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Thursday, September 18, 2014

We made a Paper Mache Elephant!!!

Last month end we attended a convention where around 5000 people from all over US had gathered. All US based organizations representing my home state in India participated in this convention.

My friends at local non-profit organization wanted to showcase one of the historical and popular festival celebrated in my homestate (Karnataka, India) called Dasara. Dasara procession is incomplete without the elephant(s) as elephant carries the gold studded howdah or seat on elephant (ambari in kannada) with the goddess idol.

While I was on vacation, I learnt that they decided to get the inflatable elephant. I was little sad for a lost opportunity to make a life size (ok almost lifesize) young adult male elephant. Since there was a little delay in the shipping of inflatable elephant, we started working on the elephant just 10 days before the event.

You will see me saying "we" thru out this posting as lots of my friends and their family helped in building the elephant. Stuffing, Paper Mache, Painting and decorating him (elephant) wouldn't have finished quickly without their help!!

Here is how the elephant looked during the procession. (Photo credit : Pooja)


Me and the elephant with howdah (this is also hand made) on top during the procession. (Photo Credit : Sri)


Front view


Close Up: (photo creadit Veena G)

This is how he looked before boarding the Uhaul truck :)



We all enjoyed the whole process of making elephant. It was a wonderful feeling to create one and finish it right on the night before Vinayaka Chaturthi (The day most Indians celebrate the birth of lord Ganesha (elephant head god))

Just to give you an idea how tall elephant is, here is the picture of my son (who is almost 5'10") along with elephant




Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for the details on how the elephant was made!!


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4 comments:

  1. Bharati, Elephant truly is awesome. Waiting to read the details.

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  2. Bharati when will you tell the method by which you did it . Plzz planning to make one as live at first sight

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    Replies
    1. Thank u, Saianandi!! Here is the tutorial http://techiesdiyadventures.blogspot.com/2014/10/tutorial-on-how-to-make-paper-mache.html

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