Kolam by Sudha Balaji

 On 20th of August 2024 Rangoli sans dots completed 12 years successfully.  When you are there for the long haul encouragement from followers, subscribers and viewers is the motivation. I shared a post thanking my followers on Facebook.  I am grateful for the wonderful comments received there .  I am sharing some of them in this blog post  "Wow!! Great madam.  Heartiest congratulations on successful completion of 12 years of such beautiful divine and dedicated art.  May God shower all his blessings on you and your family with loads of happiness and good health.  I am indeed blessed to see your kolams/muggulu daily as though I am drawing myself. Great inspiration for one and all to keep continuing our tradition even in this present digital life ...."  Shailaja Bharath "You inspired me to draw rangoli daily.  Many thanks to you!  Keep sharing your rangolis.  They are such a beautiful one " - Medha Kulkarni "Congratulations my dear kid sister.  Your innovative ran

 An auspicious  Pooja room kolam and hence not drawn at the entrance.  As in the case of many posts I have shown  the white kolam only.  It is preferable to decorate with kavi ( ochre ) colour.  Kavi is usually used for auspicious occasions. This kolam can be drawn for our Wednesday kolangal or Saturday kolam as these two days are important for Lord Vishnu We can also draw for Vaikunta Ekadasi festival , Purattasi month ( the whole month is considered important for Lord Venkateswara ) I have also added Goddess Lakshmi's Feet for this rangoli.  In traditional rangoli we represent Her through Feet patterns. The main rangoli represents the Lord through shanka and chakra designs with the Namam pattern at the centre.🙏🙏 I receive few suggestions on social media - like lines should be drawn from top to bottom, patterns should be drawn clockwise and not counter clockwise Though I appreciate their views , I think that we must first encourage drawing kolam daily at the entrance particularl

    Rangoli making / Rangoli drawing - double stroke kolam T he first image shows the first step of the rangoli.  I have used only parallel lines drawn simultaneously in this design. Draw four pairs of intersecting lines.   From the ends of each line connect the adjacent line to get the pattern seen above. A very basic design that can by itself used as a simple rangoli for our homes.  The next design has evolved from the previous one.   Draw a parallel line border matching the contours of the first design.  Connect the border and the floral design with as many straight lines as possible The third step of the rangoli is shown below.  Decorate the periphery of the rangoli with floral motifs that are formed using spiral and circular patterns.   Also fill the petals at the centre with simple oval designs.  This is a plain rangoli by itself and can be drawn at entrances.  The rangoli can be filled with colours.  Adding colours will make any rangoli very attractive.  Actually rangoli means r

 First image The rangoli  starts with a plus and expands with semi-circular patterns and petal like designs .  It has a simple two line border filed with blue rangoli powder on which red dots are added.  All the four edges have spiral patterns.   The rangoli is filled with different colours yellow, green and blue. The remaining space that is black can also be filled with some colour of our choice,  only thing it is to be done carefully.  The rangoli with colours filled is available in Dusshera rangoli Second image - This kolam / rangoli  also uses floral petals as motifs.  The basic kolam is drawn with spiral patterns as shown.  The outermost patterns are based on floral petals and are used to decorate the kolam.  Third image - In the rangoli  the central design is drawn by drawing intersecting lines and forming the parallelogram like patterns.  The edge of each one is expanded with floral designs with two petals.  The gaps between the petals are filled with free hand designs.  The cen

Important Rangoli tip   Filling up rangoli with colours of our choice or suitable to the motifs or patterns used.  Filling rangoli with rangoli powder also comes with practice because care should be taken to ensure that the colour of  one pattern or design does not spill into the other.   However, if it happens, it can be corrected.  For example if we fill a rose with pink colour and we inadvertently spill green meant for the leaves, on the pink petals, that can be corrected by adding pink again over the spilt green colour. Drawing  neat and beautiful curved lines makes the rangoli very attractive though it is a very simple rangoli design.  Colourful curved lines parallel to the white design can be drawn to  get a colourful design. Or leave it plain and simple. These rangolis can be used as apartment kolams as they are called in Tamil Nadu.  Apartment kolam are small rangoli designs drawn at the entrance of apartments due to constraints in space.                          Some designs i