Many high-quality creative apps can be found for iOS and iPadOS, including iOrnament, for example. This is how you draw mandalas. It doesn’t have to be anything floaty, by the way, because it mainly produces beautiful line drawings that are mirrored at different points. Suitable for everyone, and you can have a lot of fun with it.
Mandalas are repeating figures, often mirrored at various points. The real artist makes them on paper, which of course requires the necessary thinking to make everything come out beautifully. If you want to focus more on appearance and less on math planning, the app iOrnament – which we believe is best reflected on the larger screen area of ​​a iPad. This app takes care of the arithmetic mirror work fully automatically.
You only need to create a fragment of the drawing, the rest is calculated automatically. This quickly leads to very complex figures. It is important to show control. Too complicated often results in a difficult to digest and far too complex end result.
Furthermore, precise drawing is especially good with an Apple Pencil. But don’t underestimate your finger as a brush, there are plenty of options to start with. Especially because zooming is one of the options.
Choose the base
Start the app and first choose the ‘mirror grid’, which determines where exactly mirroring will take place. Use the fourth button from the top, in the button bar on the right. Choose from various options, which determines the appearance.
Experiment with these options, it makes the possible variations almost endless. Then choose a brush or pen type and set its properties as desired, for that you use the button with the brush symbol. Finally, choose a drawing color by tapping the palette button at the very top.
Apart from the ‘regular’ paint types, metallic colors are also available there (at least in the Pro version, which you can arrange for an in-app upgrade if you wish). Tap the downward-facing triangle in the color panel and you can also set gradients if you feel like it. In short: a large amount of flexible options to put together something unique.
Background color and magic wand
Use the background button (fifth button from the top) to set the background color of your virtual drawing canvas. By default this is black, but especially if you want to eventually print your creation, white might be better. That is the color of a standard A4 sheet and the basis of many works of art. Extra advantage: white as background saves black ink, something you should definitely keep in mind if a lot of background is visible.
Then you can start drawing. Depending on where you put your finger and start drawing, there is then a live mirroring. It takes a while to pay attention, but you soon ‘feel’ what is going on. And while doing so, you very quickly make very nice characters!
When your drawing is ready, the magic wand button is also a nice tool. This allows you to quickly apply various effects to your creation. Such as glittering, silvering or gilding and fine-tuning the whole. Don’t forget to tap the downward-facing triangle button again to bring out more fine adjustments.
Export
Once your work is done, it’s time to tap the export button, which looks like a camera with an arrow above it (second button from the bottom). You now get all kinds of options for export. If you just want to export the image as shown, tap export image. put under export settings definitely the option high resolution at. You can also use the switch behind transparent to turn on. With this you can always choose an alternatively colored background afterwards, or let a layer shine through. Then tap export image to have your image exported to your device’s camera roll with these settings.
It might be more practical to press the button export tile to tap. Only one cell of the image is then saved. You can then set a background consisting of tiles in your OS; the OS itself then takes care of the repetition, which in turn saves storage space and memory usage.
The storage option export raw saves a dataset in a proprietary file format with which the image is rebuilt losslessly and with extreme precision. Ideal for when your artwork is not yet finished and you want to continue working on it next time!
Animations and 3D objects
There is also the option to save videos and gif animations of kaleidoscopic effects; tap for that 3D & Spirals. For example, to make an animated gif of your drawing, select the option kaleidoscope. Use the settings to create something you like.
The first two options are special: build a platonic solid and kaleidocycle. With the first you make a 3D object after some print-cut-and-fold work. If you print on nice sturdy (photo) paper, you have a lovely piece of art to display. If necessary, spray some plastic spray or varnish over the object to prevent any ink discolouration in the long term.
The kaleidocycle produces a more complex paper device that, after cutting, folding and pasting, produces a movable and animated whole. Nice for the rainy Sunday afternoons!
This is an app that will keep you busy for a long time. Also remember that you can of course opt for a purely black and white drawing. By then printing this on – preferably slightly thicker – regular paper (with a laser printer if necessary), you can then color it yourself again with more traditional drawing materials such as pencil and paint. You should especially bear in mind that inkjet printing is not resistant to water. So if you want to get started with watercolor paint or gouache, it is more convenient to opt for a waterproof laser print. Provided you have a laser printer.
Finally, a note: we used the Pro version of the app, but there is also a lot of fun to be had in the basic version!
.