In this lesson, you will use the image on the right to make a mandala.
Download it now by right clicking on the image and saving it to a folder on your desktop named "mandalas".
The image is a copy of the painting "Yellow Sweater" done in 1919 by artist Amedeo Modigliani.
Why start here?
Mandala making, at least of they type we will do, produces strong mandala images if you start with a canvas of just a few strong colors that work well together.
It's no surprise that Modigliani knew how to pick his colors.
Do you like them?
But, you can start anywhere, for example, you can start by making your own starting image with colors that you select.
When I started with this one, I had a hunch that it would produce an interesting mandala like the ones I've made elsewhere, but I wasn't certain.
Here are some of the others I've made:
When
you finish following these steps, you will have made a mandala that looks
something like the one to the right?
Do you like it?
Maybe, maybe not . . . people's tastes differ.
Like it or not, can you see the original Modigliani painting in it?
You should be able to see, at least, the color match.
You should be aware that there are lots of different looks to mandalas, and that the ones I make are quite different from the sand mandalas made by Buddhist monks and even different from those made by other digital mandala makers.
Here's a web site that shows a great variety of mandalas made by different wimagers.
When you visit, select 'computer' under 'category search' and you will be shown a variety of mandalas made by your fellow wimagers.
Some are done by hand and scanned, while others are done digitally, as we will do.
What's a wimager? You and me and all the other folks who play around with colors and forms on the Web as in 'web-imager.'
What software will you need?
To follow the steps and make a mandala like the one shown from the original, you will need to have a copy of photoshop, the later the version, the better.
I use photoshop 8. If some of the windows look a bit different, it might be because different versions of photoshop used windows that were slightly different looking.
Ready to go? Have you downloaded the original Modigliani image yet? If so, go to step 1.
Steps [introduction] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]