Harestailing for the Battle of Flowers

A Short survey of how an award-winning harestailed piece is made

The concept for this Battle of Flowers float was 'India' based on a recent visit by one of the group to Rajasthan. The next step was to design a float which would fit onto a base some 40 feet long and about 15 feet wide. One of the first things to 'spring' to mind was the image of the Tiger. The particular image used was taken from a piece of clothing. It was decided there and then to call the float 'Eye of the Tiger'

The next thing was to transfer the image to a workable platform and scale it up to the finished size. You can see how succesfully this was done. The image has been re-created on a sheet of half-inch plywood and expertly painted.

As a means of enhancing the impact of the image, the tiger's teeth were cut out and replaced slightly proud of the surface thus creating a marginal 3-D effect which proved to be most effective.

Now the real work begins as the whole surface is covered with tiny haretails. These are dried flower heads (about 2 inches long) which have been dyed in various colours to match the underlying image. Harestailing is one of the fundamental skills required to make a Battle of Flowers float. It is painstaking and time-consuming but allows the artists to show off their skills to amazingly good effect.

You can see here how the individual flower heads have been stuck onto the plywood to give this quite stunning effect.

Later, when the tiger has been completed and put in place on the float itself, a no less important job is to create a setting for it by the use of fresh flowers.

Here you see the finished article surrounded by immaculately placed fresh flower heads. The plain white ground gives a perfect setting to the tiger's face as it emerges from the undergrowth. The finished float won a major award in this particular Battle of Flowers parade and the tiger image was considered the best 'set-piece' on the day.

Now if you think that was not enough look at the image on the left. Note the markings around the mouth are different to the markings in image 5 above. It looks as if the image has been printed the wrong way round BUT do not be fooled. This is a SECOND tiger that was displayed ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FLOAT.