The last day of the "Jours de fêtes"

Well, that wraps it up here in Paris for another season full of Christmas lights, over-the-top window displays and tourists galore. As of today, kids are back in school and it is business as usual. Once again, the vacation seems over in a flash.

Yesterday I let the kid inside me get the better, and after meeting up with the Paris Sketchers at the Louvre I dashed off to the Grand Palais to catch the final moments of the fun fair "Jours de fêtes".

It seemed like most of the city was determined to stand in long lines to see art, but there was no waiting at all to get into this temporary indoor amusement park at the foot of the Champs Élysées!

A 100-foot Ferris wheel towered under the glass-and-metal dome in the center, a roller coaster careened in front of the great staircase... Amid the "ooohs", the "aaahs" and plenty of screaming, Annie and I were as happy as could be. The place was replete with smells of ketchup and candy and yes, even the apparently perpetual '70's band (what is it with amusement park gigs?)

I'd been inspired by the drawing posted by Nina Johansson on sketching in the dark – thanks Nina! – and wanted to give it a go. It was lots of fun mixing techniques and working on colored paper for a change, a great way to capture the dark skies and the bright lights underneath. I hope you will give it a try. And happy sketching for 2014!

La Fête du 15 août

 

Chaque fois que je retourne dans ma famille pour le 15 Août , nous allons tous au festival des Genêts d'Or qui se déroule à  Bannalec  une petite commune du  Sud Finistère . Au programme défilé et spectacle folklorique. J'étais bien placée, juste à l'endroit où les groupes se préparaient, j'en ai profité pour faire des petits croquis.

Ici vieux costumes de Bannalec et costumes de Combrit.

Les enfants du cercle de Querrien étaient très drôles.

Le dynamisme du  groupe de Russie (République de Komis) a enchanté l'assistance .



Le nouvel an chinois

A l'occasion de la fin des célébrations du nouvel an chinois, plusieurs défilés ont eu lieu à Paris pendant le week end des 28 et 29 janvier.
Le dimanche, à Belleville, deux dragons (rejoints ensuite par deux autres), ont fait le tour du quartier au son des pétards et des musiques chinoises.

 Au carrefour, il y avait beaucoup de monde et les enfants avaient tous des ballons rouges à la main!

Le samedi 28 janvier, une foule immense s'était regroupée à l'Hôtel de Ville. Je suis arrivée sur la fin et j'ai eu la chance de voir les danseurs ranger leurs dragons d'or dans leurs camionnettes. Ils étaient tout de jaune vêtus. A nouveau, des ballons rouges envahissaient le ciel.

La 16ème Fête de Ganesh à Paris

 

Every year the Sri Manika Vinayakar Alayam Temple in Paris celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi, or Fête de Ganesh as it is called here. Crowds of people come bearing offerings, decorations are strung in windows and balloons line the street. Children are all smiles in their fancy clothes, men wear dhotis and women dressed in beautiful saris tie jasmine garlands in their hair. The air is full of excitement, and music plays while kavadis and piles of coconuts are readied.

The religious ceremony in the temple started at 9:00am. The statues were then carried out to the street. Here, people were putting the finishing touches to the float and lining up to wait for the procession, set to start at 11:00am.

 

It was a big event for this otherwise quiet Sunday in August. Luckily, I managed to wedge myself into a doorway to sketch as best I could among all the people. Here, I tried to capture just some of the elements I saw as people prepared: a very sketchy sketch of one of the colorful kavadis that some dancers would later carry on their shoulders, standard bearers lining up, and a woman with a pot of burning camphor on her head getting ready to lead the way...

 

Finally, here is a fairly impressionistic report of the lively dancing that began before the procession hit the streets.

To make more sense (?) of this drawing, here is a link to a video of the festival in action.