Maple & Mehndi

Self explanatory? This one was a doodle I did the night I was invited to go on Chai Time to promote the Drift Festival. Yes, it ended up being a late night, with tired eyes the next morning. It was an evening of questioning my connection to my heritage - how much of me is "Canadian" and how much is "brown" or, more appropriately, "South Asian", and how each of those are interconnected.

It's funny because when I was first introduced to the idea of the texture factory technique, I thought about mehndi, and how I've always loved the patterns. But I couldn't visualise the patterns. So here I experimented, keeping in mind that the designs are often floral and/or resembling lace. And I'm pleased with the result of the doodle. Every wedding I've attended where I've been able to watch the mehndi artists do their thing, I used to think, "I could do that!" But of course, never tried. Anyway, here's a doodle, and the hands are my own (yes, I traced them). I think future texture drawings might incorporate mehndi designs, to give that extra South Asian flavour to it.