15 to 8 interlaced dots kolam rangoli

New Year kolam designs with dots | Big Pongal kolam with dots

A common kolam during Margali that may also be considered to represent grapes.

For a change instead of filling with colours as we usually do for festivals like Dhanurmasam and Sankranti I have followed the technique adopted in rangoli designs for Diwali so that we get a blend of what is modern and traditional.  Using a cotton bud draw flower designs after placing bullets.  It is easy due to the patterns in this kolam.

The centre is marked - it is the central dot in the row with 15 dots.  The design is drawn around it.

The next few images show the steps for drawing the patterns outside this central pattern.

The base of the grape basket if we may call it is on the row where one edge of the petal of the flower is as we can see in the flower below and ends in second petal as seen in the next pic.  Between any two baskets there are three dots .  These will be used to connect the flower to the baskets .

For a big kolam it is quite simple to draw.  What we have to do in these type of kolam when the dot grid is 15 or more is to mark the centre of the dot grid - the central dot in the central row.  Draw the design around this dot to get the pattern at the centre. Also referred to as the grape kolam or drakshai kolam because it can also be considered to represent a bunch of grapes