Sikku Kolam :A Looped Rangoli

Who haven't heard of the Rangoli or the Kolams of South India?
Its a ritual in the morning or in the evening to clean  the front part of your house with cow dung and draw rangolis in various shapes with rice powder. This is to welcome the Goddess Lakshmi to home and drive away evil spirits.  Nowadays cow dung is reserved only for the festive days that too mostly you would find this practice in the villages. Rangolis exists all over India with different names and avatars. I sincerely admire those people who if not themselves at least with help of maid make a point to draw rangolis daily in South India.

Today I am posting not the colorful rangolis but sikku kolams or neli kolams. Sikku means knots in Tamil. The difference between the ordinary rangoli and sikku kolams is that we draw patterns on or using the dots in the rangoli but in sikku kolam we draw around the dots(The dots are clearly visible). Hence they are mostly in curved lines. These kind of rangolis are usually uncolored, and it's difficult to find the start or the end of it. They range from simple ones to most complicated ones, easy to get lost while drawing these rangolis. If you don't believe me, try one for yourself. Like any rangolis these are drawn using the rice powder or white rangoli powder.

Is it possible to incorporate these into your décor? Yes, I think it's possible in many ways. We can paint these pattern on a wall,  or do a complex one, frame it well and display it. It's easy to get mesmerized in their beauty, and I drew one of designs on an empty cardboard box, initially drawing with pencil and later by tracing with acrylic white paint. I guess it looks decent enough, what do you think about it?

Here are few sourced from Pinterest. Aren't they lovely?

 

 

Source : Pinterest

Source : Pinterest

These are few simple ones which are easy and can be drawn on daily basis.

Source : Pinterest

 

Here a complicated one which looks like a chariot.

Source : Pinterest

 

These are the most common ones that I found near my house

 

 

Kids Art : A quick art [Heart]

These days kids are so addicted to the gadgets that worrying about it makes your hair turn grey even earlier than it's time. My sons are no exception and nor me. I am more worried since my younger one is still in the U.K.G and it's half day school for him. After noon is spent on the T.V and he doesn't move an inch while watching the repeat programs. I occasionally try to break this mad routine by engaging him in some activities. These activities have to be short as his patience wears out soon. Here is a quick art project which would hardly take less than an hour to complete but excitement is long lasting.

Things you need cardboard sheet( I used waste handmade paper which was good on one side), ear buds(three), poster colors(White and red), some heavy material(jam bottle).

Cut out card in the form of greeting card from your card stock.
Make and cut a heart shape out of the card board an place it on the center of the card and place something heavy on the so that this heart doesn't move while you progress through your art.
Mix the color. We used three shades. Red, mix of red and white to get light pink and dark pink color. Let your child do this so that he/she learns about color mixing.

Dip ear buds in each color and just randomly place it on the card. Continue this without leaving any gaps.
Remove your heart shape after the paint dries.
Write something nice inside you card and present it to your loved ones.