T Stands For Mardi Gras

 

If you are visiting on Monday in my world, happy Lundi Gras, or Shrove Monday.  If you are visiting on Tuesday in my world, welcome to Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday.  If you are wondering why I might not have visited you last Tuesday, please see here.

Let's have some tea and celebrate Mardi Gras.

I've even included a few Mardi Gras beads and 

a tiny good luck baby.

Some of you got concerned when I threw two babies into the tea water in 2016.  Remember, these babies bake in a King Cake, 

so a bit of warm tea is like bathing the baby in bath water.

 

Traditional Mardi Gras colors are gold, green, and purple.  They fit nicely with Valerie's theme of Heavy Metal at Art Journal Journey, especially when I used metallic colors through the stencil and on the background papers.

 

On the left, are elements that are traditional to Mardi Gras.  There are the parades consisting of floats where beads are thrown and Krewes, social organizations who might build and decorate the floats.  Larger, more expensive Krewes charge members thousands of dollars to be a member and hire professionals to decorate the floats.  Each Krewe is responsible for buying their own beads and coins that they throw to onlookers of the parade.  As I mentioned before, King Cakes are served in which a baby is placed.  The person who receives the baby may have to have the next year's Mardi Gras party or is considered the lucky recipient.

Mardi Gras, 2021 is February 16.  

The paper I painted was quite old and crumbly.  It must not have been dry when I closed the book, and some of it stuck to the other side of the page. 

For this spread, I began by painting book pages using Twinkling H2Os.  When dry, I added computer generated words and an image to the pages.  I laid a stencil on a piece of 90 lb. watercolor paper and tried to color the triangles using more Twinkling H2Os on the left side of the page.  For the right side, I turned the stencil over and tried to remove the excess ink from the stencils using a dry brush.

 

Do you have the Mardi Gras spirit?  Will "Fat Tuesday" be the day before you fast?  Whether you celebrate Mardi Gras or not, please share your T stories below.  Feel free to show your King Cakes, plastic baby dolls, or beads.  The photos don't have to be taken on Tuesday, and it's fairly obvious, they can even be taken from your archives, as one of mine has been today.  Please use the direct link to your T post, not your blog, so we can find you easily.  And, celebrate it or not, have a great Mardi Gras.