Kolam and rangoli maker

What a kolam is

A kolam is the drawing many families in Tamil Nadu make on the threshold every morning, with rice flour, before the day begins. The most loved kind is the pulli kolam: a grid of dots (pulli) is placed first, and a line is drawn round them. In a sikku kolam the line loops round every dot without ever touching it, crosses itself, and comes back to where it started. The finest are drawn as one unbroken line, without lifting the hand.

In Margazhi, the Tamil month from mid-December to mid-January, kolams grow bigger and brighter, streets hold competitions, and Pongal brings coloured powder and sugarcane patterns. In the north and west of India the coloured floor art is called rangoli, drawn for Diwali and weddings with coloured powders, flowers and lamps.

How this maker draws a real kolam

This is not a gallery of pictures: every kolam is made new, by rules. Imagine a tiny two-sided mirror in each place between two neighbouring dots. A line starts moving at an angle across the grid, and at each place it either passes straight through, or bounces off the mirror one of two ways. Because the grid's edge is a mirror too, the line always turns back, always goes round every dot, and always closes on itself. Mathematicians call these mirror curves, and they describe Tamil kolams exactly.

With One line on, the maker keeps changing mirrors until the whole design is a single closed line, the traditional ideal. Symmetry keeps the matching places in step, so the kolam stays balanced. Tap between two dots to flip one mirror yourself: the line re-routes and the kolam stays valid. On a keyboard, the arrow keys move between places and Enter flips one.

Flower kolams

Not every kolam is one looping line. Many of the kolams drawn at doorsteps every day are flower kolams: a small dot grid, and a shape drawn round each dot (a petal, a heart, a leaf, a curl or a ring). The tips of neighbouring shapes meet at the corners between dots, so four petals become a flower and two hearts a pair of wings. Choose Flower kolam under What to make, then a set of Shapes: Flower, Hearts, Leaves, Curls or Minimal (fewer shapes and more empty floor). Grids run from 3 × 3 to 6 × 6 dots, plus two diamonds. Tap a dot to change the shape round it; with symmetry on, the matching dots change too. Draw a flower kolam shape by shape from the centre out: Numbers marks where each shape starts and which way to go.

Learning to draw it

Drag the scrub bar under the drawing to see the line at any point, or press Play to watch it drawn from where you are. Turn on Numbers to put numbered marks along the line, each with an arrow: a template showing where to start and which way to go. How to draw it opens the dot plan and the line in six printable steps.

How many kolams are there?

Each place between dots has three choices, so a grid with 24 free places (a 7 × 7 grid with 4-way mirror symmetry) has 3 to the power 24, about 280 billion, possible kolams. Only some of them are one line. We tried many at random and counted: about 2% are, so roughly 5.6 billion one-line kolams fit that grid. These are estimates: a mirror image or a turned copy of a kolam counts as a different design.

Kambi, frame and border kolams

A kambi kolam follows the same rule as a sikku kolam, but the line is drawn straight, like a wire, with sharp turns at the edges. A frame kolam has two parts: a frame of loops round the edge and a separate centre. The centre is one line; with symmetry on, the frame is two lines that weave round each other, because a frame that mirrors onto itself can never be a single line. A border kolam is a long strip, 2 to 4 dots deep, for a doorstep, a step or the edge of a bigger kolam. The square grids also include a cross and a diamond with arms.

Frames and borders can be drawn as a sikku kolam (curving loops), a kambi kolam (straight wire) or a flower kolam (petals, hearts and leaves round each dot), on the same dots.

Shaped grids

Besides squares and diamonds, the dots can make a shape: an octagon, a hexagon, a heart, a diya lamp (the flame above its bowl), a kalasam (the pot with its coconut and mango leaves), a star, a gopuram and a ther. Flower kolams also come on larger grids, an octagon and a star.

Three of the shaped grids follow designs drawn for festivals. The star is a square and a diamond of dots together, an eight-point star. The gopuram grid rises in tiers like a temple tower, with a single dot for the kalasam on top. The ther is a temple car: a canopy, a body, a platform and two wheels, each wheel its own small line. These shapes mirror left to right only, as the real tower and car do.

Choosing a grid

Square grids from 3 × 3 to 15 × 15 suit doorsteps and greeting cards. The diamond grids (rows of 1, 3, 5, 3 and 1 dots, and larger) give the lotus-like shapes many traditional kolams use. A 5 × 5 kolam takes a few minutes by hand; a 13 × 13 one is a courtyard project.

Festival, composed and line kolams

Festival kolams are ready layouts for the big days: for Diwali, one lamp inside a kolam frame, a ring of lamps round a flower kolam, or a colour diya rangoli in a straight-line border; for Pongal, the pot boiling over with sugarcane and the rising sun inside a border of kolam strips; for Karthigai Deepam, a gopuram kolam lit at the top, a row of lamps and two brass kuthu vilakku; for Margazhi, a large diamond kolam with small flower kolams in the corners. Choosing one also sets matching colours and the card greeting. Composed kolams put a centre, corner motifs and a border together (a diamond with lotus corners, a turning kolam with flower corners, or a line star with eight kolam blocks). Line kolams use parallel lines instead of loops round dots: Four arches that cross into a woven square, and the padi kolam, stepped outlines of a cross with small squares of dots and leaves at the corners. In each, New design changes every part (the centre kolam, the motifs, the corners and the kind of border) while keeping the layout, and the Look can be the black floor, white paper or a coloured board.

Rangoli styles

The rangoli maker builds designs from the centre out, the way powder rangoli is drawn: Flower (big soft petals and a scalloped border), Lotus (long pointed petals in three rows), Mandala (an eight-point star outline), Diya (rays round a ring of lamps) and Peacock (feathers with eyes). Every style has several designs: Sunflower and Heart flower; Heart mandala and Layered stars; Lotus on leaves and Lotus in a star; Lamps on a lotus, Star of lamps and Lamp garland; Feathers and scallops, Feather star and Peacocks round a lotus. Choose 6, 8 or 12 repeats, a colour set (or Custom: pick your own five colours, for kolams too), and Lines only for a colouring page you can print and fill in with your own colours.

Lines, files and the festival card

Rice flour, Chalk or Plain lines change how the line looks. Download a PNG (see-through) or SVG (sharp at any size, good for stencils), or a JPG that keeps the floor. Video and GIF show the line being drawn, sped up to five seconds; choose Small to send on WhatsApp. The festival card adds a greeting in Tamil or English, sized for a status, a post or a square.

An example

Meenakshi lives in Kallakurichi and draws a kolam at her door every morning. For Margazhi in 2026 she wants something new each day. She picks a 9 × 9 grid with 4-way turn symmetry, presses New design until she likes one, opens Draw it yourself and prints the dot plan and the six steps. On Pongal morning she turns on the festival card, chooses the Tamil greeting, and sends a five-second video of the kolam being drawn to her family.