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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Other balloon designs from Bling Bling Jam 2017:

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Other balloon designs from Brian Potvin:

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August 3 - Lamp

John Bender: Why'd you think it'd be easy?
Brian Johnson: Have you seen some of the dopes that take shop?
Bender: I take shop. You must be a ****in' idiot!
Brian: I'm a ****in' idiot because I can't make a lamp?
Bender: No, you're a genius because you can't make a lamp.
Brian: What do you know about Trigonometry?
Bender: I could care less about Trigonometry.
Brian: Did you know without trigonometry, there'd be no engineering?
Bender: Without lamps, there'd be no light.

~ The Breakfast Club (1985)

We watched The Breakfast Club with my oldest son recently, who I think (I hope) is coming to trust that we know a thing or two about good movies and music.

This lamp was taught as companion piece to Jasmine by Brian Potvin in his Bling Bling 2017 class "A Whole New World".

So why spend the day on it?  Well, really just to point out that I not good social media.  I thought it would be a good idea to have the Bling Bling balloon logo coming out of the lamp and I rebuilt the spout like that, took the picture and promptly moved on.  If I had any sort of social media savvy, I would have already posted this - the purple pig photo today is the tweet that twasn't.  #blingblingjam2017

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Other balloon designs from Bling Bling Jam 2017:

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Other balloon designs from Brian Potvin:

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August 2 - Jasmine

Sweet days of summer, the jasmine's in bloom
July is dressed up and playing her tune
And I come home from a hard day's work
And you're waitin' there
Not a care in the world

~ Seals & Crofts - Summer Breeze

Brian was booked for back to back classes.  This one called "A Whole New World", shared with the theme of the event.  This year marks the 20th Anniversary of Disney's Aladdin.  Which before you question it as an outdated theme, is arguably better than last years theme, Mt. Rushmore.

Jasmine is a quick doll to build, but I didn't bring more than black & white so I didn't attempt any face.

So that is a bit of a picture of the next 4 days of my life.  I would build things in the jam room between classes, and ferret them by the armload up to my room for a photo session before bringing them to the hotel give away piles.

There was as moment when it all felt a bit weird, taking glamour balloon pictures in the bathroom of a Las Vegas hotel room.  When I had the thought "this would be an awkward explanation if someone walked in right now."

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Other balloon designs from Bling Bling Jam 2017:

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Other balloon designs from Brian Potvin:

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August 1 - Shark and Dolphin Hats

Shark! Bait! HOO HA HA!

~ Finding Nemo (2003)

As a different approach for part of August, I think it would be nice for me to review some of the things I learned at Bling Bling Jam.

I was probably the least cool person in Las Vegas that week.  As an East Coast'er, everything is 3 hours later for me - classes ending at 12pm, would be 3am for me -- and I'm stumbling to bed.  Then awake again the following day before 6am.  I didn't go out.  I didn't do much between taking classes, taking pictures in my hotel room and building in the jam room.

I arrived later than I thought I would, so Brian Potvin's "Swimming with the Sharks" class was the first I was able to attend on Monday.   It's a simple-yet-large hat design, themed for the gigantic shark tank that's in the event casino.  Teaching at a jam like this can be rough I imagine - you have potentially very beginner to the very capable people in your class and you have to be able to keep them in sync.

This class is by design a perfect first-day class, not too complicated but something big and exciting with a flamboyant instructor.

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Other balloon designs from Bling Bling Jam 2017:

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Other balloon designs from Brian Potvin:

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August 11 - T-Rex

“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.”

― Neil deGrasse Tyson The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

Brian Potvin is The Ballusionist.  Based in Los Angeles, he is a hard working balloon artist who has done amazing huge sculptures and worked for some big media companies; Sony, Warner Brothers, TLC, NBC, Paramount as well as many others - even a Toyota commercial.

I had the pleasure of meeting him briefly at last years Bling Bling Jam.  Late at night in the jam room, people would stumble back in after a bit of "Vegas-ing" -  I overheard a boast about weight lifting, he glanced around the room and said he could lift me.  Brian is built, but not a large guy - I'm 210 pounds and haven't had anyone able to lift me since I was probably ten years old -- I took his dare.   Instant regret.  I was lifted with ease like I was a ten year old.

This year was rough for Brian, he was ill and much of his time was working with Aaron "Dizzy Doc" Hay on the big build of  the two Mount Rushmore.  He shared the stage a couple times with Dizzy Doc as they talked about planning and executing larger constructions successfully, and he had completely lost his voice by the time it came to teach his class on wearable dinosaur hats.  Regardless, he was still the consummate showman, super knowledgeable, quick-witted and full of anecdotes, he showed us how to inflate balloons with style and lots of flexing/posing.

His hats are quick and easy, but with an easily enhanced basic structure.  Someone asked me recently what I meant when I was saying "jam" with balloons.   I said (from my understanding) it's just a cooler way to say "playing" but it usually involves trying a bunch of different ideas and seeing what you like and don't like about them. This is why it's even better to do it with others.  Sometimes these blog posts end up being somewhat of a solo jam - so I thought I would share what I did on this one:

Build 1:  built from my notes and pictures the basic structure.
Build 2:  made proportions a little better, tried angry red eyes - included tongue.
Build 3:  Wanted a different color than lime, but using 350 instead of 360 made the legs a bit short.  Left white off in favor of all mocha body and split the hands, tried 260 tongue (not visible) and balloon eyes/eyebrows.
Build 4:  Hadn't thought of an artful way to include Purple in anything yet, so I went for my old standby - build it in lilac.  No 321's for this color so had to modify tail.  Less angry eyebrows, back to 160 tongue and friendlier face for the purple photo. (and ooops! forgot to separate the hands...)

I would make you breakfast, but your eggs stink.	You're mocha-ing me angry!
Movie Idea Pitch #95:  Jurrassic Pork