--- added June 10, 2016
... and now we have!
I came in second! I had a nice chat with Phileas, who is the Grandmaster Jedi of amazing balloon artwork. He is the Picasso of balloons that has built an actual Picasso of balloons. If there was someones name to write on a scrap of paper and cast into the golden cauldron, someone to summon in our darkest hour of balloon need, someone to sit close to and catch the idle sparks of epic that must cast off as he creates, or ... simply someone's style to just emulate - it's Phileas Flash (Rupert Appleyard) - need proof? BAM.
... and I made him promise a crisp high-five if we ever meet in person. First place was amazing, Scott Lanham deserved it - he entered early with a woven working basketball toy with a video showed him make a basket. It was a masterpiece! He also made his kite into a hang glider complete with flyer -- so brilliant, as well as a number of other excellent pieces.
Scott is actually featured on this blog, he taught a great webinar earlier this year:
I feel very honored to even be mentioned - these designs were either functional or involved or both. Scott is a master, coming in second tastes just as sweet as victory to me. :)
This was a tough competition but for such a good cause, if you twist balloons and you don't own the Frequent Flyers collection, please consider buying it. Even if you don't twist balloons, do your soul a favor and take a moment, visit the website Warchild.org.uk and find out what a difference you can make in the lives of some of these kids.
-------------------
Frequent Flyers is a balloon dvd concept, championed by the indominatable Phileas Flash, designed to benefit WarChild.org.uk, an organization that provides support to children who's families and community have been torn apart by war. He and twelve other balloon artists created designs with the words "Fearless Flyer" as the only directions. Each came up with something completely unique and stylized to the artist, it's like a balloon anthology for the year - and each a stylized vignette for the artist. This was a fun project for a great cause.
Here were my entries, I will caption the pictures with what I wrote as the entry text:
| This bee design is by Nicole Greg. I had been promising to make a bee for one of the teachers at our school for a long while, so I turned her design into a "Spelling" Bee and gave it an apple and chalk board. Is there any such thing as a chalkboard anymore? Link to daily blog post: Nicole's Bee | ||
| I'm loving these little pico guys. The cannon and the tiny guys are Matt Falloon's creation, it actually fires pretty well. Not a great "load", more of a smooshing - but I've got the guys to go sailing pretty nicely. I thought the clown and cannon decorations would really add to the circus effect. |
| ||
| This was probably the design that excited me the most when doing my initial look through, but ended up being the last one I built - one the morning of the contest end date. It was awesome to learn from a jedi like Larry, building this made me want to go to next years Balloon Manor. Note there is a silly goose behind the Canada goose. | ||
| After watching Glen LaValley's kite video, I immediately knew I wanted to build a purple pig version. If I had planned a little better, I would have a video of these flying - they are currently softening in the back of my van waiting for something other than sprinkles or still wind. |
| ||
| I didn't stock mouse head balloons, but I do have a bunch of big bear heads, and since there is some company rivalry - I thought it would be a funny concept to have some sort of Warship Betallatex, emissary of either peace or destruction. I couldn't decide peace or war, so I went with a slightly different concept using exclusively Betallatex balloons. | ||
| Buster Balloon is such a fun person to learn from. He's such a goofball. The turkey is both a frequent flyer and a frequent fryer. As a turkey the design is probably only good for a no-touch display or for pictures, but as a concept - this was my favorite video for all of it's Friz Freling zaniness. |
| ||
| I had seen a few pictures of Phileas in a pilots cap, so I thought it would be neat to set up some sort of chase scene. I wanted something a little more closeup, but it would have been tough to get the wingspan in the picture. This was a good exercise in working with layers and effects. Link to daily blog post: Pieter's Airplane |
Kudos for the great ideas as well as great balloons!
ReplyDeleteThis was so much fun! I only wish I hadn't waited so long to enter ... everything was a little rushed at the end there, each design is so distinct and interesting, each will have their own day posts at some point I'm sure. (ooo good idea, going to go link the ones I've done and add as they go)
Delete