Memphis is an easy drive to New Orleans, so in the last few years I’ve been there several times. This was my second trip during Mardi Gras, and I tell you what – that is the time and place for sketching! There is so much activity – marching bands, floats, crazy hats, people dressed up as dolls – all with a backdrop of historic architecture and coastal trees.
Here’s how I spent the weekend:
Eating with my friends. Seven of us caravanned down there, stopping to eat along the way.
Waiting for parades. This was the first parade on Friday night, at Lee Circle right in front of our hotel.
Watching parades. As the night went on, my sketches made less and less sense.
Getting refueled. We had a bit of a slow start Saturday morning, but some coffee and a mimosa fixed us all up.
Waiting for parades. I woke up enough to sketch this while waiting for the parades on Saturday.
Waiting for parades in a different neighborhood. This was the Marigny neighborhood, where we waited for the Chewbacchus parade. Lots of costumes in the crowd! I was dressed as “cold lady with a sketchbook.”
Sketching Chewbacchus! These next two pages were so. much. fun. to sketch.
Click on the images to make them a little bigger so you can see the captions.
Pink Chewbacca was the ultimate sketch find!
Drinking. What? I know, right. On Sunday we brunched, I walked around a lot and watched more parades, so I didn’t get any sketching in until we were at a tiki bar after a nice big dinner at Arnaud’s. These drinks were too pretty not to sketch!
And appropriately, the documentation of the weekend ends with these drinks.
Laissez les bons temps rouler!
