I took up henna with the hopes that it would be a remunerative medium with an element of collaboration and not too much stress, because even the most carefully preserved henna art fades away after three weeks, sloughed off with one's dead skin. —I made some money with it, but it didn't really take off financially.
As an influence upon my iconography (not to mention exposure to some absolutely amazing henna artists)[1] however, it was priceless.
I have for years been fascinated by the 120 degree angle pattern sometimes called “flax” in traditional Japanese iconography, and I finally mastered it as a henna fill; now I'd like to get better at the interlocking circle pattern, shippoh. As you see, I've a ways to go on that. Even easy patterns take me a surprisingly long time to come up with sensible ways to generate them.
[1]Henna sooq also has very nice designs, though their marketing is now more focused on selling product, they're henna artists as well. I recommend them highly if you wish to purchase: I found their henna—and they carry several different types—to be excellent quality and competitively priced, with good customer service. They also carry jagua, the safe kind of ‘black’ henna.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
Sylvus Tarn