While they may look impressive, these beautiful ladybug mandalas are easy to paint on rocks. This is a fun and relaxing project for kids and adults alike.
Chose your paint colors. It looks great to have the smallest dots in lighter colors and go to darker colors as you move outwards. If you’re using one color, you can make different shades of that color by mixing in different amounts of white.
Lightly pencil on the design of where the center will be and where you'll make the ladybug's face. This is an optional way to guide you.
Now, using paint on a dotting tool, dot along the lines that separate the face from the ladybug body. Start from the highest part of the arch and dot downward in one direction. Then load your dotting tool with paint again. Make another line of dots starting next to your first dot, dotting down in the other direction.
Using a larger sized dotting tool (the flat eraser side of a pencil works great for this), put one dot where you want the center of your mandala to be. Also make 2 large white dots for the eyes. You can also swipe on eyelashes with a small dotting tool, wire, or unwound paperclip if you wish.
Start your first dot with the smallest of your dotting tools and put it anywhere next to the large dot. Now put another dot exactly opposite this dot on the other side of the dot. Find the halfway point between these two small dots on the circle and make another small dot at that point. Then make another dot opposite this one on the other side of the circle. You should have 4 evenly spaced dots.
Make several dots between each of these dots. The number of dots will depend on the size of your rock. Try to keep them evenly spaced around the main large dot.
Paint two rounds of small dots. This, again, will depend on the size of the rock used and your spacing. When the gaps between your dots will be too big, it’s time to make larger sized dots to always keep the gaps a similar size. You can progressively change the color of the paint as you work outwards.
Each time you change the color you can also put a dot on top of the center dot. By the end of the making the ladybug mandala, you should have several different shades of dots nicely layered on top of each other to give it a 3D effect.
Paint the ladybug's eyes. The ones in the photo were made with two different shades of blue and one dot of black. You can use as many or as few dots of blue as you like, but make sure each dot is dry before you add another dot on top to keep it clean looking.
Paint some tiny white dots in the open spaces between the colored dots. This gives extra depth and really helps make the colors pop!
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Notes
When painting with a dotting tool, your dots will get smaller as your paint gets used up. If you don’t have enough paint on your tool to follow a line to where you wish, simply load your dotting tool with only a little paint and continue. You can also do a few dots on paper first until your dots are the tiny size you desire, then finish off the dots on the stone.