Shanti ShantiGuruda Bird
The Garuda is a legendary bird or a bird-like creature found in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain mythology.
In Hindu he is described as a divine eagle-like sun bird, king of the birds, and is also ridden by the god Vishnu. The Garuda is generally a protector with the power to swiftly go anywhere, ever watchful, an enemy of the serpent, with powerful wings and the ability to shape shift...
My company, Festive Road, has been working in partnership with the Northampton based Indian Hindu Welfare Organisation (IHWO), for many years now. With their support and through their commissioning we have been able to create some amazing things for the annual Northampton Diwali celebrations over the years. This year we were commissioned to create Rama and Sita, giant lantern puppets which were paraded at this years Diwali event. However, in September last year they commissioned us to create a Guruda bird for the parade.
We began with a scale drawing: The plan being to have two mounted cyclists; one driving the creature forward and the other driving the wing mechanism.Clive and I have learn't so much over the last few builds, we have a good collaborative process, so that we were able to complete this in just over three weeks!
We often begin by drawing the outline of the frame to scale in chalk on the floor. This enables both of us to continue with different parts of the build and have the drawings and chalk lines for reference.
Whilst I started to create the birds body, head, wings and tail, Clive started to work out the steering and the wing mechanism. This proved to be an enormous challenge, not least because of the limited space for mechanisms within the body. We really wanted to keep the frame beneath, which we shaped like a 'wish-bone', as pure as possible. Which meant arranging the steering in a very creative way!I made the wing and tail parts using bicycle rims and the feathers from foam and fiber rod which I sprayed a design onto.
I also created a steering wheel (I've made all the steering wheels on our cycle powered creatures!) and welded the head, body and neck into shape using steel rods. I incorporated paisley shapes into the body design. The design of the frame was important as the body was to be covered with a semi transparent skin and the metal shapes would be visible once the creature was lit from inside.All of these parts had to be created separately so that the creature could be taken apart for transportation.
Meanwhile Clive continued to work out an ingenious wing flapping mechanism using the wing pieces that I had created and we decided to take no chances -having seen a couple of wheels buckle under some weight previously - and we beefed up the rear drive wheel with steel rods!
The most challenging part was devising the drive system to the wing flap, which all had to be done within the body of the bird, whilst still being safe and leaving space for two cyclists. This took some working out. It was managed using a long shaft which took the length of the bird and some trampoline springs.
The time ran out as usual and we were left with a couple of days to complete the creature who was now known as Shanti.
The idea came to me to create a parasol cover for the pilots, so we purchased a canvas umbrella from Argos which definitely looked the part!
The surface was cling wrapped for strength and then covered in wet-strength tissue -like a large scale lantern and we air-brushed some hints of colour on too.
However, although this was an excellent finish and Shanti made a spectacular appearance at Diwali 2016, I realised that the finish was not a permanent solution; tissue and glue has a shelf life and more time was needed to create the finish I was looking for.
Thankfully we were able to find some funding earlier this year to re-cover Shanti. All the panels of the steel rod frame were painstakingly filled in with odd bits of white net fabrics -including an old wedding dress that I bought second hand. I also had a delivery of trims which were specially selected by a friend who was travelling back from India. All of this was sewn on by an amazing team of hand sewers and it took ages!It was well worth it to see him in all his glory, flying around at the Walking with Giants Festival this year and then again at Diwali 2017. He has even been featured on BBC Look East!
Shanti, shanti, shanti, to you all xxx
