December 3 - Mouse

"The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse who gets the cheese."

~ Steven Wright

If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk.

... and that's where we'll hide the poison.  Where he'll never suspect it.

--

This design uses the Patrick "Holy Snail" technique, this time for a mouse - I made a blursed Mickey, but I am still resisting overdoing anything, this is a long distance run.

(view other mice)

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Patrick Van De Ven:

October 8 - Mouse

"Call me by my name and I will answer with my soul."

~ African proverb

You have limited options with a mouse in the house.

It is a rodent. It is vermin.  You know what to do - you just have to decide how humanely you want to do it.

Having made the ultimate decision, you name him "Chewbacca" and for the next few days you cheer as it runs just out of sight.

This false hope you give him - this is a joy that he carries in his heart as the shock of the spring trap fatally slams against his spine.  Blissfully happy.  Peaceful.

SNAP!

--

This mouse is a balloon shown by Marina Filatova with her double-stuffed technique.  I made the body a little too tall, squatter would be cuter.  This is not a technique that allows for easy adjustment once you commit.

(view other mice)

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Marina Filatova:

April 17 - Mouse

A crumb is not just a crumb.
It is a feast,
if your body is small
and your hunger precise.

~ Zen koan meditation

Zen koans aren't riddles to solve.  They're meant to unravel you - little paradoxes that slip under logic and nest in that soft meaty part of your brain.

Some thoughts are meant for quiet contemplation in the corner of a room, while incense curls in the air and your bare toes scrunch into thick carpet.  That's how you know you scored some good Zen koan.

--

This design is another Isopresso members video, and my takeaway is that an uninflated balloon is the most unruly balloon you can include on a sculpture.  If it's not wedged in - it's an uncompromising noodle.

(view other mice)

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

May 11 - Mouse

“The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley.
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!”

~ Robert Burns, To A Mouse

So ... I feel a little guilty making this mouse.

This mouse was a request of a friend whose daughter is going to have a birthday and asked if she could have a mouse.  So this is I suppose a bit of a prank, I mean it's not permanent -- she's going to watch it deflate slowly until at some point she will be forced to destroy it humanely.

Perhaps that's the object lesson and this is brilliant?

(I'm hoping there is at least a "Mickey Mouse" for her in the future!)

I wanted to make a fancier and more realistic mouse, so I turned to master-of-the-art Isopresso for inspiration and he had a hedgehog that I modeled this after.



(view other mice)

October 6 - Clockwork Mickey

~ Steamboat Willie (1928)

Steamboat Willie is actually the third Mickey Mouse movie, but is known as Mickey's debut as it's the first distributed and first made with synchronized sound.

I already named the previous entry "Clockwork Mouse" - so here is Clockwork Mickey, also from the Christopher Lyle release Clockwork Yellow.  This Mickey is based on Patrick Van de Ven's "Little Guy" concept that was explored earlier on this blog, but with a completely different head style.

I didn't get a very good picture this time, I brought these in to Starbuck's while my youngest was at his dance lesson and thankfully took this picture there because my earlier photos at home were blurry.  I was also pleasantly surprised to see Katie - who has since moved on to manage her own store but was probably my favorite person to bring balloons for because of her excitement.

---

Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

Show All

October 5 - Clockwork Mouse

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley.
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

~ Robert Burns Collected Poems of Robert Burns

This design is another on from Christopher Lyle's download Clockwork Yellow (link).

Christopher credits Dale Campbell for the original inspiration for this design, as it is based on one of this "through the head" head band ideas.  Though the design was taught as a headband, I thought it worked well enough on it's own and made it for the office this week.

---

Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

Show All

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.

---

Other balloon designs from Bling Bling Jam 2017:

---

Other balloon designs from Fabrizio:

Show All

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

---

Other balloon designs from Bling Bling Jam 2017:

---

Other balloon designs from Fabrizio:

Show All

June 24 - Loopy Mouse

Hey you, White House
Ha, ha, charade you are
You house proud town mouse
Ha, ha, charade you are

~ Pink Floyd Pigs (Three Different Ones)

When I was working on the bears for yesterday, I thought to make a polar bear.  But when the construction started looking mouse-like, I thought I would go for it.  I didn't realize at the time that the next design on Tony Twist's Loop the Loop instructions was a mouse.

The grey is what he teaches in the download but with a different cheese.  I went ahead and used the standard animal leg form that I've been using for the others and built a couple different cheeses.

I've almost gone through all of the designs that are shown on the download, I'm looking forward to using this design without relying on instructions!

---

Other Loop the loop designs:

Show all

June 23 - Loopy Bear

I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man.

~ Sun Bear, Chippewa

There were a couple bears shown in Tony Twist's Loop the Loop download (link).

The brown bear, panda and koala are all part of the release, but they are close enough in design to group together here.  Plus so far I have been building mostly what Tony has taught and it will help me speed through the rest to start leveraging this idea into other creatures.

This is the first time I experimented with using a smaller size Loop the Loop.  The form transfers well, but I need to figure out a better way to make the eyes as they are bulging out pretty badly here.

---

Other Loop the loop designs:

Show all

January 19 - Mouse

I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house
I don't know why. I call him Gerald
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse

~ Pink Floyd Bike

Eeeeek! A mouse!

This balloon started as my attempt at Linda Truscheit's chipmunk, but it looked a little bit like a mouse on the first build - so I went with that.

The chipmunk-become-mouse attempt is below and on the right.  I built another to try and embrace mousey-ness in grey, but I started not liking the big fatty body and it was kind of looking like a bit like a cat. I then made a third, the one you see in the upper right here.

It could still use some tweaking, the eyes are a little bit mismatched and he's looking behind you rather than at you, but like where it ended up, almost looks like Jerry.

Ok - I've had a chat with the cat.   He's ready to forgive if you are.

---

Other posts with Truscheit-style:


Show all Truscheit-style designs

November 12 - Picos Too

From Wikipedia:
Pico- (symbol p) is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting one trillionth, a factor of 10−12 (0.000000000001).

.. this is three units smaller than a millimeter. It goes milli, micro, nano, pico ..

I took a voyage further into the Pico-verse, exploring a few more of Matt Falloon's mini creations.

While I was waiting to pick my oldest son up from swim practice, I picked some random balloons from my miscellaneous jumble of balloons and decided to make a fly.  This was before I realize there is a fly on the DVD.  I might not make it for the blog, but I really like how he leaves the nozzle on for a disgusting sucker-like mouth on his.

I really enjoy the two eyestalk creatures in this batch.  The snail is especially out of the box thinking, and full of Matt's complexities, frumples and raisins and deep tulips.

Mini crabs - something you never want to see	Itty bitty, too small for the kitty - mouse
I found this fly by the seat of your pants...

---

Other posts with Matt's designs:


Show all

September 30 - Tatyana's Mouse

The mouse eyed the trap and noticed the one thick rope that held it together. She began nibbling and nibbling until the rope broke. The lion was able to shake off the other ropes that held him tight. He stood up free again!

The lion turned to the mouse and said, "Dear friend, I was foolish to ridicule you for being small. You helped me by saving my life after all!"

~ Aesop The Lion and the Mouse

The moon is not made of cheese, but most of my photo captions tend to be.

Tatyana DjeTa Lyashko hit on another fantastic design with this mouse, and the perfect framing to put it on a moon shaped block of cheese. I had to cheat a bit once I had the moon structure since I didn't have any 9 or 11" yellow rounds, and used Big Bear Heads for the larger sections.

I'm really enjoying building these large delivery pieces, she puts in so many details and techniques that could be applied elsewhere.  It's like an advanced balloon class homework assignment.

This mouse moon hung as a chandelier in our house for a couple days.

Of mice and the man in the moon	The moon used to be full, Now the mouse is.
... The More You Know .....

---

Other posts with Tatyana's designs: Show all