Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Casselly's Horses & Elephants (La Poste #1)


La Poste.1, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

7 comments:

klsdad said...

klsdad here -

Not sure of the feat. Is the lady standing on the shoulders of a guy on a white horse between the two elephants?
Have the elephants been
colored to obtain the grey/black markings?

klsdad

Bob Karczewski said...

The "make up" on the elephants is pretty unique and a real stand out in the ring. Buckles, how would you like to have had to do that to the Ringling herd everyday and touch it up between performances, much less wash it off? It is not something that you would normally see at most circuses. I would think that it was done just for the Monte Carlo Circus judging. Overall it looks fantastic. She must be standing on the horseback riders shoulders.

Anonymous said...

There are some pictures of these elephants at the Cirque D'Hiver web site and they are made up in those too.

HM

Buckles said...

Rex Williams used artist's chalk to paint flowers on both the Pete & Norma elephants as well as those with Howard Suesz. He got quite good at it.
John Herriott told me that when he and Mary Ruth were in Europe with Jake Mills they bumped into Walter Kernan in the lobby of the Savoy Hotel. He told them that they had just hired Rex on the Beatty Show and added, "Isn't he the guy that paints flowers on the elephants?"
So everyone seemed to like it but it's not going to happen on one day stands.

Anonymous said...

For my entire career I never thought it was possible to make an African UGLIER than it was naturally.

The old phrase: "lipstick on a pig" comes to mind.

24-HOUR-MAN said...

I believe it is merely a decorative use of oil, and is actually done quite a bit, especially on African elephants. Another thing was to have what amounted to dog leashes hanging around their necks, used to lead them around.

Anonymous said...

I have seen this act in several circus programs online for years and they have always had this "make-up" on the elephants. For the past few years they performed with Denmark's Circus Arena.
-Chris