initial blog post

Start to the 2nd year of btech . My intensions are to focus on my theme which is to make jewellery based on mehndi patterns. I plan to brainstorm ideas in terms of design process,allowing myself to freely design and paint patterns in the comparison to mehndi application ,to fill spaces as you go along. It is a free-style process by this I mean that patterns can not be copied exactly like the way you see them, just like handwriting everyones handwriting is different, so is drawing and application of mehndi patterns .It will look different from the reference that I would start working from and thats what makes mehndi unique and beautiful.

seahorse brooch

mehndhi jewellery

Why do I want to make jewellery based on mehndi patterns???

I’ve been fascinated by Mehndi patterns for a long time. I first came across Mehndi when I was 5 years old, at my neighbours pre-wedding celebration (Mehndi party). Whilst being in the process of getting Mehndi applied to my skin I wondered what they are doing to me. Of course I was impatient I couldn’t keep it long for too long. I simply love going to Mehndi parties, now that I’m all grown up, family and friends ask me to decorate their hands with Mehndi. I love Mehndi motifs that were traditionally used like leaves, flowers, and vines mixed with geometric shapes that work well together creating endless designs. Then I learnt through research, Mehndi has the power to protect, to provide spiritual and material wealth, brings luck, wards off evil eye, guards against black magic or anything supernatural. Mehndi patterns that have Hindu deities remind me of teachings at spiritual school, my guru used to say that the day is too busy, we forget about god, it’s important that you write gods name somewhere so when you look at it you are reminded about god. When I look at these deities I’m spiritually enlightened.

I’m trying to incorporate these beautiful images into my jewellery, after some experimentation and practice, I’ve finally figured out a method to express my design ideas freely. It requires a steady flow of hand movement; I therefore think it’s preferable I design using the actual Mehndi cone. Besides jewellery I’ve also incorporated Mehndi patterns on wood that I’m building into display stands etc.

wedding souvenirs

Making the souvenirs were not easy as I thought it would be,the ink of the pictures were running because I used laquer that had thinners,the pictures were losing their stickiness for the same reason.I had to print them with a lazer printer so the ink did not run.I bought jumprings and keyrings so I dont spend anymore time working on them.
They do look attractive and feel light, I know people will use them because people at tech saw me working with them and they asked to have one.
It took me about 2 months to complete them whilst now I think the casting option would of worked quicker.

wedding souvenirs

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I painted the pieces and they got stuck together so I had to break the pieces apart from each other.

These were some of the pictures I chose to use for the souvenirs

wedding souvenirs

My next mission is to make a keyring that would be faster to make.For example my dad is a carpenter,he has off cuts of wood so he can cut them to the size that I want. Im thinking off getting religous pictures,hindu gods and printing them and sticking them on either side and sealing them with clear laquer with glitter.

wedding souvenirs

This is the keyring that I bought from the festival and made a mould of it,it was plated gold,however when i made the mould the plating sort off peeled and stuck onto my mould,I like this keyring because it had print on both sides. I engraved our names on them.

It was really painfull injecting wax into the moulds,it took me the entire day to inject 70 keyrings,this was because the keyring is thick and the wax took longer to dry and I only had one mould.

By this time I was over it,I wanted to something that would go alot faster because I would still have to make the jumprings and the key rings.