Kolam by Sudha Balaji

The elephant kolam design is a popular kolam with dots found in public domain.  It is also a popular kolam in our family.  Just as we have "family song" in our movies, there are some rangolis with dots that have been popular in our family for decades.   This is one of them.  Another using  birds  has been shown in an earlier kolam here in this blog.  More will follow in the future. The dot pattern for this rangoli is 21 to 1 (ner pulli).  First draw all the elephants one by one.  Then the central floral design is drawn, and the remaining dots are filled with floral designs.   Finally, the colours are filled, and remaining gaps are filled with some colour, brown in this case.  Free hand decorations of the elephant are done to complete the kolam with 21 dots this can be classified as a big kolam with dots. There are many more kolam that need a dot pattern using 20 and 25 dots.  Since drawing them by the traditional meth...

What is kolam - Kolam means beauty , beauty due to symmetry.  The opposite of kolam means not in order, haphazard.   Hence kolam means in order , symmetry etc.  Neli kolam category and symmetry are synonymous. When you view a nelivu kolam ( one of the many names for this variety of rangoli - called melikala muggulu in Telugu , gantina rangoli in Kannada ) from any direction you will find symmetry. Let us start this post with  a sikku kolam with 8 pulli first  We can draw it for weekdays ( Monday to Thursday , except Friday ).  I do not draw these on Fridays.  There is no specific reason.   Next kolam is also a 8 dots sikku kolam , seems easy but can be a bit tricky and demands lots of concentration like almost all kolangal of this type   After sikku kolangal let us try a regular dot kolam with 8 dots  Step by step pictures for this pulli vacha kolam - an eight dots rangoli  Chukki rangoli with square dot pattern  ...

I have used a compact dot grid i.e the space between dots are less so that it is easy to present the images.  The problem is that more concentration than usual is needed to draw long lines between/among the dots because it is very easy to get lost.  Step by step images for this big kambi kolam.   The step by step pictures  below Such kolangal can be drawn for Margazhi kolams or Pongal too .  Kambi kolams are popular during Pongal festival.    Drawing long lines comes with practice,  it is difficult but overall gives a beautiful effect because joints at the junction of line segments can be reduced,  the longer the lines , lesser the joints. If the junctions are visible we have to fill up with kola podi .  If we do this at many places the beauty may get reduced.                                                  ...

Margali kolam | Pongal kolangal | Sankranthi muggulu 2020 This is a unique type of chikku kolam .  Here we use a single line that goes around the dot grid and gets connected to where it started and hence the name.  Just by looking at a completed design it may be difficult to decipher the puzzle that it appears and probably one of the reasons why it is called so.  As is the norm in this blog, I have given few images to show the intermediate steps to make it easy to understand and learn.  I have used a 11 by 1 dot grid.  This kolam can be drawn with 9, 7 dots and bigger dot patterns also. Step by step pictures are shown to make easy to follow  For your weekday ( Monday to Thrusday ) or weekend kolam ideas Thin long lines should be drawn at a single stretch  It comes with practice  Try for Dhanuramasam rangoli for one of the 30 days  You may also use for sikku kolam with 11 dots or melikala muggulu with 11 dots for Bhogi a...

11 dots sikku kolam for Margali kolangal We can draw these kolam for during the Margazhi season 2019 and Pongal 2020 when we want to display our kolam skills .  The images show the step by step process for drawing the design. Big is not an absolute term .  We may consider kolangal above 9 dots in sikku kolam as big because of the complexity in may neli kolangal.  For other pulli kolam any design above 15 dots may be categorised as big.   Do not underestimate a sikku kolam by its size.  Even a small design can be tricky .  So naturally bigger designs will be little challenging.  I have tried to make them easy through the steps given in the pics Also called kambi kolam   or pinnal kolam ( pinnal refers to plaits ) Drawn in white with decoration with white kola podi if time permits  We can try modern ideas by drawing with colours.  I have shared one such design here . One more 11 dots sikku kolam for Margali kolam ...