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This year's rangoli at the hospital was amazing. Lot of work put in by children and staff.
The origin of rangoli painting is traced to a legend recorded in the Chitralakshana, the earliest Indian treatise on painting. When the son of a King's high priest died, Brahma, Lord of the universe, asked the king to paint the likeness of the boy so that Brahma could breathe life into him again. This is how, it is believed, the first painting was made. Also, the son of the king painted a portrait of a girl whom the son liked very much, although the king would not let his son see her. Rangoli also became a form of self-portraiture for women.
Coloured powder can be directly used for fancy decorations, but for detailed work, generally the material is a coarse-grained powder base into which colours are mixed. The base is chosen to be coarse so that it can be gripped well and sprinkled with good control. The base can be sand, marble dust, sawdust, brick dust or other materials. The colours generally are very fine pigment podwers like gulal/aabir available for Holi or colours (mentioned above) specially sold for rangoli in South India. Various day-to-day colored powders are also variously used: indigo for cloth staining, and spices like turmeric, chili, rawa, rice flour, and wheat flour. Powder colours can be simply mixed into the base. If the base is light like sawdust, it can be used to make floating rangoli on the surface of stagnant water. Sometimes sawdust or sand is soaked in water-based colour and dried to give various tints (though the result of this process may not itself float on water). If a rangoli is to be made on water, the colour should preferably be insoluble in water.
The rangoli in the photograph was made with sooji/rava mixed with colour and thermocol was used to give it a layered effect.
Diwali '09
This year we celebrated an environment friendly deepawali with only diyas and candles no fireworks at all. There were mild protests from the children at the nth moment, but nothing could be done about it at that time.
The origin of rangoli painting is traced to a legend recorded in the Chitralakshana, the earliest Indian treatise on painting. When the son of a King's high priest died, Brahma, Lord of the universe, asked the king to paint the likeness of the boy so that Brahma could breathe life into him again. This is how, it is believed, the first painting was made. Also, the son of the king painted a portrait of a girl whom the son liked very much, although the king would not let his son see her. Rangoli also became a form of self-portraiture for women.
Coloured powder can be directly used for fancy decorations, but for detailed work, generally the material is a coarse-grained powder base into which colours are mixed. The base is chosen to be coarse so that it can be gripped well and sprinkled with good control. The base can be sand, marble dust, sawdust, brick dust or other materials. The colours generally are very fine pigment podwers like gulal/aabir available for Holi or colours (mentioned above) specially sold for rangoli in South India. Various day-to-day colored powders are also variously used: indigo for cloth staining, and spices like turmeric, chili, rawa, rice flour, and wheat flour. Powder colours can be simply mixed into the base. If the base is light like sawdust, it can be used to make floating rangoli on the surface of stagnant water. Sometimes sawdust or sand is soaked in water-based colour and dried to give various tints (though the result of this process may not itself float on water). If a rangoli is to be made on water, the colour should preferably be insoluble in water.
The rangoli in the photograph was made with sooji/rava mixed with colour and thermocol was used to give it a layered effect.
Diwali '09
This year we celebrated an environment friendly deepawali with only diyas and candles no fireworks at all. There were mild protests from the children at the nth moment, but nothing could be done about it at that time.
