“Fancy painting the colosseum”- literally .

A couple of months ago I was asked to paint the colosseum! No not the one in Rome but a carri (float ) for carnevale!

Carnevale is very big here in Borgotaro, Italy. It’s a big festival that lasts for a week, it celebrates the end of winter and the coming spring season,  and the festival is just before lent. For two consecutive sunday’s at the end of february, a procession of floats parades through the town. The floats are made by the local townspeople and all have a different theme. Each float is for a different school class or local business. Everyone dresses up, participants and spectators alike.

My eldest son’s class chose the theme of the Roman’s, so naturally they needed to build a float that represented this, what better than the colosseum! Easy!!

The men made the structure of the float from wood, and then a geometra (in Italy this job is a hybrid between architect, surveyor and project manager) printed out the template of the structure, the arches and the statues that sit within each archway. This was great as it saved us so much time.

After the structure was built the women painted it  (so Italian)!

Three, sometimes four of us toiled away for many hours, suffering near frostbite as it was very cold (it’s hard to paint fine detail with gloves on)! Believe you me it was not all glamour, risking life and limb on the top layer of the scaffolding!

God knows how Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel!

I know I like the colour grey but after painting 80 plus statues between us, my love of grey was wavering.

We were finally able to admire our efforts as the finished result looked great. With the addition of fabric and thrones for the two emperors (one of which was my husband) and of course the kids and the parents who dressed up as Roman’s, gladiators and maidens, who all looked fantastic!

 

The kids and the carri won a cup for all their hard work and attention to detail, so it was well worth it.

I just hope its not the Sistine Chapel next year!