Can you imagine such a complex mandala pattern being completed by a child?
About a month ago, the son of foreign netizen whityfisk was painting, and he asked his son what he was painting. "It is a mandala, and its pattern represents the entire world." The child answered seriously.
Dad thinks this painting is very cool, which is also the origin of today’s mandala handmade tutorial.
whityfisk sat with his son and wanted to make this beautiful mandala out of cardboard. In addition to letting his children continue to draw, he and his wife also went online to find more inspiration.
As you can imagine, everyone has their own ideas and some compromises must be made:
Mom: I want flowers and natural elements.
Son: Preferred his own drawings, but liked geometric shapes and had an idea to make the entire mandala a maze.
Dad: I want to add the golden ratio.
With great difficulty, everyone finally reached a consensus, and the final mandala pattern appeared.
Then whityfisk began to teach his son to use CAD software for design.
Just in time, whityfisk just bought an AXYZ CNC cutting machine for work, so it can be used to cut cardboard, making the whole production process much easier.
They first made a honeycomb shape out of corrugated paper, about 1 inch high.
There are many intricate cut and punched pieces in the design that are integral to the composition of the mandala.
To increase his son’s interest in the components of the mandala, the father removed the top layer of paper from the corrugated cardboard to reveal the structural pattern.
During the production process, white glue was needed for pasting. I gave these to my son and it was quite easy.
Looking at his serious look, he is very engaged.
This is just the center part of the mandala pattern. For children, the final mandala pattern will be quite large.
Use cardboard to make a flower-like structure.
Cut thin strips from corrugated cardboard and roll them up to make flower centres.
The finished flower center will be taller in the middle and lower around the edges, from 3/4 inch in height to 1/4 inch in height. It has a nice dome shape and should just fit into the center recess.
Add more petal-like structures on the outside, all according to the designed drawings.
On the outermost edge of the mandala is a triangle-like pattern with a hollow center.
whityfisk is very happy to work with his family to complete this mandala, and the children can learn a lot from it.
The final mandala pattern is super big, even taller than whityfisk’s son, and the three colors of corrugated paper look great~
