Creating Beautiful Traditional Henna (Mehndi) Designs
Traditional henna designs are those that are often described as "lace gloves" and are most commonly worn by women celebrating a wedding or holiday. These designs may appear intimidating, but if you take it one step at a time, you can do it too!
Before you begin you may want to view my other guides first.
Buying Fresh, Safe, Dark Stianing Henna for Body ArtMixing Henna Powder into Paste
Plan your design
Start with some large, basic motifs.
Next fill in the details.
Once you do that, leave some white space, and draw an outline around that. This negative space is very important to a traditional henna design. It offers contrast to the intence detail of the rest of the piece. You may want to add some smaller motifs, being mindful of the structure of the whole design.
Then fill in the motifs with "filler." Here are some samples. With a little doodling you'll be able to create your own.
Here's our sample pattern with the filler added.
First you'll want to gather the following items:
With henna paste go over the lines you drew in the last step. These lines should be fairly heavy. You'll want to create contrast by verying your line thickness. Save the fine lines for details in in the next step.
the finished product...
No filler is used in the design in the photos above, so we'll look at a differnt sample here. Fill in some, but not all, of the negative space with filler.
Use these simple steps to create beautiful traditional henna designs like a pro!
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- Henna Paste in an applicator of your choice
- Washable marker or watercolor pencil
- Paper Towels, and tooth picks to fix mistakes
With henna paste go over the lines you drew in the last step. These lines should be fairly heavy. You'll want to create contrast by verying your line thickness. Save the fine lines for details in in the next step.
the finished product...No filler is used in the design in the photos above, so we'll look at a differnt sample here. Fill in some, but not all, of the negative space with filler.
Use these simple steps to create beautiful traditional henna designs like a pro!
Please vote for this guide if it helped you. It makes a difference!
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