This mindful horizontal pattern exercise will help you feel more calm and relaxed.
As I’ve said in previous exercises our brain loves circles as these shapes have a calming effect. Circles are not the only elements that can have that effect on our brain. Horizontal lines are also something that we find relaxing to look at. Probably because they’re parallel to the ground and are as familiar to us as the horizon in the distance. It stands for stability and trust. A horizontal line also represents something at rest, which makes us feel peaceful.
You also see it in logo designs for example. If a company wants to appear trustworthy it usually includes horizontal lines in its logo.
In this exercise, we’ll use horizontal lines to calm our minds. This mindful horizontal pattern is all about calm and focus and not about straight lines. So don’t sweat it, when your lines are not perfectly straight. That’s not the purpose of this exercise. It’s about getting out of your head and being in the moment.
Have fun with this mindful horizontal pattern exercise! Please let me know if you’ve tried this one, I would love to see it.
You can find a small video of this exercise on my Instagram @thecreativecooldown
Supplies used:
Bristol paper 300gr (Hahnemuhle), alcohol makers (Ohuhu), washi tape, fineliners no. 0.3 (Copic), 2B pencil (bruynzeel), tortillon.
Alternative supply suggestions:
You can use colored pencils, crayons, or watercolor as well.
If you don’t have a tortillon, you can also use a cotton swab to blend your pencil marks.
Instructions:
Step 1
Before you start, slowly breathe in and out a few times to clear your head. If you like, you can add washi tape around the borders to create a frame around your drawing.
Grab a pen or pencil and fill your page with horizontal lines. You can use the top of your paper as a reference. Your lines do not need to be perfectly straight. It’s not a problem if they’re a bit wobbly. Just go slow and concentrate. The most important thing is to focus on the task at hand.
Step 2
After you’ve drawn your lines, pick some colors. Choose ones that you like or ones that calm you. Color all or only a few of your lines. Do what feels good. Go slow and enjoy coloring your lines.
Step 3
Now it’s time to fill our lines with patterns. You can fill them with line patterns, circles, dots, whatever you like. If you don’t know where to start, grab a spare piece of paper and try out a few things. Your patterns don’t need to be complicated. Sometimes it also helps to limit your choices, because the possibilities are endless and that might be a bit daunting at first.
You could limit yourself by just using lines in your patterns for example. Then you could make patterns in which you vary the thickness of your lines, vary the direction of your lines, or vary whether your lines are straight or curved. This could make it easier to think of new patterns.
Step 4
Continue until all your lines are filled with a pattern. You can add a different pattern for each line or use certain patterns multiple times. That’s up to you. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. As long as you’re having fun, you’re on the right track.
Step 5
This next and last step is optional. You can add a bit more depth to your drawing if you like by adding some shade. You can accomplish this by tracing one or more horizontal lines with a pencil. Then you grab a cotton swab or a tortillon and slowly go over your pencil lines to blend them. This will create some shade and give your drawing depth.
Slowly remove your washi tape (if you used any). Keep it parallel to your paper when you remove it.
Now this mindful horizontal pattern exercise is done! Hope you had fun.
If you liked this exercise, you might like my mindful waves and lines exercise as well.