Varalakshmi Viratham is one of the famous pooja performed by married ladies in the Indian house hold. This pooja is done on the second Friday of the Sravana month and for the year 2019, it falls on Friday, the 9th August. You need to have dedication and utmost sincerity to reap the happiness and prosperity from the Goddess. Though this pooja comprises following several steps, the first and foremost among them is drawing kolam designs with dots.
Table of Contents
Rangoli – Description and dot types
Dot rangoli
Rangoli or kolam as it may be called is an art form symbolizing tradition and culture of India. Indian women draw this art using rice powder or kolam powder. These powders can be got from shops or even made in the house by grinding wet rice. Whatever be the occasion, no pooja starts without at least a simple dot rangoli.
Ladies even draw rangoli ranging from small to big depending on their time, resources available and also space available before their house. Small to big actually means drawing easy design with 3 dots to rangoli designs with 5 dots and so on. Kolam designs with dots may range based on the number of dots kept to form the kolam.
In villages, Indian women garnish their houses with colorful rangoli which are bigger with even 10 dots or even more. Small kolam are put before the pooja room while bigger kolam with 5 or more dots garnish the pooja room.
Practice makes a man perfect
As the proverb says, to be perfect in any work be it art too, one needs good practice. Beginners, who have interest in drawing this art, can practice by drawing kolam designs with dots in a paper or notebook. Further they can continue doing it by sprinkling sand in the clear area to get accustomed to draw them using rice powder.
Traditional kolam are put by mixing water with the rice powder. It becomes a necessity to check the consistency before adding more water to the paste. A small cloth is used to dip in the rice paste and draw dot kolam designs. The very stunning feature of all these designs is that they are all drawn with free hand.
Rangoli patterns
Easy 3 dot rangoli patterns
It is better for the beginner to start learning the kolam art by starting with easy rangoli with dots of 3. A 3×3 dot is first plotted and further a pattern is drawn covering all the dots. This initial phase of art will definitely form as base in developing other higher level patterns. 
kolam with 5 dots
Simple kolam with 5 dots adorn the pooja room well. As the number of dots increases, the possible types of pattern which can be drawn in different combinations with the same number of dots increases. It is always better to start drawing a pattern from the centre and move towards the sides. Few popular rangoli designs with dots are star rangoli design, symmetrical line rangoli, circular rangoli, alpona design rangoli etc. Let us now discuss about them in detail.
Sample designs
Star rangoli design
Star rangoli is a perfect example of kolam designs with dots. The pattern may look complex but its not so in reality. The person has to join two dots by a line and extend them further on both sides to form one hand of a star. Further it is improved on the other sides by drawing it in an interlaid fashion until it completes as a star. These types of kolams are popularly drawn for poojas. Moreover, the person can easily draw them by just seeing its design already drawn in a paper.
Symmetrical line rangoli
The above rangoli design is a good example of kolam designs with dots. This kolam is created by forming a square at the centre by joining 4 dots out of the 5. A small line connecting the corners of the small square is drawn until next dot is reached. Create a bigger square by joining next set of 4 dots. Please do not touch the center dot. Towards the end, draw a square connecting 4 dots to touch the middle of the biggest square. Complete the pattern by doing the same on other three sides too. Finally complete the kolam design by putting a small circle covering the centre dot.
Some more designs
Circular rangoli
In circular rangoli, the dots are put starting from one at the corner and proceeding till 5 in the centre and again getting reduced by 1 from each row till it reaches one dot. The dot should be such that they appear in between the previous rows dot. Leave the centre dot. Further join the consecutive 6 dots to make a circle. A flower pattern is formed by drawing a semi circle which over laps on the other semi circle. Moreover we can also draw similar small semi circles under each parent semi circle to boost our creativity. Finish the rangoli by drawing leaves near the place where two petals meet.
Alpona design rangoli
This is a simple kolam design with dots for 2019. Firstly draw four dots, one under the other to form the shape of a square. It is up to us to create any design using those 4 dots. Draw a circle around the four dots and proceed by drawing a diya or lamp shape pattern. We can color the rangoli using colors like red, yellow or orange and finally outline them using white kolam powder as a border.
Final words
Rangoli or kolam is a wonderful art form symbolizing indianness. The above article specifies few popular rangoli designs drawn for any pooja like Varalakshmi Viratham. Try them out and make your house look even more beautiful and gain prosperity.
