May 16 - FriendlyRoadkill

Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
And then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground come a bubblin crude.
Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

~ Beverly Hillbillies Theme

FriendlyRoadkill is a DeviantArtist who had a textured smooshed possum as a sample image, it's hard to describe, which is what attracted me to it.  Again, perfect username.

I bet there is a lot of timing and training that goes into capturing a perfectly posed bit of roadkill.  Would tying it down be considered cheating to roadkill art purists?

Either way - here is what FriendlyRoadkill brought in with a shovel for granny to cook up. 😁

May 15 - Chef

“Cooking is an art and also science.”

~ Mohith Agadi

As people remain cooped up for safety sake, a number of balloon artists are starting to share more and more in live events.  I have been a fan of U-chan (@uoo2525 ) for a while, he has a masterful style and has started live broadcasting when he creates.

I knew I just had to recreate his pig chef.  I rely on technology to auto-caption/auto-translate, and freeze frame when things are shown, so I'm not entirely sure if it was a tutorial or not.  But the results were worth the effort!

One of the things that U-Chan does better than most I've seen is the artwork he does for eyes.  Inspirational, and definitely a sign of great art - when it makes you want to go practice.  That said, the eyes here are created differently and probably the coolest technique I've seen.  Check out his YouTube channel:  link

One of the things I need to work on is my penmanship.  I love this balloon, but it's a bit maddening to build it, start to take photos, realize you forgot one last thing, then draw the nostrils off-center.  *face palm*  *eye-roll*  *long sigh* *post anyways*


(view other chefs)

May 14.5 - Queen Bee

I'm gonna steal you from your hive
Steal you away from every man alive
They can't see what you mean to me, queen bee

~ Grand Funk Railroad, Queen Bee

This itself is not a queen, but a tribute to the new queen of bees - Irina Gvozdenko (@Aurriny ).

Aurriny is a Gemar Ambassador and taught at the Gemar Flash Mob where she showed how to create this gigantic bee.  I didn't have the balloons to make it completely so I took copious notes and my balloons just arrived.

Just in time actually -- there is a contest going on, sharing what you learned at the Flash Mob and the deadline to enter is today, so I am doubling up on today's posts to enter.  *fingers crossed!*

Now to be 100% up front and honest -- this was not made with Gemar balloons as my supplier doesn't carry them.  (But I would love a chance to use them...)


(view other bees)

May 14 - Cow

“The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the other milk.”

~ Ogden Nash, Free Wheeling

This cow is one from a recent "Balloon Adventure in Isolation" with Phileas Flash (link) - based on a request he received for a cow jumping over a moon.

Phileas puts an amazing amount of work on these projects (thanks Phileas!), each balloon adventure has been accompanied by a big build, each Fizzlewick Fairy Tale is a handwritten story -- and he's still putting out about four videos a week.

His udderly ridiculous moo-torial was actually for a Cow-I-Sake Mootorcycle (link), but I thought the animal of it looked great as is, plus would be more poseable.

One problem I ran into was that udder, so many pictures were unusable because of a protruding V.U.L.J. (Visible Udder that Looks like it's Junk).




(view other cows)

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Other Phileas Flash and inspired-by balloons:

May 13 - Frog

"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."

~ Mark Twain

Sam Cremeens is the best balloon artist in the world, my opinion is supported by the facts.  In what I consider the premiere balloon convention this year, he took the top twister award.

Now this quote is not about eating frogs, Mr. Twain was referring to procrastination.  I was fortunate enough to spend some time getting to know Sam and I can easily say he is the type of hard-worker who is constantly challenging himself to improve, and the designs he shows you can be sure have been rigorously used, tested, reworked, analyzed, improved and then presented to you.   

Creativity is not a magical force - it's nose-to-grindstone trial-and-error hard work. #inspiredbysam
(Miss you, buddy.)

This was one of his finely tuned designs he shared at the Q Corner Convention.




(view other frogs)

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Other Sam Cremeens and inspired-by balloons:

May 12 - Towlie

"You wanna get high?"

~ Towlie

I want whatever Trey Parker and Matt Stone were on when they came up with this character.  I mean, why a towel?  Was it a direct reference to HHGTG or inadvertent?

The grim reality is that a pot-smoking towel is not even the weirdest most inappropriate thing in the series.  Off the top of my head, the whore-off between Mr. Slave and Paris Hilton, Scott Tenerman's chili cookoff, Cartman joining NAMBLA -- I could go on.  This show crosses lines and doesn't look back, it's one of the things I love about it. 

Don't forget your towel!

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)