In this mindful leaves and lines exercise, we’ll get in an autumn vibe and relax by drawing fun leaves with calming lines.
Wow, it’s autumn again. Even though I loved the nice weather we had, I’m excited about autumn. It’s one of my favorite seasons, because of all the beautiful colors you see everywhere.
So of course, I had to include an exercise to welcome this new season. We’ll draw some simple leaves and fill them with lines, which is a relaxing activity.
The repetitive motion of drawing your lines calms you and focuses you to be in the moment. A simple but effective exercise.
Have fun with this mindful leaves and lines 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, fineliner no. 1.0 (Copic), fineliner 0.3 sepia (Winsor & Newton), fineliner 0,05 black (Winsor &Newton), white gel pen (Uni-ball).
Alternative supply suggestions:
You can use colored pencils, crayons, or watercolor as well. Even a pencil is enough. Just use what you have.
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 start drawing some leaf outlines on your page. They don’t have to be complicated, just two curved lines with a pointy tip is good enough. Of course, you can make them more detailed if you like or draw different kinds of leaves. You can even go outside, grab some leaves and trace them on your paper. Do what feels good.
Continue until your page is filled with leaves.
Step 2
The next step is picking a few colors. Choose ones that you like or calm you and start filling your leaves with these colors. It’s your drawing, which means that you don’t have to use ‘realistic’ colors for your leaves if you don’t want to. You can even use all the colors of the rainbow. It’s up to you. There’s no right or wrong way to color your leaves.
Step 3
Now, we’ll fill our leaves with lines. You can fill them with straight lines or curved ones. Just see what comes out. You can even use different colors and pens. Experiment and have fun. Go slow and concentrate on your lines. This will get you in a nice relaxed flow. Drawing perfect lines is not important, because it’s about being in the moment.
Step 4
After filling our leaves with lines, we’ll fill our background with color. You can also fill it with a pattern. See what feels good for you. Add some darker lines on one side of your leaves to give them a bit of depth
Slowly remove your washi tape (if you used any). Keep it parallel to your paper when you remove it.
Now this mindful leaves and lines exercise is done! Hope you had fun.
If you liked this exercise, you might like my mindful waves and lines exercise as well.
