After drawing a rangoli that is not exactly a circle, I am back to my theme with this design below that is a mandala. The previous rangoli is erased and the mixture of all the colours form a purple hue. I have used that to form an annular pattern with some patterns on it made with the forefinger. ( I have stated many times and have also shared my opinion on various websites that I find it very painful to erase a rangoli because of the time and effort we have to put in - but we have no choice given the ephemeral nature of this art.)
The area inside the purple ring is filled with patterns, curved lines and petals and filled with green white and orange colours so it can be drawn for Independence Day also. The outside is decorated as shown and finally the star shaped patterns with white colour are formed to complete the mandala, a circular design.
In this design I have started with a square at the centre . On the four sides of the square a crown-like pattern is drawn. It is surrounded by a single line border formed like petals. The central square is filled with pink and violet patterns decorated with white rangoli powder.
The third rangoli in this series of mandala, a floral design with leaves. The central design is drawn with circles surrounded by a single line border. Now add leaves of two different shapes on the outside. Complete the mandala with flower petals. Decorate it further with simple motifs or patterns. I have used only two different shades of green to get the effect as in the image above. Since it is a near circular pattern I have posted in under mandala.
Lotus is considered important in rangoli and mandala design. Above I have tried my version of a lotus mandala. The Hridaya kamalam is a lotus viewed from the top. This mandala (or rangoli) above has the side views of four lotuses at right angles to each other. The pattern at the centre can be drawn as shown in the image or we can draw any pattern suitable to draw four lotuses above and around it. First the three-petal motif is drawn and then four flowers are drawn on the four sides. Fill with pink and any other colour to complete the design. If required a circular border can be drawn around it to complete the mandala. Here is my video below
The word mandala or mandalam(in Tamil ) has many meanings - a circle, a halo, a cycle of 40 or 48 days or the circumference of a circle. (There may be other meanings also). Since this blog is on rangoli, let us confine our discussion to rangoli designs. I find that the terms mandala or rangoli are freely used for rangoli designs in many countries outside India just as we use rangoli or kolam in India. Since the word mandala is related to circle, let us have some circular designs as theme in this post.
Above, the first rangoli in this post . At the centre as usual we have a floral design that is surrounded by a circular pattern so that we can expand the design radially to maintain the circular design ( all patterns in this rangoli including circles are hand drawn and hence any imperfection may please be excused). Around the circle draw floral patterns in many layers - in this case purple, brown, blue, red, white and green colours are used to expand the rangoli radially. The colours are added as shown and where possible two shades are used. The outermost portion is decorated with a simple border to get the image as shown above.
In case you want to view - colourful free hand rangoli are available in colourful rangoli designs and rangoli
with dots are in pulli kolam designs