International Wax Sculpting Competition, Thailand Ubon Ratchathani 2009.

I ventured to our local park called Thung Sri Muang, this week here in Ubon Ratchathani we have our biggest festival, The Lenten Candle Festival and the city is booked out for around 5 days.

At the park I went to look at this, wax.

There is an International Wax Sculpture Competition taking place. This is Thailand’s entrant, Tawatchai Homthong. The contestants have 15 days to turn a huge block of solid wax into their masterpiece.

Each master sculptor has vocational students to help them create their masterpiece.

The designs have to be finished by the 7th of July, so in another 4 days. The sculptures are taking shape but there is still a lot of work to be done.

The Thai master at work.

This is an international competition and this entrant is from Hungary. Her name is Apolka Eros, and she has been colouring some of her wax. On the ground you can see the green wax that has been pulled out of a mould.

There was one girl helping her, the others were melting wax and pouring it into the moulds.

At the moment it doesn’t look spectacular but over the coming days all the important finishing touches will take place and it will transform into a work of beauty.

And sticking the green wax panels on is easy, a heat gun to melt the back a little and then it is simply pushed onto the main structure.

This is the Chinese wax sculpture entrant.

The vocational students chisel the wax to the sculptors design.

Chinese wax sculptor Wang Jianhua watching a student carve the wax.

Two vocational girl students were carving some delicate designs.

The Malaysian wax sculpture entrant.

Malaysian wax sculptor Yong Chong Ming John at work.

A Thai vocational girl student was carving the wax using a simple box cutter knife.

Malaysian wax sculptor Yong Chong Ming John.

This is the Belarus sculptor, Viktor Severin and his sculpture taking shape.

The Romanian Sculpture taking shape. This has been cut out of one of the massive solid blocks and now this is all that is left at the moment.

Romanian sculptor, Bogdan Severin Hojbota at work.

The Japanese entrant in the wax sculpture competition.

The Japanese wax sculpture is looking interesting.

The Japanese sculptor Tanaka Komei checking his work.

The Indonesian wax entrant was looking like a box.

But this centre piece will obviously go on top when finished and I am sure that the base is going to be spiced up as well. You can see some Thai students gathering information about the sculpture. Today many students and people were wearing masks since the H1N1 flu virus has hit Ubon.

Indonesian sculptor at work, Deden Henden Durahman.

This is the Bulgarian wax entrant by Liliya Pobornkov.

The Bulgarian has reduced her solid wax block to these 3 separate sculptures. It is impressive but the sculptor wasn’t to be seen.

Sharp sculpting tools are a must and there were grinders about the place for the students to give there tools have a razor like edge.

And the last wax entrant by Chilean, Gricelda Lopez Paredes.

There is lots of this happening by the vocational students, filling small holes and heating the wax and smoothing the surface.

The wax is surprisingly hard; this student was cutting pieces off with a tomahawk. He had to give the wax a really good hit to chip small bits off.

Another student is picking up the small pieces of wax and throwing them into the drum.

The student then pours the already melted wax over the solid wax to quicken its melting time. The wax is then scooped into small buckets and whizzed off somewhere, obviously into a mould. I should have followed one of the bucket runners.

And there are plenty of visitors, especially school students. These tiny little kindergarten students came from a school nearby to check out the progress of the sculptures. Well truthfully they didn’t seem too interested. The boys all wanted to go and watch the crane that is putting all the grandstands into place for the candle processing which takes place next week.

So that is a small look at some of the Lenten Candle Festival, the huge 30 plus metres wax works and all the smaller entrants will be unveiled next week by temples and villages from across the area. I have a busy few days planned for Saturday and Sunday and will see if time prevents me to post or not.

My early favourites are the Chinese and Malaysian entrants. I like dragons and the sculptures already have so many small details that are breathtaking. The Malaysian sculpture is going to be very special I think.

I will take much more detailed pictures of the completed sculptures on the 7th.

Brunty