Kolam by Sudha Balaji

Lotus kolam with dots step by step through images for Sankranti muggulu or Pongal kolam Place a 15 by 8 dot grid , called idukku pulli or oodu pulli in Tamil , the rough translation is interlaced or in between dots.   Mark the centre - it is the eighth dot of the row with 15 dots.   Around this draw the pattern shown in the picture below   To the left start drawing the lotus pattern - the steps are shown in the next four images.  I have added many pictures for a clear understanding.  This will be helpful for those who want to try a relatively big kolam for New Year rangoli or Pongal.    The petals are being drawn      the leaf portion is being drawn Mark the next lotus as shown in the pic below.  You would have observed that the base of the lotus is on the same row as the edge of the floral design at the centre when viewed from different directions    The third pattern in this thamarai kolam ...

The title says that this post will be about very small designs for Thursday, it is a fact that most rangoli designs in Rangolisansdots are simple  and will be simple.  However , there may be persons who would like to draw bigger designs even for their daily kolam or challenging designs as a hobby.  For them too there are quite a few designs that are challenging.  This post I will restrict to smaller patterns to justify the title. This rangoli uses a non standard dot grid , 2,5,6,5,6,5,2 .  After placing the dot grid draw the central star design and the remaining patterns using the remaining dots.  Drawing some lines inside as shown in the picture and shading the star pattern will make even such a small design very attractive. This is a kolam with 5 to 3 dot grid.   Invariably what ever I create at the entrance of my house , most of the times the designs are thought of as I bend down to draw the kolam be it free hand or with dots. Sin...

A step by step guide for drawing a traditional kolam designs through pictures While we can have free hand designs or designs with dots for festival decoration of our homes and  there are many in Rangolisansdots belonging to those categories , this post will delve upon only the old kolam designs that are popular and beautiful in their own way.    They can actually be challenging too , occasionally.    It is still early days in Rangolisansdots and so dots rangoli designs can wait ,  we can have exclusive posts based on number of dots , themes like birds , flowers and so on. Without chukki New year rangoli in progress , steps through images  Old type kolangal are beautiful in their own way  The step by step procedure through the images above should make it simple.  Instead of a square base , we start with a hexagon so it may not be a classical padi kolam if we strictly go by definitions. After drawing a hexagon draw ...

 Some of the kolam I draw on Friday are shared below with some description of the steps involved.  Most of the rangoli here are with two colors white and red ochre or kaavi border , the old style of rangoli designs in kolam art.  Drawing a sikku kolam on Friday at the entrance should be avoided according to my mother and I invariably follow it.   I draw small free hand double line or single line kolam with a kaavi border for Friday.  This kolam design as with many free hand kolam designs is thought of after we bend down to draw the kolam.   The common star shaped double line kolam is drawn for the centre so that there is no starting problem the rest of the patterns  have been drawn as shown and the deepam or lamp patterns just fitted in the gaps so beautifully incidentally.  This kolam was drawn as a Friday too.  This kolam is a combination of commonly used patterns / motifs in many of my kolams   .  The central floral des...