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...

  Many big muggulu with bright colours adorn many homes during this harvest festival season. It is more joyous because it is celebrated during spring. The climate is nice and cool in many parts of India.  There is a tradition of wearing new clothes and going to the temple as we do for Diwali  Drawing muggulu is also for conveying messages through simple art drawn on the floor be it with tiles, cement or mud.  This kolam has all that are connected with Bhogi and Sanrkanti festival, namely Pot, Pongal, sugarcane, Sun and colours  There were requests from viewers on YouTube for a small pot muggu .  So I created this 7 by 7 design.  A compact one suitable for small spaces too. Nowadays space is a premium for rangoli designs, particularly in metropolitan cities.  Necessity is the mother of invention.  Viewers requests kindled my imagination, and I created two rangolis one of which is shared here. White Pot muggu I liked the bright blue colour whe...

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 -  it can be bilateral or quadrilateral and sometimes radial too in circular designs. There may be software for creating kolam particularly sikku kolangal, since I understand that there is Mathematics involved in this type. Frankly, I do not know the Math part to draw or create this art, I would request anyone making the software to ensure that the patterns produced strike a chord with the awesomeness of the art.  Let us start this post with a sikku kolam with 8 pulli first  chikku kolam simple or made simple  We can draw it for weekdays (Monday to Thursday, e...

Easy ratham muggulu for Sankranthi or Ratha Saptami, simple ther kolam for Rathasapthami - if you look for these ideas and have come to this website, I think you may like the rangoli I have shared.   After placing the dots, using simple repetitive designs we can create beautiful chariot rangoli.  The dot grid is a non-standard dot pattern as shown in the picture below.   Obviously, we need such a dot formation otherwise there will be extra dots that we have to use to create relevant patterns that are harmonious with the central Ratha theme.  Rangoli tips - In this context, it is a good practice to use all dot patterns in a rangoli design with dots.   Erasing excess dots may be confusing for those who see only the completed kolam images.  There are many who can identify the dot pattern just by looking at the creative rangoli designs drawn on the street particularly during festivals viz.  We have Bhogi kolam, Kanuma muggulu when rangoli making ...

Sankranthi 2022 is around the corner , a grand festival   ( Peddha Panduga according to my mother and grand mother  ) The muggu below is a butterfly design using 13 to 1 dot pattern The first pic is without colours and the second with colours.  What are butterflies and birds without colours !! Only photos have been added to this blog post. I presume that someone who is looking for designs for a rangoli competition can decipher easily the method to draw without the help of intermediate steps. This is one of the earliest chukkala muggulu, I created on my own when I started sharing muggulu designs with dots also because there were requests for muggulu designs with chukkalu and that too of the simple types  I started by rangoli blog in August 2012, and requests started pouring in by November, December for New Year kolam and Pongal kolangal.  Hence, I was in a hurry.  I still create a lot of dot wali rangoli designs, mostly small. In early days i.e2012 and ...

I have used a compact dot grid i.e the space between dots is 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 ...