December 10 - Lion

"Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting."

~ Joyce Meyer

... and Pigs and Bears - oh my!

Yes.  Bears again.

There is an optimal "slowness" with which to work through a set of lessons, that sweet spot where you linger just long enough to absorb something before moving on.

There is also too slow.   Like making the polar bears yesterday, only to read ahead and discover that Patrick's next step is his own version that is approximately 200% more adorabubble™.

(view other lions or bears)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Patrick Van De Ven:

December 9 - Bears

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."

~ John Muir

I saw a video recently of a polar bear doing its absolute best to rescue a poor cameraman who had somehow gotten himself sealed inside a fiberglass box.  

The bear worked every angle with a toothy determination - one single rivet not seated properly could have made all the difference.

I'm not sure how it ended, but I really hope they were able to free that cameraman.

Mother nature provides.

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These use the panda bear form shown by Patrick Van De Ven in his Holy Snail tutorials, I like the "chewing" face more than I care to admit.

(view other bears)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Patrick Van De Ven:

October 16 - Polar Bear

"Hunger is the best sauce in the world."

~ Miguel de Cervantes

I get hangry after only a couple hours.

Polar bears can go months without food, then demolish 80 pounds of fish and seals in one sitting.

I guess that's what real hangry looks like ... 

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This polar bear holding a fish is another example shared by Marina Filatova using her double-stuffing techniques.   I love how the enhanced face adds to the expression.

(view other polar bear)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Marina Filatova:

January 7 - Loopy Bearz

Always respect Mother Nature. Especially when she weighs 400 pounds and is guarding her baby.

~ James Rollins

These bears use the David Brenn Loopy Headz base design.

The simple concepts are great in so many ways.  Kind of like using a doodle to draw a picture from, you can pick two or three colors to use before deciding what to even create.  

I tried playing around with a couple different body styles (or pseudo-styles).  This is really a good minimalistic form to hang accessories on, which gives you the ability to make it as complex as you want it to be and/or have time for.

The polar bear is an homage in part to a balloon Matt Falloon showed during Q Convention 2020.  Matt, as always, brilliant in all he does - I'm looking forward to, but I am definitely not ready to try whatever finger burners he has been up to in the past years.   

Other balloons by and inspired by the David Brenn:

July 6 - Patrick's Bears

It's hard to explain how a few precious things
Seem to follow throughout all our lives
After all's said and done I was watching my son
Sleeping there with my bear by his side
So I tucked him in, I kissed him and as I was going
I swear that the old bear whispered "Boy welcome home".
~ Kenny Loggins Pooh Corner (link)

I'm a bit misty eyed after that quote. I have sung that song so many times for my boys when they were toddlers and I don't think I've ever made it through that verse without my voice breaking a little. Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooooooooh.

Once again I feel like I need to point out how simple and elegant the forms are that Patrick Van de Ven creates.  This is probably one of the easiest bears I've built to date and yet it has so much personality, I can imagine these guys lumbering through a forest.

We watched The Revenant recently, so actually imagining them lumbering through the forest is a little scary.  That movie really captured the potential brutality a bear attack!

... a group of bears is called?   A sloth.
... a group of sloths is called?  A bed.
... a group of beds is called?  A dormitory.
... a group of bares in a dormitory?  Freshman year ... awwww yeahhhhhhhh.

Panda bear	Tan (duh) bear
We're making porridge, and I know how to make it juuuuust right.

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Other posts with Patrick's designs:


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April 6 - Geo 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 of the Chippewa Tribe

The third entry from Matt Falloon's Flower Buds DVD is this bear.  This is actually the "proper use" of his flower bud base, I attempted to use it in one of the bunnies the week before Easter.

Now that I have made a few of these Flower Buds, they are quite quick and easy to make.  Most of the time was spent on the face artwork.  While demonstrating some color combinations, Matt shows three different styles of eyes and I wanted to try each.

This is bear, but really this is the basic flower-bud structure from which you could to transform about build any (stocky) animal body.

	If you wear shoes, are they still bare feet?

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Other posts with Matt's designs:


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