How to Create a Mandala in Inkscape - Part 3: Ring Creation and Coloring

Quick Access

    01 Introduction
    02 Relevant Inkscape Tools
        02-01 Drawing Tools
        02-02 Selecting Tools
        02-03 Aligning and Distributing Tools
        02-04 Transforming Tools
        02-05 Grouping Tools
        02-06 Coloring and Outlining Tools
    03 Guide Lines Setup
    04 Symmetric Object Creation
    05 Ring Creation
    06 Coloring

05 Ring Creation

A large proportion of modern mandalas are radially symmetric circles, or have some regular circular aspect to them. In this part of the tutorial I describe one technique you can use in Inkscape to place design elements in a ring so that they fit precisely and are evenly spaced.

Keep in mind that a circle is comprised of 360 degrees. This handy table shows the number of degrees wide a design element needs to be in order for a specified number of them to fit into a ring while just touching each other. If you want space between your design elements, add the degree width of one space to the degree width of one design element to get the total degrees for one unit. Of course, fractional degrees also work as long as you stick with numbers that divide into 360 evenly.

How to Create a Mandala in Inkscape - Part 2: Symmetric Object Creation

Quick Access

    01 Introduction
    02 Relevant Inkscape Tools
        02-01 Drawing Tools
        02-02 Selecting Tools
        02-03 Aligning and Distributing Tools
        02-04 Transforming Tools
        02-05 Grouping Tools
        02-06 Coloring and Outlining Tools
    03 Guide Lines Setup
    04 Symmetric Object Creation
    05 Ring Creation
    06 Coloring

04 Symmetric Object Creation

Most mandalas contain elements that are symmetric. The easiest way I have found to draw a symmetric object in Inkscape is to draw one side of it, then copy it, horizontally flip the copy, and join the two halves.

Here is a step by step illustrated description of creating a symmetric object.

Draw one side. I am right-handed, so I draw the right side first. You might wish to draw on top of the guidelines to control the width of the object, or you can draw the object in its entirety and then resize it to fit into a specific angular space. In this example, I want to draw an object that takes up 30 degrees of space, so I will draw the right side in 15 degrees using my guidelines. I am using the Bezier curves tool.

How to Create a Mandala in Inkscape - Part 1: Intro and Setup

Quick Access

    01 Introduction
    02 Relevant Inkscape Tools
        02-01 Drawing Tools
        02-02 Selecting Tools
        02-03 Aligning and Distributing Tools
        02-04 Transforming Tools
        02-05 Grouping Tools
        02-06 Coloring and Outlining Tools
    03 Guide Lines Setup
    04 Symmetric Object Creation
    05 Ring Creation
    06 Coloring

01 Introduction

Mandala art is very popular today. Most mandala artists describe the process of creating a mandala, usually drawn by hand with an ink pen, as a relaxing and meditative process. Modern mandalas are generally radially symmetric and often contain floral and/or geometric elements. Mandala designs range from very simple to very complex. Here is an example of a mandala taken from The Spruce Crafts.

I have found that creating mandalas in Inkscape is also relaxing and relatively easy since there are several tools that aid you in duplicating, rotating, and aligning elements, plus there is the added benefit of being able to color the same mandala multiple different ways without having to redraw it.

In this multi-part tutorial I will indicate the Inkscape tools that I use to create mandalas, describe and demonstrate how I create symmetric elements and place them in radial patterns, and talk about object cloning and how useful it is for coloring a design.

Switching from Windows to Linux

The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things: Of switching now to Linux,
Putting Windows in the wings.
- (Nod to Lewis Carroll)

I was a software engineer on UNIX systems for fourteen years. When I retired in 2004, I switched over to using Windows on my home computer. Windows XP was great. All of the software I wanted to use worked fine on it and life was good. When Windows Vista was released, I simply ignored it and continued happily on my way with XP. Then one day, due to a death in my family (my computer), I was forced to buy new hardware. Fortunately, at that time Windows 7 was available, so I started using it and life continued to be good. Windows 8 came and went while I happily continued using Windows 7.