What do you do in your spare time?

I take a quick glance over my phone’s highlighted calendar. There’s more colour on here than in a packet of Stabilo markers. Those colourful dashes are lessons and appointments, scheduled in on my days off. Ironically my free days are not so free. It’s how I spend the blank hours that counts. 

A few days ago I was asked, “What do you do in your spare time apart from blogging?” not worried about sounding boring, I answered, “I draw, digitally”. Nothing dull about that, in fact, throwing in the keyword digital makes me sound cool. Right? Being my hobby, interest and passion, I’m going to give it all the limited time I have. Before you imagine me glued to my computer or laptop like a professional gamer, I do have a very active lifestyle, I promise. I regularly go to the gym, swim and socialise with friends. However, while others spend the last (few) hour(s) of the day on social media or Netflixing. I spend it blogging or drawing. And, why not. When I look at how my work has evolved, I feel pleased with what I’ve learnt. It inspires and encourages me to continue to use my time more effectively.

During my productive hours, I’ve been busy working away on my latest burnt orange mandala. I’ve put tezhip inspired curved lines on hold for the moment to experiment with textures. Gradually introducing different fine details into my work. I say slowly because I need to discover what works and learn new techniques. In this mandala, I decided to go a little dotty. I placed a few gold dots in areas where the pattern is normally plain. The dots have a slight difference in size. Those closest to the centre start off small, as the patterns begin to grow with the radius the dots get bigger, fitting perfectly well within their motif.

Here’s a little something for you dotted with love.