Drawing on Balloons... and bring your designs to life!

Drawing on balloons, some great tips from two industry experts!

I draw very simple faces on my character designs, but I must say that I am in awe of those who have a natural talent when it comes to drawing on balloons!

So I invited two of our industries very talented balloon artists Yolanda Verberk of Yollie Balloons, Belgium and Lily Tan of My Airtitude, Singapore, and asked them both if they would kindly share some of their top tips when it comes to drawing on balloon's.

Tiger by Yolanda Verberk

Hi there!

I’m  proud to have been asked to write down a few tips and tricks in 'The Very Best Balloon Blog' about drawing on balloons.  I hope I’ll inspire you to try drawing more details on balloon sculptures.

I sincerely hope I can show you that you can do so much more with a balloonface than just 2 black rounds for the eyes.    

First I’ll introduce myself, and you’ll learn it’s not a coincidence that I love drawing on balloons…  

Yolanda Verberk- 'Yollie'

My name is Yolanda Verberk, most twisters know me as “Yollie”. I’ve been twisting professionally  for about 8 years now.  I also do facepaint and together with my sister I participate in bodypaint competitions throughout the world.

In 2012 we may even call ourselves the Dutch champions!

I love painting on faces and bodies, so why not try pimping my balloons in the same way!? After treating myself to a set of 30 Sharpies in different colours (and believe me, it’s hell to get your hands on those when you live in Holland or Belgium!!)  I started experimenting.  In 2009 I was the winner of the Iron Latex Man competition in Mol, Belgium. It’s there where I learned that you could dazzle people with art-work on balloons. Of course it’s important to twist a fabulous balloon sculpture, but the drawing makes the sculpture complete! 

For my drawings I use Sharpies, Edding paintmarkers, deodorant (!), tissues and my fingers.

Sharpie Pens

Most pictures speak for themselves, but I’ll try to give you some explanation about how I work. But first of all, my most important tip:

Take good care of your tools!!

 How to do that:

- Always use the lightest colour first, than the darker ones and finally you use your black Sharpie

Otherwise your light colours absorb the darker ones and they will all turn to some sort of grey-looking colour and lose their brightness.

- Use your Sharpie markers for drawing on balloons only! Do not let your kids use them to fill in their colouring pages… that way your Sharpies will last a long long time, as a balloon does not absorb the ink.

- Always use your Edding paint marker  last. If the paint’s not entirely dry, you’ll ruin your Sharpie by trying to draw something over the wet paint.

Edding Paint Marker - White 

- Always put the caps back on the markers as soon as possible!

Although a lot of twisters don’t like drawing on balloons, most twisters feel the need to draw eyes on their sculpture. So I’ll start by explaining how to draw beautiful eyes. These eyes help you to bring your balloonanimal or balloondoll to life.

First draw the blue (or whatever colour you prefer, try making a match with the colour(s) of your balloon!) outline. Then draw a black inner circle and immediatly draw an extra circle within. Add two extra circles.

Make sure that the three small circles are big enough. The white circles in the eyes, the twinkles shouldn’t be too small!!  

Then you fill in the remaining space with a black Sharpie. And finally you partially outline the blue circle. Not with a neat, straight line, but like in the last drawing.

 If your eyes are drawn on a coloured balloon, and not on a white one, you can draw the twinkles with a white Edding paintmarker afterwards.

When using a black balloon, draw the entire eye with a white Edding marker first. Be SURE your paint is totally dry, before you start drawing with your Sharpies.

More tips and tricks:

- A bottle of deodorant and a tissue are of great help when you make a mistake! Spray some deodorant on a tissue and wipe the wrong bit off!

- In order to draw a nice blush on the cheeks, rapidly draw a red smudge or circle on the balloon. Even more rapidly fade the paint with your finger, in order to get a nice blush

- Try adding some freckles, eyelashes, eyebrows to your balloonface, it’ll liven things up!

- Want to add a nice detail to your balloon? But this detail is too difficult of too small to make out of a balloon? Try drawing it! Like a baby’s pacifier for instance!

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Well… there’s a lot more I’dd like to tell you, but I’m sure this will enough to get you started!

Thanks for reading my tips and tricks and enjoy looking at my balloonsculptures! 

Hope to see lots of your nicely drawn faces on balloons soon!

Yollie

Here are a few of Yollie's beautiful Balloon Sculptures!

Ferrari by Yollie

Tess by Yollie

Ape by Yollie

Clowns by Yollie

'Dirk' - by Yollie

Drill Instructor - by Yollie

Freddie by Yollie

Giraffe by Yollie

Hampster - by Yollie

Witch - by Yollie

Turkey - by Yollie

Maternity Gift - by Yollie

Large Princess - by Yollie

by Yollie

Snail by Yollie

Snow White by Yollie

Dachshund by Yollie

Twins! by Yollie

Butterfly- by Yollie

Lily Tan - My Airtitude

Lily Tan

Lily Says....

"I usually use Sharpie Fine Point Permanent Marker or Pilot Wytebord Marker to draw faces cause its work well for drawing the faces on the balloons. It contains quick drying, water resistant ink that permanently marks most surfaces including glass, metal, photos, foil and most ... They come in many colours.
Again I always like to do some research before I create some new things... and it's always good to see Other Great Works for different artist. Do practice and practice cause practice makes perfect."

Wow! A huge thank you to both Yollie and Lily who's contributions have made a great blog! I think that I need to go away and practice practice practice, as I think all these designs are amazing, with such beautiful pen work... what do you think?

Happy Ballooning!

Sue

www.suebowler.com