NOTE: To see any image close up, click on it!  My apologies if the print quality of these designs does not meet your standards. I have limited web space and these images are intended for web viewing. Most of the hand mehndi designs are mine, but I collected a few others from a demonstration that I did a few years ago.   All the rest of the motifs and other drawings are my designs.

Principles of Mehndi Design

Interactive Design Guide (Requires Flash 5.0)

Creating mehndi designs is actually quite simple and just takes practice to master.  Mehndi design consists of taking small designs and motifs (Paisley [mango] shapes, straight lines, scallop lines, dots, tear-drops, leaf shapes, etc.) and combining them to make large, more complex designs as you will see here.  I suggest that, if you are a beginner at mehndi, you purchase a henna book or find a number of small designs so that you can understand the basics of mehndi design.  I will soon be adding a section to this web site entitled "Principles of Mehndi Design," through which I hope to give you an idea of the simplicity behind an apparently complex mehndi design.

If you are not very confident in your artistic abilities, I encourage you to try freehand as much as possible if you have even an inkling of desire to do so. Creating your own images is much more fun than using a stencil.  Although some of these designs may seem too lacy and thin to be drawn using henna, if you have the henna at the right consistency, and if the point on your cone is thin enough, these designs are completely possible -- but you need to develop your experience with henna to do these designs fully.  As you begin, I suggest that you try these designs, and if you run out of space on the skin where you are placing the mehndi, simply leave out some of the details and keep going.  Pens/pencils usually give much finer work than your usual henna cone, but many mehndi artists defy this principle.

[Hands] [Arm/Wrist/Ankle] [Motifs] [Hand Wrap] [Peacock] [Mandalas] [Neck Designs]   

Other web pages with good designs:
 mini mehandi page | jane's mehndi sketchbook pages | Mehandi patterns and pictures

Updated 9/20/2007 by Rupal Pinto
Copyright Rupal Pinto, 1998-2007, all rights reserved.  

Note: Please do not use any of the designs that I have created in your publications or for any commercial reasons.  If you wish to do so, please contact me so we can make further arrangements.  If you are participating in a mehndi demo or need new ideas for designs (and these not directly commercial reasons), you may print out a design, and be sure to credit my name, Rupal Pinto, as its creator.