Alpona Design With 5 to 3 Dots

Design facts

Dot grid

5 to 3 dots — tapering from 5 dots across the middle down to 3

Structure

Dot-Grid

Video

6 min 13 s, uploaded 19 July 2022

Views

6,022 on YouTube as of 11 October 2026

Step by step: how to draw Alpona Design With 5 to 3 Dots

1. Mark the 5-to-3 dot grid.
2. Draw an octagon around the grid — a straight line along each of the four sides over the outer dots, joined by short diagonal lines across the corners.
3. Inside the octagon draw two vertical and two horizontal lines to make a central square, and run diagonal lines through the cells around it.
4. In the central square draw four pointed petals in an X with curved arcs, making a four-petal flower.
5. On each of the four straight sides draw a lotus bud pointing towards the centre — a veined pointed petal between two rounded petals.
6. Outside each straight side draw a pair of spirals curling away from each other.
7. Beyond each of the four diagonal corners draw a pointed leaf.

Related designs

• Rangoli Designs for Festivals With Dots
• Latest Flower Kolam Designs
• Ratham Rangoli Designs

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

Read more

• Grids, Lattices, and Thinking in Space
• Counting the Grid