Kolam by Sudha Balaji

  Rangoli tips tricks and techniques  Placing dots is a very important aspect of drawing beautiful rangoli designs.   They should appear like dots (discussion is on traditional kolam ) and not like small thick lines.   First take minimum quantity of white rangoli powder. It is available with many vendors.  In Tamil Nadu it sold by street vendors   More the quantity, bigger the dots.  Also releasing the powder with thumb should be controlled to get small and beautiful dots or bindu. For getting beautiful small, round dots, the texture of the powder should be right, and minimum quantity should be taken. Optimum texture can be obtained by mixing thoroughly 3 parts of white rangoli (sieved) with 1 part of rice flour.  Kolam as it is called in Tamil Nadu, means beauty, actually beauty in symmetry.  Beauty is achieved by various methods.  Placing small dots is one of them. As they say small is beautiful.  Only when we get g...

 Rangoli making tips and tricks How do we get thin lines in rangoli.  It is a simple trick. For drawing thin lines, we have have to take minimum kolam powder.  This way we can draw thin lines.  The more kola podi you take the thicker the lines will become. Also, lines should be drawn in a single stretch without joints.  If there are joints, we try to hide them with kolam maavu and the lines will become thicker.  Thin lines in kolam are called ezhai .  An ezhai is a single strand in a thread.  Two images as examples If you observe the pictures, the curved lines are also drawn without joints.  This technique of drawing straight and curved lines continuously without any joints is the hallmark of a beautiful kolam.  The more we practise the better we get at this technique.  Kolam art as it is called in Tamil Nadu, has a unique selling proposition, symmetry and thin lines and such lines reveal the dexterity one possesses.  Thick lin...