Creating henna designs - step by step!

Lets suppose you are an artist and someone just came up to have their hand done in henna. How do you come up with a design? Or perhaps how do you change a design to fit your own tastes ? Here are a couple steps to make thinking about designs easier.

Henna designs themselves have different aspects to them: the main design which usually comes on the palm, the finger designs, the designs on the arms and finally, what we can call 'fillers' which give the designs its intricacy.

How to create your design:

1. Assess your canvas: How much of the hand and palm do you plan on covering? What kind of design do you plan on doing - Indian or Arabic?

2. Outline the primary design: This includes the palm design and arm design but not the fingers. Click on the image below to enlarge.

3. Fill the main designs: Use fillers such as humps, drops or leaves to complete the main designs.
4. Fill up the rest of the palm: Do this using larger fillers - but in keeping with the theme of the main design. If you used paisleys and flowers in the main design, try to have your fillers be variations of those rather than other random shapes. This gives more coherence to the design overall.
5. Finally complete the fingers: In the same way - outlining it first and then filling it.

Good luck with creating your own designs!