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This past weekend I taught a Henna Workshop for beginners at Esther Myers Yoga Studio in Toronto. There were four people who participated, and topics that were covered included the history of henna, henna's use, natural henna verses black and premade market cones, henna's meaning, as well as how to mix paste, fill cones and get started with simple designs.
The following are the three ingredients for a perfect henna workshop!
1. Good Henna Paste
All great henna paste starts with good quality, fresh henna powder. The participants learned how to mix henna powder with lemon juice to release the dye, as well as what the other important ingredients are. The trick is to get the right consistency, you don't want it too thick, or too thin.
Next the henna paste was put into a carrot bag which is basically a large piping bag.
2. Well Rolled Henna Cones
Probably the most difficult part of the process is rolling henna cones from cellophane rectangles. It's quite tricky to get a good cone, and the students struggled with this part. However, by the end they each had at least one usable cone.
Once the cones were ready, they used the carrot bags to fill the cones with henna.
3. Practise, Practise, Practise!
Learning to do henna designs is harder than it looks, and the participants were surprised that it was more difficult than they expected. However, they did a great job!
Practising henna on designs printed on card stock which have been laminated is a great way to learn basic design techniques. Some of the skills that the students learned included how to control the cone, how to make thick and thin lines, as well as how to create lines without having them break. The basic designs they started with were lines, circles, swirls, seeds, and humps.
All the students got to take home over 100g of natural, premade henna paste to practise, play and experiment with.
It was a fun afternoon learning about henna and creating simple designs!
For more information about Henna Workshops go to www.hennaplanet.ca.