Design facts
- Dot grid
- 7 to 4 dots — tapering from 7 dots across the middle down to 4
- Tradition
- Kolam
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Video
- 7 min 38 s, uploaded 24 June 2021
- Views
- 30,000 on YouTube as of 1 October 2026
Step by step: how to draw 7 4 Very Simple Kolangal
- Mark the 7-to-4 dot grid — seven dots in the middle row tapering to four at the top and bottom.
- In the centre draw a four-petal flower with a dot inside each petal and a dot between each pair of petals.
- Enclose the flower in a diamond and extend its lines into a wide six-sided band of triangles; crosshatch the four triangles at the top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right.
- Above and below the band draw a lamp — a bowl with a spiral inside and a row of dots on its rim, a fan of scalloped petals rising from it, and a curled leaf on either side.
- On the left and right draw a three-petal lotus with a dot in each petal, with a curved pointed leaf above and below it.
- Add a spiral with a curling stem on each of the four diagonals to link the lamps and lotuses.
- Re-trace the outlines in white.
Further reading
- Venkatraman Gopalan & Brian K. VanLeeuwen, “A topological approach to creating any pulli kolam, an artform from South India”, Forma 30, 35–41 (2015). doi:10.5047/forma.2015.005
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