Monday, January 28, 2008

Ice festival 2008


Plymouth Mi holds an annual ice festival and has ice carvers from all over the world there to compete. We try to go every year but some years it is too bitter cold to go. This year it was rather warm, 22 degrees. Warm enough to walk around but not too warm as to melt the sculptures. I only took a pic of a few large sculptures and Gary is in the picture to show the scale...really huge. There were not many smaller pieces as the competitions were not yet started and we didn't go back to see them. It was pretty overcast and the pictures are a bit dark but you can get the idea of the ice glistening.

I loved the touch of snow we had the night before. I think it looked awesome.






Here is a close up of the flowers. One of the artists there was talking to a crowd and I got to ask him how they got the colors and what they used. He said they used chisels to gouge the flowers and then a turkey baster filled with Kool-aid to color them. The white tips of the flowers were snow and ice chips. They were amazing.

2 comments:

Sandi said...

Arent those ice sculptures something!!! I am amazed that they can get the roses to look as good as they do with ice and koolaid!!! We are having a winter carnival here and they were talking about the ice sculptures melting yesterday (46 degrees) and the weather people were assuring them that today that would not be a problem, now 7 degrees and dropping. I guess they will have to resculpt?? I dont know. I have gone only once to see it, always so crowded and usually either so cold you freeze your butt off or so warm all is melting.
Thanks for sharing these
Sandi

Sandi said...

Waiting for more mutterings!!! (^_^)