August 28 - Fabrizio's Mouse

“Any cat may stare into a fire and see red mice play,”

~ George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

This mouse is a mini one of what was shown by Fabrizio at Bling Bling Jam this year.

I think there is something both beautiful and terrible about Facebook bringing together balloon artists.  Beautiful in that it's a great place to share ideas, and terrible in that by sharing it kind of homogenizes things.  There is little incentive to come up with your mermaid when you've seen a bunch of efficient ones shared.

Brian Potvin spoke on this briefly in one of his lectures about how he had to distance himself from social media in order to develop his own style.  There are many artists who elevate themselves above this and you can know by their style.  It would be a disservice to make a list, because I would inevitably leave of a good number of people that deserve this kind of recognition.  The rest of us are a melting pot of the creative forces that effect us.

Fabrizio embodies this individuality.  All of his designs I found to be characteristically "him".  This mouse is a prime example.

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August 15 - Bling Pig

Oh we're on our way we're on our way,
on our way to Grandpa's farm.
We're on our way,
we're on our way to Grandpa's farm.
Down on Grandpa's farm there is a fat pink pig.
Down on Grandpa's farm there is a fat pink pig.
The pig she makes a sound like this:Oink! Oink!
The pig she makes a sound like this:Oink! Oink!

~ Raffi - Grandpa's Farm

Well for the final entry in the Bling Bling 2017 run, I submit the Purple Pig.

He was left holding the tip for the cleaning staff.

The pig is based around Dennis Bauyon's dragonfly face for a nose area and was built freeform in the early morning on the final day in the jam room.

Bling Bling Jam 2017 is in the history books, I learned a lot keeping to the classes - got my picture taken with Marvin Hardy.  I'm not a big fan of Las Vegas but this event keeps bringing me back.  It is the one convention I seem to be able to attend with any consistency, and Steve is the guy who first encouraged me to come to a balloon convention.

I've never attended a Twist & Shout, but I did get tickets for this next one, so we will see how that compares.  I'll be the guy scurrying to the elevator with an armful of balloons I just built, or part of the 6am jam room crew.

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Other balloon designs from Bling Bling Jam 2017:

August 14 - Eyes

“If someone says something about your art that makes you feel bad, disregard it and joyfully make more art.”

~ Gayle Wray

This was some playing I was doing with Dennis Bauyon's dragonfly eye.

I knew it would work well as flesh and as an open eye, but I had seen some images posted recently (TwisTEE maybe?) where they used a similar technique with the same color balloon and it looks like closed eyes.

I colored both of them, but got the face a little lopsided in the other so I redrew it upside down for extra practice before this one.  I had a marker go rogue when making the right (left) eye - but it gave sort of goth mascara look so I added a skull headband.

This vacation reel shot is me packed and ready to leave.  I had an early flight which meant I had to be checked out and at the airport by 4am.  The final day, the awards ceremony and I left early to sleep. 🍺🍻PARTY!

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August 13 - Elephant

“We must join forces everywhere to stop the slaughter of elephants and rhinos. They feel pain, they know suffering. We must stop people from buying ivory.”

~ Dr Jane Goodall

Here is another awesome use of big bear head balloons by Dennis Bauyon, this elephant is huge and has nicely shaped, movable legs.  It's like an gigantic elephant action figure.

I made the trunk too large, or possibly could have angled the head a bit better, but he didn't stand up too well.  I had to have him standing on things so his trunk could hang down.

The Purple shot is from the travel reel.  I find it amusing that the slippers are on the wrong feet, but I'm working with the limited resources of "what's in the room".

Newly built!

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August 12 - Nao's Cat

As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.

-- Ellen Perry Berkeley

The next class was Nao Osaka teaching us his new cat.

Once again he did a great job teaching an advanced design to a room full of people.  He provided a sheet that shows the first umpity-three steps to get you going.

Because it's Nao-style, I did build a few 160 versions as well.

The grey with blue eyes was built with Nao, the orange was later in my room after scarfing some quick tacos.  The brown was about 5am the following morning and the grey with green eyes was built and left at an Air BnB I stayed at recently.

I kept meaning to build one with straight front legs - I think it would look great with a normal cat sitting pose.

Even though Nao is a master of a woven body style, here he shows something different - this is a stylish, small, fairly quickly constructed, efficient unwoven form.

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August 11 - Dragonfly

 Fly through illusion to reach the magic of life.

 ~ Unknown    

Dennis Bauyon really had some interesting and advanced things to show at Bling Bling Jam.  This dragonfly face was a bit of a finger burner and it took a few tries to get something I liked, but I was able to get a couple to work.

I've been wanting to learn this sunken eye technique for a while and have spent a lot of time experimenting with different techniques to do it.  I am looking forward to playing around with things.

I also love how silvery Betallic silver is, it's great as bug eyes.

That's a quick picture of purple on stage snapped right before a the next class. Which was ...

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August 10 - Angry Chicken

Coming in from London, from over the pole
Flyin' in a big airliner
Chickens flyin' everywhere around the plane
Could we ever feel much finer?

~ Arlo Guthrie - Coming into Los Angeles

Betallic was the big balloon sponsor this year at Bling Bling Jam and really stepped up when Qualatex dropped out.  A few years ago I switched over most of my balloon stock to Betallatex and feel good about that decision for a number of reasons of which I will now add this.

This design was just a simple something someone left in the jam room and uses their new "angry eyes" balloon top print.  I thought it was interesting how they were able to use an offset to the eyes and get an interesting shape from the balloon.

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August 9 - Danger Mouse

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

~ Desmond Tutu

Though Fabrizio Bolzoni only taught us the monkey in class, he demonstrated how he makes a number of other things.

When attempting this mouse in the jam room between classes, Fabrizio suggested a few things to make it more like his, I'm not sure if his a specific mouse.  I built another thinking to try for Danger Mouse.

I don't remember one thing about Danger Mouse. But I must have seen an episode or something because I knew it was a white mouse.

I was getting into a pretty good routine going at this point of taking my pictures and then getting the balloon down to the giveaway pile.  It meant that I now traveled both up and down the elevator now with arms full of balloons.  Every ride was typically:
1. quick awkward silence held the entire trip
2. 30 second interrogation

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August 8 - Chameleon

Lot of chameleons out there, try'na change up
Anytime somethin' new comes along, everybody wants a bite
Don't happen overnight

~ Cypress Hill (Rock) Superstar

Here is another from onsite at Bling Bling Jam again.

Nao Osaka is a great instructor and certainly knows his craft well enough to dance around the room unraveling problems and getting people straightened out when making something with so cool and complex.  This was a class that started at 11pm, which made for a few people who were ... lets just say back from dinner and drinks (maybe not dinner).  And me, effectively awake at 2am.

I have been a big fan of Nao's style for a while, his designs are some of the favorite things I've built.  He has a way of capturing artistic forms in simple elegant ways.  That feels like something you should tell someone, right?   So after class I went up to him, said "loved this", he said something I didn't catch and gestured to my built chameleon and I said ... "yeah .. thank you", but his hand was out still, so I grabbed it to shake but his fingers were a bit limp.  It was when Nao was looking at me quizzically as I was shaking his limp hand that I realized he was probably instead asking for me to hand him the chameleon.  I'm not sure if it would have made it more awkward at that moment to bop him on the head with the chameleon and run around the room,  ... but instead I went to bed.

I really love the way Nao uses all (well mostly) 260's for his designs, he is masterful at constructing a woven body.  He had a sheet for attendees with picture instructions on how to make the main section so it was very easy to follow along.  This makes it easy (maybe even easier) and fun to downsize his designs.  So since I was awake at 6am the next morning I built the little guy in the room and took the rest of the pictures.

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August 7 - Fabrizio's Monkey

Monkeys are superior to men in this:
when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.

~ Malcolm de Chazal

I knew very little about Fabrizio Bolzoni before walking into this class. I should have taken an Uber instead of a hotel bus and made it to his first class if I had known.

Fabrizio is not only a talented balloon artist and teacher with a distinct style, but he has a good eye for making a balloon into a scene. This monkey vine is a good example of it, not only on a tree, but it's a jungle vine with drippy flowers. Fabrizio's was even more detailed with a few of the monkey's holding bananas.

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August 6 - Transformers

The Transformers! More than meets the eye!
Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons!
The Transformers! Robots in disguise!
The Transformers! More than meets the eye!
The Transformers!

~ Transformers theme song.

Justin Perez is one of the talented Balloon Buccaneers Perez family and won the "Top Dog" award at Bling Bling Jam last year.  Which means he placed high enough in the competitions that he participated in to effectively be the overall winner, the top twister.

Justin was the perfect person to ask to teach these classes - he brought gold.  This first class is evidence, a balloon transformer is brilliant even just as concept.  A 'transformer' isn't an idle sculpture - it's a toy, even in just transforming it's engaging.

Such a good idea ....

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August 5 - Dennis Fabulous Faces

When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange

The Doors People Are Strange

Dennis Bauyon was first to blow my mind with what you could make with balloons.  Long before I discovered Facebook balloon groups or knew anything other than some youtube searches, I somehow stumbled across Steve Klein's webinar with Dennis.

He taught how to make an elf and a hippo.  I don't remember how to build them, but I do remember that feeling inspired that I was able to follow along and ended up with something I could brag about.

I wonder if I can find a picture of them ...

These faces are from his class entitled "Fabulous Faces", and make for a nice melon sized head.  The red ball guy was who we made in class, then I played around with it a bit in the jam room to add hair and play with the base structure a bit.

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August 4 - Genie

If you wanna be with me
Baby there's a price to pay
I'm a genie in a bottle (I'm a genie in a bottle)
You gotta rub me the right way

If you wanna be with me
I can make your wish come true
Just come and set me free, baby
And I'll be with you

~ Christina Aguilera Genie in a Bottle

The last of Brian Potvin's class "A Whole New World" is this Genie.  Technically, chronologically - this was the first he taught.  You'll have to excuse a little creative license because I couldn't show certain pictures before others..

This Genie was taught to a room full of people with various levels of experience.  I think some things were simplified for the audience sake, but there was a lot of down time while the class caught up so I went ahead with some embellishments and muscles.

The pig with the showercap is just simply hilarious in a classic 80's cartoon humor sort of way.  Hilarious! (A showercap?  Why would he need a showercap!?  Ha!!!)

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