Something I valued when creating my personal mandala was how therapeutic it was to make. It was so utterly satisfying to draw a stroke in the clipped section and watch it appear in 15 others. I love varying my stroke to showcase the most minute details and make it larger to bolden some of them. With my black and white, I loved the process of layering different details atop one another and trying to fill as much of the space given as possible. It was so rewarding to see complete. With my colored mandala, I loved the same things. I also loved creating a color scheme and working off of it, changing strokes to match whatever color I felt they should be, and watching how all of the colors worked together when I zoomed out on my picture. I also enjoyed creating gradients that covered specific aspects of my piece with various bright colors, bringing the piece together.
I learned that I enjoy drawing digitally, and even if my strokes weren’t as refined as I would like them to be, I’m learning so much about digital art and how much I enjoy the process and, most importantly, am proud of the final product. I’ve learned I have much tension and stress with college applications and everything else going on in our lives, which eased that anxiety or a little bit. I realized that I take heart in the details, and I like to make sure there are many, so your eye always has something interesting to look at, and from afar, the full canvas looks even more beautiful. I think most importantly, though, I learned that I value growth. The mandala represents a flower, something I naturally came back to when creating this as I didn’t plan to make a flower. As I built upon more and more strokes, I valued seeing my mandala’s growth and having it be a flower; it also symbolizes that growth.
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