Monday, April 29, 2013

BACI 2013 - 'Stars'

BACI 2013 was all about 'Stars', everything from celestial, whimsical, astrological, marine life or the famous, STARS could be depicted in any and many ways! 

 I would like to thank The Darkroom photography school and Balloon Express, Italy for the use of the sculpture pictures! To see more great pictures visit the Darkroom photography website...    www.thedarkroom.it



The Darkroom photographers
Francesco Mauro
Annalisa Cavallari
Alessia Fabbri
Giulia Zanelli
Ilaria Vangi
Jessica Cannizzaro
Sara Piazinni
Silvia Collino
Silva Rocchi
Valentina Borgioli

The event started last Thursday - April 18th, when the sculpture teams had the opportunity to start building the structure or frames... but no balloons can be inflated!



Framing byTeam Alberto Falcone!
Framing by Team svetlana lugovaya
With the frames well on the way to being completed the first day of the sculpture build started in earnest. Each team could have up to 10 members and had 2 days from 8am-8pm (24 hours in total) to complete their sculptures.

And the winners are...

There are 2 different sculpture categories, BACI Championship Masters and Champion BACI Sculpture, to compete in the BACI Masters competition you have to have won an Italian or Internationally recognised competition. 

BACI Championship Masters Category
First place winner 'When you wish upon a Star', by Alberto Falcone and team.



Alberto Falcone & Team


Svetlana Lugovaya & Team
Champion BACI Sculpture Category
First place winner 'White Bear' Star by Svetlana Lugovaya & Team, Russia




The use of colour in both of these sculptures was stunning, Alberto used every shade of blue and green, with a great deal of double stuffing I am sure, with the shimmering background curtain created with the new 35" Holographic Crescent Moon, the design was filled with all the magic of a Disney animation.

Svetlana's beautiful White Bear and cart filed with gifts and two adorable little children characters was filled with so many tiny details and perfection, that concluded in one very beautiful sculpture.

 Both sculptures were deserving winners... however all the sculptures were fantastic, and I am sure that there were very few points that set them apart!

Dmitry Tishenko & Team
Second Place winner Master's Category - 'An Intergalastic Pizza Delivery'! Dmitry Tishenko & Team, Russia. The scooter riders are our very loveable Italian artists,  Alessandro Patane and Federico Onida!

Second Place Winner BACI Sculpture category - '# 27499' - Robbie Furman & Team
Robbie Furman and TeSecond Place winner BACI category - 
If you are wondering why Robbie's sculpture has a number rather than a name, that is because if you look very carefully, this is actually a copy of the 'Fun Sea Creatures' 22" Deco Bubble! 
This sculpture just jumped out at you! The colour's, techniques and attention to detail was just stunning! Congratulations Robbie!


Federico Onida & Team
Third Place winner Masters category - "Planetarium" - Federico Onida & Team.
Elisa D'Onorio & Team

Third Place Winner BACI category -"La note die Re" by Elisa D'Onorio

These are the other sculpture entries for the Master category, both beautiful and worthy winners, a very difficult year for judging!


Alessandro Patene & Team
Tania Torres & Team

These are the other sculptures in the BACI sculpture category.


Enza Mondello & Team
Peter Berggreen & Tea
Here are Enza Mondello's & Peter Berggreen sculptures.

Enza has recreated a still life (see insert picture) and Peter has built as sculpture of his childhood star Hans Christian Andersen, the famous Danish author and poet, best known for his fairy tales! Both beautiful sculptures, congratulations!

Manon Dudziak & Team
Olga Baranova & Team
These are the final 2 sculptures in the BACI sculpture category:
Manon Dudziak & Team created this beautiful balloon wall. Manon is a master of this technique and can create very detailed images working with 5" balloons. 

Olga Baranova & Team create the signs of the Zodiac... oh my goodness that Lion was stunning!

The creativity and standard of sculptures at this years BACI was incredible, I am sure that all those who worked on each of them would have gained a great deal of experience!
I congratulate each and everyone of you as you are all winners!

Now to the other competitions:

Buffet Arrangement, this competition is a live 1 hour competition with nothing pre-prepped and can have up to 2 people working on it! There is no theme for this competition.


It is very hard to see the detail in Manon and Jose Luthman's design, but it is beautiful and very elegant,  it uses Black & White Super Agates to create stunning fantasy flowers and was complimented with a bouquet of helium filled Deco Bubbles.
Valters design had super 'wow' factor! A perfect wedding arrangement, the attention to detail was perfect! 
A huge thank you to Keith Stirman, who agreed last minute to step in a help me with my design... this is a competition that I really enjoy taking part in and strongly recommend anyone attending an event taking part in a live competition!


Here are the other beautiful arrangements:


Robbie Furman, Tania Torres & Enza Mondello
Sara Zampini & Evelise Antonello
Unfortunately, I am unsure who created the first design with the woven heart and I am unable to display a picture of Federico's design as I could not get a good enough picture... sorry!


Elisa D'Onorio, Alberto Nava & Heleana Casini
Romina Finali, Mariann Nagy & Alessandro Patane

There was some truly great design, congratulations to everyone who took part!

Column Competition, this competition is a 90 min live competition and once agin there was no theme, and up to two people are allowed to work on the design with no pre-preparation.
1st Place - Rachele Paoli
2nd Place - Manon Dudziak
3rd Place - Alberto Falcone
Alberto Nava, Frank Jeschke & Elisa D'Onorio
Sara Zampini, Alessandro Patane & Enza Mondello
Tania Torres, Robbie Furman & Peter Berggreen
Viadislav Chenishov, Vadim Shushkanov, Federico Onida and Evelise Antonello
One of my favourite entries in the column competition was Federico's Tower (above), he used a technique that I have never seen before and I loved it... very clever!

Here are a few more pictures from BACI...


Some of the 'Stars' of - BACI 2013 


This is a collection of designs created by different instructors... the fantastic fantasy flower work was by Barbara  Biagioni!


What more can I say except a huge thank you to all who joined us at BACI in Florence, delegates and instructors,  Balloon Express and their amazing team and finally to Pioneer Europe - Qualatex!



To find out more about BACI visit www.bacitaly.com

I hope that I have not missed anyone out? Sadly I do not have pictures from the 12 minute David Grist award sculpture competition, the winners are 1st Place Vadim Shushkanov 2nd Place Alexandr Solomatin.

There are lots more great pictures on both www.balloonexpress.it and www.thedarkroom.it


Happy Ballooning!

Sue
www.suebowler.com

No comments: