Traditional Indian Designs as Strings

My latest work of Zentangle-inspired art is this turmeric-dyed Zendala tile. The string for it comes from a traditional Indian art varyingly called Muggu/ Kolam/ Rangoli, among others. There are differences but there are many similarities as well. The lotus motif (padmam) is a very popular one and the basis of many muggulu, and I used one to make this Zendala.

You can see the centre motif that we refer to as the lotus in this tradition. Here's a video that shows you how such designs are drawn. 

Pre-shading, this is how it looked.

My challenge, of course, was to make it look more like a Zentangle tile than a muggu. I spent a fair amount of time looking up tangles and Zendalas on the Internet before tweaking the features of the design to make it a little more original as a string. As the inspiration began with a lotus, I ended the tile by using Lotus Pods, by Margaret Bremner, CZT. The other tangles I used and know the names of include Zentangle originals Printemps, Zinger and Nekton. I didn't fill in the spaces between the pods as I wanted the turmeric yellow and other streaks to come through. Some colour from a couple of Derwent Inktense pencils went into the shading.