recent work:
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Archives
Categories
Meta
mehndi
An ancient Indian practice of decorating the human body, also commonly referred to as henna or temporary tattoos. It's a splendid art form although learning the techniques takes a bit of trial and error. Definitely worth the time!
There are a lot of great histories about it's development and cultural uses but the main gist is that you share mehndi as a gift and show of celebration. It's very common to decorate the hands and feet before major holidays, weddings, and in preparation of a birth for pregnant relatives.
My tumblr's mehndi category features reblogs of other great designs as well as some shots of my own work. Definitely worth a browse if you are looking for new ideas! All future photos I hope to take and upload to flickr instead, but usually I decorate my hands and I don't like playing with my Nikon when my mehndi hasn't dried. Dangerous!
Youtube is also a great resource if you are looking to watch people show how they craft their designs, create cones, and mix pastes. Some great channels: Active Bees, Farah Khan, Free Hand Mehndi, Henna by Sabina and Shruti Junanand.
resources:
recent work:
kind of a mess – 23 March 2012
I hadn’t had a chance to play around with my mehndi for a while so it did not turn out at all as planned. I didn’t like it and didn’t document the after result. Mostly because I tried to rub out most of it. Thankfully it’s mostly faded by now so I can start over soon.
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment
complex handwork – 24 November 2011
An attempt to try something more complex and circular. The flowers on my fingers looked kind of terrible but it’s all a learning process.
Before:
After:
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment
wrist cuff – 18 November 2011
This is by far my favorite design, combined from a few different ideas. It turned out so splendidly that I was quite sad to see it fade away. I’ll probably recreate it in the future.
Before:
After:
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment
flowers and things – 15 November 2011
I went a bit crazy this time since I had a lot of mehndi made up. I did bearclaw on my hand (heavily inspired by a quip on Archer) and then flowers all over the place. Kind of a meandering practice.
Before:
After:
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment
handwrap – 09 November 2011
Had a bunch of different ideas going into this but the main focus was to wrap my hand with various design styles.
Before and during:
After drying:
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment
wrist triangle design – 25 September 2011
Some aftershots of my favorite triangle design. I wrapped it around my wrist, one of my favorite places to put mehndi although it is tricky to do.
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment
triangle – 28 August 2011
I only have the before shot of this triangle work I did on my leg. Still, kind of proud of it.
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment
love and peace – 06 August 2011
I’m still trying to decide the best way to format my mehndi style posts as they involve multiple images per session with before and after shots. For these archived shots I think we’ll just do it one post per session…
Anyway, the first mehndi I applied to myself I decided to use cursive words. Peace and love seemed like natural choices.
Before:
After it dried:
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment
First stain
I was lucky enough to take lessons from a lovely Indian lady in August of 2011 where she taught me the basics of applying mehndi as well as a lot of information about Indian culture. This is a shot of my hand after I started learning to mix it and make the plastic pouches. I used to get it everywhere and my hands would be stained so dark orange! I’m a little bit more neat with things now but it was always fun explaining my stained hands to my customers at work.
Shitty picture due to my cell phone and lack of focus. But still, an important milestone. =D
Posted in mehndi
Leave a comment