I’ll only draw a portion of the design. I can put two on a page.

Then I’ll copy and paste, rotate the little “pie slices” a bit in Photoshop to get the full design. Since I’m only drawing a small portion of the whole design, I never really know how the finished mandala will come out. It’s kind of fun, almost like a surprise each time.

These are the first four. After I come up with the full design, I’ll “ink” it in Corel Painter. I’ll just ink that small slice, then I’ll copy and paste, rotate.

This is one that I did last month. I’ll have to tweak it a bit and get rid of all of those black heavy sections. I want people to be able to color each part!

Thanks for stopping by! I’ll be showing bits and pieces of my work this month to celebrate “INKTOBER”. 😀