Project Description
It was such a pleasure to do this pregnant belly henna design for Marlana. Marlana was there when I first started doing henna for anyone but my close friends and family, at Estas Elementals new age shop in Providence, RI in the early 2000’s. We were both in our early 20’s at the time. She either was or would soon become a manager there – I forget the exact timeline of how that went. Now she has finished acupuncture school and is expecting her first baby!
She likes traditional henna, and also big, bold flowers, as well as plenty of open space – and – #1 – symmetry. So that is what I kept in mind while creating her belly henna design. I started with the paisleys right above her belly button, and then built up from there until we got to a place where she could more easily see the lotus that was to be the focal point. Then we did the arch shape around that main motif, and the edging around that. Then I gave her a choice of big swirls, flowers, or a scattering of mini mandalas around the outside edges. You can see which way she went with that. I did a tiny 4-pointed stars at the top, and then realized the scattering of mini mandalas could easily look a bit more like a galaxy, so we added a few more of those, as well as some trails of dots to add movement.
Marlana asked me what I think of while I’m doing henna… Do I zone out? Am I hyper focused on the design choices I’m making? (I guess I wasn’t talking much, hehe…) I’m not sure exactly what the answer there is. Yes, I zone out a bit, and yes I am very focused on doing the design. Mostly, I’m just happy to be drawing. Sometimes if people are chatty, I’ll carry on a conversation… Sometimes I just let my mind wander. At that particular moment it was wandering to thinking about how I’ve been blessed to do belly henna for so many of my friends – two of them just in the past few weeks. I guess it is primo baby-making time for us 30-somethings. I guess we’re seriously grown-ups now.
Anyway… it was a pleasure to see Marlana, and to help bless this special occasion with some belly henna for her 🙂
