Rangoli

In India, there is a custom among Hindu families for the housewife to draw traditional symbols of good fortune and holy marks by the front entryway on mornings of festivals and weddings. This is done every morning among families of the devout.

In some areas they use white paste made from flower petals or rice powder for these drawings, but in Mumbai (Bombay) they use sand made from crushed granite. The design is drawn by picking up the sand between the thumb, index and middle fingers, and dropping the sand from the finger tips. By adjusting the amount of sand and the speed in which the hand is moved, the artist can draw curves and lines of various thickness. Very thin lines can be drawn by the practiced hand. Although each family has its own variation, the designs are traditional, handed down from generation to generation. This art is known as Rangoli.

In the last twenty years, there has been a movement among the artists in Mumbai to use the sand to draw other designs. Every year in Mumbai, there is a Rangoli exhibit during Diwali, the celebration of the Hindu new year. Since the sand drawings are not portable, the artists draw at the exhibit site. No adhesives are used during the process. The basic colors such as red, blue, green, yellow, brown, and black are made by mixing granite with the pigments used for drawing large movie signs. Other subtle colors are made by mixing or layering the basic colors. One of the most difficult colors to produce is that of human skin. Only the most skillful artists produce this color well.

In Japan, Manoj Mantri introduced Rangoli in 1985 at Yokohama, the sister city of Mumbai.