I promised these pictures a couple of weeks ago. Things have been a bit busy, so here they are finally.
During the month leading up to Nyepi, the whole island is busy with lots of preparations. The young men in each banjar generally tend to design and create the ogoh-ogoh. Most of the ogoh-ogoh are very obscene, horrific, or overtly sexual in nature. Trying to find one that I could actually post on here was rather difficult. I thought this pig looked innocent enough, but the final product ended up being quite graphic. So I was forced to take the picture from a certain angle to maintain this blog's PG rating.
They start off as a wooden or metal frame, and then small sections of bamboo are attached to the frame and start to give shape to the ogoh-ogoh. There is generally a group of several guys that work together on the project.
After the bamboo is in place, it is wrapped with either news paper/paper mache or foam.
Once the base of foam and/or paper mache is all set, then the painting and detailing can begin. This probably takes the longest amount of time. As more and more people stop by to take a look at the work, more ideas are shared and last minute additions are made.
When it's all finished up, it looks something like this... and then all of the ogoh-ogoh are paraded on the big street near our house. There were at least a dozen in the 'parade'.
