Hi there! So, I just got a new frame drum (my first, I'm fascinated by them, I really want to learn to play) and wanted to decorate it with a tribal style mandala with traditional henna. I used a cone to draw with filled with Jamila henna made with lavender eo.
Maybe someday I'll make a video of me playing... IF I ever get good enough, lol. :P
Let me know if you like it. Enjoy!
Speed Drawing : Quick Mandala
I love to watch artists do speed drawings (they are mesmerizing to watch) so thought it'd be super fun to do one of my own. This is just a quick, spur of the moment, mandala I did this time, but I think I just may do some more elaborate drawings. Stay tuned. ;)
This is also a design that would be great as a Henna mandala!
Happy Drawing!
~Deb.
This is also a design that would be great as a Henna mandala!
Happy Drawing!
~Deb.
Exploring Henna Body Art : Current Obsession
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| Some practice floral designs. |
Anyhoo... the festival was put on by a friend and I just sat up in the show booth with my quickly put together set-up. --I DO love putting together booth spaces, half the fun of a show is figuring out my booth! I put together a cool Indian/Bellydance playlist and printed some signs and waited for my henna to arrive so I could practice.
Henna arrived and did not cooperate! WTH... *sigh* I'd ordered pre-mixed paste partly to see what the consistency of "professional" paste is so that when I make my own later, I have a guideline. But, the paste I ordered was way too thick. I only figured this out after many tries at drawing with the paste and it coming out clumpy and not flowing easily, etc. After an afternoon of practicing and getting extremely frustrated, I took to Google and Youtube to see what good henna should look and behave like. ...NOT at all what I had, lol, it definitely seemed that it should flow more smoothly and should have more of a sheen when applied (until it dries). So, I emptied out all my nicely coned henna (and wasted many of my coveted hand-rolled cones), mixed in some water bit by bit, trying to guess at what the perfect consistency is. It's quite an art, this henna paste mixing! Re-coned the paste and tried again. MUCH better! I'd say still not the best, I still think it should be smoother judging by what I saw in the 100 YouTube videos I watched, but it was workable... good enough!
I then spent about 4 days practicing for hours each day trying to get the hang of drawing with henna. It is MUCH different, though, drawing with henna on paper than drawing with it on skin. I only have so much of my own skin available to henna on though (and my son wasn't willing to allow me to apply more that one small emblem from his favorite web comic) so I was still a bit nervous on how the day at the festival was going to go.
Day of festival: AWEsome! Although darn cold, it's hard to draw anything with cold fingers, the day was really fun. My clientele were mostly little girls and a few teens, but still awesome. It's funny, too, because I normally don't really like kids (sorry, lol) but the kids who are attracted to henna tend to be artistic and a bit alternative and eccentric, just like me, so we got along splendidly. It was cool encouraging them to go for their art and to try mehndi art and henna if they can, etc. Really fun.
I still have lots of practice to do before I feel comfortable with henna, especially the really intricate bridal henna (if I ever want to do that) or being able to do free-form henna (off the top of my head as opposed to referring to a design) but that's good, I like things that really stretch my abilities!
Some photos:
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| My first design on skin with actual henna! |
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| The sign I made for my booth. Later realizing that Temporary Tattoo isn't really what henna is, it should read Body Art. |
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| My booth. Not bad for last minute design. |
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| Some very happy little girls! |
-xo deb.
Exploring Henna and Mehndi Art
I've currently become obsessed with learning to do henna body art. I've always been inspired by mehndi (or mehendi) art and have done lots of illustration inspired by the style but now I want to do the actual body art.
Of course, first comes research, lots and lots and lots of research. Honestly it's one of my favorite things about learning a new craft. Reading about and surfing information and images for days on end. I love the technical as well as the artistic part of learning something new. There is a lot of technical part to henna surprisingly. Most notably that there is some pretty dangerous "henna" out there, usually labeled black henna, that can contain nasty chemicals that can literally burn your skin. Don't google black henna reaction... Yikes!
Henna in it's pure form is very natural, it's just a leaf that is crushed and mixed with liquid to release the dyes in it. It can simply be mixed with water to get a light, short lived stain on your skin, but to get maximum color and long lasting stains you mix with a couple other things. The liquid must be slightly acidic, most water is slightly acidic and therefore will work ok and some people use brewed tea, but lemon juice works the best. It's also mixed with essential oil (which is not actually an oil at all, but distilled plant extracts and can be very therapeutic). Cajeput, tea tree, eucalyptus, and lavender EOs are most commonly used. Sugar is also added to help the consistency of the henna paste.
HennaArtConnection has a great History of Henna page!
There are 3 main traditional styles of henna art, African, Arabic, and Indian. African designs are more geometric with large, bold patterns. Arabic designs are more open and graceful with large floral motifs. Indian designs are more fine and dense with intricate patterns and lots of use of paisleys, dots, lines, and swirls.
Modern henna though can be anything or a mixture of it all. Anyway, it's all beautiful and I'm excited to try my hand at it.
While waiting for my henna to arrive (I ordered a pre-mixed henna paste to start, not wanting to dive right in to making my own paste), I started practicing with lotion... yup, plain old hand lotion. Not exactly the same consistency, but close enough to satisfy my very impatient "I don't wanna wait" side. Here are some of my first designs:
It's really completely different than working with pen or pencil on paper. In some ways easier and in some ways more difficult. Easier because it's so much quicker to get line variation, just a little extra squeeze of the bottle (or cone, the preferred method of henna application) gives a thicker line. Also, the paste just flows from the tip and it's fairly easy to make straight lines because you can sort of lift and drag the paste across the surface, and it can be much quicker once you get the hang of it, mostly because of the before-mentioned reasons. It's much harder though because you're constantly aware of where your hand is, you don't want to smear what you've just drawn, so starting in the right area and bracing your hand with your little finger or other hand to steady your hand is important and tricky. You also have to be able to draw all shapes in every direction easily because you can't just turn the arm or body around to a different angle like you can a piece of paper. It takes practice for sure!
-xo deb.
Of course, first comes research, lots and lots and lots of research. Honestly it's one of my favorite things about learning a new craft. Reading about and surfing information and images for days on end. I love the technical as well as the artistic part of learning something new. There is a lot of technical part to henna surprisingly. Most notably that there is some pretty dangerous "henna" out there, usually labeled black henna, that can contain nasty chemicals that can literally burn your skin. Don't google black henna reaction... Yikes!
Henna in it's pure form is very natural, it's just a leaf that is crushed and mixed with liquid to release the dyes in it. It can simply be mixed with water to get a light, short lived stain on your skin, but to get maximum color and long lasting stains you mix with a couple other things. The liquid must be slightly acidic, most water is slightly acidic and therefore will work ok and some people use brewed tea, but lemon juice works the best. It's also mixed with essential oil (which is not actually an oil at all, but distilled plant extracts and can be very therapeutic). Cajeput, tea tree, eucalyptus, and lavender EOs are most commonly used. Sugar is also added to help the consistency of the henna paste.
HennaArtConnection has a great History of Henna page!
There are 3 main traditional styles of henna art, African, Arabic, and Indian. African designs are more geometric with large, bold patterns. Arabic designs are more open and graceful with large floral motifs. Indian designs are more fine and dense with intricate patterns and lots of use of paisleys, dots, lines, and swirls.
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| Henna designs and photos by Henna Lounge and NJ-Unique Henna |
Modern henna though can be anything or a mixture of it all. Anyway, it's all beautiful and I'm excited to try my hand at it.
While waiting for my henna to arrive (I ordered a pre-mixed henna paste to start, not wanting to dive right in to making my own paste), I started practicing with lotion... yup, plain old hand lotion. Not exactly the same consistency, but close enough to satisfy my very impatient "I don't wanna wait" side. Here are some of my first designs:
(all these designs were inspired from what I saw on my henna google search, I didn't take time to look at who did them to give credit,
I'm sorry, I was just practicing, if you see your design and want to be credited, just let me know. -xo)
It's really completely different than working with pen or pencil on paper. In some ways easier and in some ways more difficult. Easier because it's so much quicker to get line variation, just a little extra squeeze of the bottle (or cone, the preferred method of henna application) gives a thicker line. Also, the paste just flows from the tip and it's fairly easy to make straight lines because you can sort of lift and drag the paste across the surface, and it can be much quicker once you get the hang of it, mostly because of the before-mentioned reasons. It's much harder though because you're constantly aware of where your hand is, you don't want to smear what you've just drawn, so starting in the right area and bracing your hand with your little finger or other hand to steady your hand is important and tricky. You also have to be able to draw all shapes in every direction easily because you can't just turn the arm or body around to a different angle like you can a piece of paper. It takes practice for sure!
-xo deb.
