What’s an Alpona, you ask?

alponaWorld’s largest alpona,painted in Manik Mia Avenue on 14 April 2012
Bangladesh

An Alpona is a common Indian folk art form, made of patterns meant to adorn an area for celebration. Five of Bangladesh’s leading senior artists led 220 young artisans and thousands of citizens to create this form by hand, covering the full 1-kilometer stretch of Manik Mia Avenue in joyful celebration of the Bangla New Year.

alponaAlpona, photo from www.psfk.com

The basic Alpona is made up of shapes in a symmetric design.  Occasional breaks in the symmetry offer an element of surprise, making each design unique.

alpona

Although the world’s largest Alpona was created with many colors of paint, the traditional Alpona is usually white. A paste is created with finely ground white rice and cold water, then usually the artist uses a rag dipped in the paste to create the design.

I found a nice blog post detailing more information about this interesting art form:  http://omhome.blogspot.com/2008/11/about-alpona.html

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