Recipe, Application and Aftercare
The henna used for this design was mixed to a simple recipe: sifted henna powder (Castle Art) and fresh lemon juice were mixed to a stiff paste and left to stand for 12 hours at room temperature. Three hours prior to use the paste was thinned to toothpaste constancy with more lemon juice and 10 drops lavender essential oil added (per half cup of henna by volume). The mix was made up a little stiffer than I would normally work with to ensure the fine lines did not bleed into each other.

Stage one of the application was to line up the design on the recipient's hand. Using a soft eyeliner pencil I marked the position of key elements. The henna was applied using a hand rolled cone made with medium thickness polythene. The harder or thicker the plastic used to make the cone, the greater degree of control can be exerted over the line produced. The greater the control the more dead or more sterile the line can appear. I try to be sensitive to the type of art work I'm drawing, for example an Indian style application would be better suited to a more fluid tool such as a carrot bag; conversely, for tribal pieces I would use the hardest tip possible, e.g., a bottle.

The first henna lines were laid down before trimming the tip of the cone. This gives an impossibly fine line and you must use very well sifted henna. Using this super fine line the feet of the lizards were drawn and outlines of the larger fill areas were placed.

After the entire design was roughed in with all the fine detail in place the tip of the cone was cut to produce a heavier line and the fine lines around the feet were filled in. At that stage the body outlines were filled out, as well.

In the final stage the tip of the cone was cut again to enable more rapid fill of the larger areas to be hennaed. A new fine tipped cone was made up for the finishing touches and tidying up.

Aftercare
The design was applied in the evening and was protected with liquid "newskin", latex and talc. The whole hand was further covered with a tissue paper and cling film wrap, which was worn throughout the night by the recipient. Photographed 24 hours after application the henna appears lighter in the photo (Figure 4) than the original, true colour of the henna. Further darkening continued for another 36 - 48 hours.