The RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been held on the grounds of the Chelsea Hospital in London, U.K., every year since 1913, apart from gaps during the two World Wars. It is considered to be the most prestigious flower show in the world. This year, Chelsea saw its first ever design that showcased Qualatex® latex balloons and greenery in the now very familiar organic style. The design was named the "Chelsea Jungle." This fabulous installation was the collaboration between two artists, garden designer Catherine Chenery of Catherine Chenery Garden Designs, and balloon stylist Fiona MacOwen, of Riot Balloons.
Chelsea Jungle Photograph by Nicci Rene
CHELSEA JUNGLE CATHERINE CHENERY X RIOT BALLOONS
This year at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, as you walk through the tunnel which connects Main Avenue and Ranelagh Gardens, you will find yourself entering a jungle dream with a canopy of exotic leaves and colourful balloons.
By immersing you into an imaginary jungle scene, the designers aim to embrace the lighter side of life and the importance of escaping reality every now and then, if only for a moment.
The tunnel gives you an opportunity to let your mind wander into a dreamscape, as though you have let yourself drift into a daydream of luscious plants and clouds of colour,
before re-entering reality at the other end.
The installation encourages us to take our time, not rushing to our destination but enjoying the journey.
"It appears that as times goes by, more and more artists are turning to balloons as a medium for their art projects. We have seen artist, Jason Hackenwerth travelling the world with his amazing balloon creations including this awesome piece, 'The Arrival,' built in 2014 for the Louisiana Art and Science Museum. I was very fortunate to meet up with Jason when he was commissioned by Selfridges Department Store in London in 2011 for an 'Under the Sea' project, which was part of a huge campaign to create public awareness regarding the ocean, over-fishing, and protecting the sea . On this project, Jason used 35,000 Qualatex®biodegradable balloons and created eleven sculptures that reflected sea-life.
Balloon Art by Jason Hackenwerth
Only last year Charles Petillon, a photographer from France, was commissioned to install a giant cloud of balloons under the roof of the 19th Century Market Building in London's Covent Garden. Known as 'Heartbeat,' this sculpture used a massive 100,000 white Qualatex balloons, stretching 54 meters in length and 12 meters wide, with pulsating lights to symbolise the beating of a heart. Once again, I had the fortune of meeting this artist along with a group of BAPIA members who assisted with the inflation, installation, and de-rigging of this incredible piece that lasted for a number of weeks.
Charles Petillon, 'Heartbeat.'
The latest project that I found myself getting involved with was only a few weeks ago by Artist Noemi Lakmaier, with a live art installation named 'Cherophobia'. Cherophobia was a 48-hour durational living installation. An attempt to lift the artist's bound and immobilised body off the ground using 20,000 helium party balloons. This all took place inside St. Leonard's Church in Shoreditch, London."
Cherophobia is defined as a work of contrasts and opposites, of the push and pull between fear and desire, freedom and constraint, and about our responsibility to make choices. The cheerful, happy image of a giant cloud of balloons stands in stark contrast to the artist's bound, restricted, and immobilised body, while the helium-filled balloons pulling upwards are in turn constrained by the church building.
"Noemi and her team called upon BAPIA members to assist with the Hi-Float® treatment and inflation of the balloons. It was determined by the artist's team that it would require approximately 12,000 11" Qualatex balloons to lift her. With six BAPIA professionals and changing teams of volunteers, it was felt that this should be achievable in 12 hours. However, due to some unforeseen issues with Noemi's health and wellbeing, the lift-off was delayed until the following day when, with the use of approximately 13,500 11" balloons, Noemi started to float underneath what can only be described as a 'mountain' of balloon. The contrast of the multi-coloured balloons mountain against the church decor was striking and certainly not what you might to expect to find in a church!"
"Noemi took off at about 3pm and was airbourne for about 5 hours."
The start of the balloons being installed.
13,500 11" Qualatex Balloons and the project is a success!
It is very interesting to see how a balloon art installation such as Charles Petillon's 'Heartbeat' has created a trend within the balloon community. I have seen a number of photographs of similar installations around the world that have a very similar look and have obviously been inspired by the original design.
I believe that seeing balloons being used in such diverse and interesting ways can only be a good thing, as it brings balloons in a bright and positive way to the public.
Thank you to John for sharing his Balloon Art experiences with the Very Best Balloon Blog.
BAPIA — the Balloon and Party Industry Alliance is a U.K.- based independent trade organisation that works much like a trade association. BAPIA's aims are to increase public awareness of the balloon and party industry, promote industry professionals and the benefits of working with them, fight negative and anti-balloon campaigns, and much more!
I hope that you had a very productive 'ballooning' Christmas and New Years eve, and even managed to fit in and enjoy some family time over the holiday period!
Looking at the Qualatex Facebook Groups it appears that many of you were busy creating some awesome Christmas and New Years decor, which is fantastic, congratulations to you all!
Before I start working on a heap of 2014 projects (which is always very exciting), I would like to take a quick look back Christmas 2013!
Starpoint & Taper Wall - by Sue Bowler CBA
I personally had a very busy time leading up to Christmas working with my husband John. As many of you will know, BAPIA -- the Balloon and Party Industry Alliance, took on the fantastic task of organising balloon decor for Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital annual Christmas parties, held for all the sick children and their families. In 2 days the GOSH team and their many volunteers hosted 4 parties with over 2000 children and adults attending, along with a whole host of well known UK celebrities... so a great opportunity to show balloons at their very best!
Last week I was thrilled to be a guest instructor working with Robbie Furman in Ireland for the first stop of his UK & Ireland BAPIA Tour.
Mr & Mrs Zebra Design created by Sue Bowler CBA using Qualatex Balloons, Premium Balloon Accessories and Clik Clik Balloon Bond
My allotted time slot was after lunch, which was great as it gave me a few hours to play & prep working with some exciting products that had been supplied by the tours very generous sponsors before my demonstration!
After unpacking all my Qualatex balloons that I had selected to use for my demonstration it suddenly dawned on me that I did not have a heat sealer for the 9" & 14" Microfoil™ balloons that I was using in my designs... now that was a very big problem as I was using these in all but one of my designs, and therefore I needed to find a solution.
The Titanic- designed and created by Fiona & Rodney Fisher
It has been just over a month since Fiona & Rodney Fisher built their 14,000 balloon and 40' replica of the famous liner TITANIC. I was very privileged to have the opportunity to work with them on this amazing project along with John Bowler, Angela Holland & Sandra McKeon.
The Team
April 15th 2012 marked the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic striking an iceberg and sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was built in Belfast and the city held a series of events to remember its connection to the ill-fated vessel.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Fiona & Rodney on this awesome project! I think that many balloon artists can learn a great deal from Fiona's experience which she has generously shared with me here in this blog!
How did the Titanic project come about?
"After completing a Halloween project in the Victoria Square shopping mall, future projects were discussed with the centre's management. The next biggest event in Belfast was the Titanic's centenary and when we heard that, we (Rodney and myself) suggested that we could make a scaled version of the ship!
How did you do your research?
"That's Rodney's department! He bought some books and did a lot of internet research. This book shown here contained all the scale plans, and from there he made all the calculations and drawings!
Rodney's calculations!
How did you know how much to quote?
"Once Rodney had designed the frame, he was able to calculate the amount of aluminium rod, balloons and other materials it would require. Then I needed to work out the labour time which was not so difficult as we used the 'Topiary' technique of adding the balloons to the frame, which is pretty straight forward and easy to work out the timings. So all in all this was probably one of the easier quotes I have had to do"!
How did you present your proposal?
"The proposal was made up of the following:
the job would take 4-6 people 4 to 5 days to add the balloons to the frame on site.
the frame would be made in advance off site, for both safety and logistical reasons.
the sculpture would be suspended using a winch system.
We also include a 'to-do' list and a 'needs to be done' list, which we work through with the client to work out who is responsible for what. To give you an example on our list was safety barriers, team meals to include lunch and evening dinner and accommodation for the team for the duration of the build!
Basically everything was listed and allocated to persons responsible, these lists grew as the project neared. The to-do list is something that we do for every job to ensure that the jobs run smoothly and that everyone knows exactly whats occurring and who is the responsible parties.
The winch ended up being sponsored, how did that happen?
" Rodney was buying supplies for the project and needed to work out the winch system, which would allow us to move the sculpture into it's final suspended position and also, off the ground each day during the building process. When he explained what he was doing WH Scott Ltd became interested in the project and offered to do this as their company had been involved in the original building of the Titanic 100 years ago"!
How would you say that the project went?
" Fantastically! Everything went according to plan, in fact we were ahead of schedule and very very happy with the end result"!
Would you have done anything differently?
" No, the only thing that we had no control over was the weather, we wished that it had been a little warmer... not for our benefit, the night frosts damaged one side of the ship which we had to repair, but we always offer a maintenance service with all our jobs, we pride ourselves on our customer service".
On a personal note, I would like to add how cold it was working in the shopping centre, something that I was un-prepared for! After sending John to find fingerless gloves and hand warmers, along with wearing many many layers of clothing I was finally warm enough to work and use my fingers... I can strongly recommend hand warmers, they really do work, I kept them inside my gloves whilst working!
Sue working in gloves!
What feedback did you receive from the shopping centre?
"The management were extremely happy with the reaction of the general public. Around 500,000 people visited the centre whilst the Titanic was in place. The shopping mall galleries were always busy with people taking photographs as it was visible from all levels! We have had fantastic press and media coverage from all around the world and one of UK's top television presenters Christine Bleakley " Tweeted" that out of all the amazing tributes to the Titanic in Belfast, that this was one of her favourite! For more media links click here
How do you go about insuring yourself for a project such as this?
"As a member of BAPIA (Balloon and Party Industry Alliance), we were fully covered for all eventualities. There is absolutely no way that we would do any project without knowing that we had full insurance coverage!
Likewise, working with Qualatex balloons is also like an insurance, knowing that we have created an amazing project using 'the VERY BEST BALLOONS'!
Only the best balloons!
Is this the biggest project that you have ever done?
"Yes, but funnily enough not the hardest... in fact one of the easiest! The hardest project that we did was also in the same centre, when we created Halloween decor for the first time there. We created spiders and ghosts, and because of the elements, in particular the wind that seems to 'rush' through the centre, it managed to force the balloons off the frame, due to the fact that we had secured the spiders legs from moving, however, we learned that by allowing movement within the structure the balloons remained happily in place and everything was fine after that!
Finally, it is 4 weeks since you made the Titanic, have you had any enquiries that you believe are as a direct consequence of the Titanic project?
"Probably the best way to respond to this is yes. But maybe not in the way that you think! For example, we made the frame for the Titanic in an empty retail unit in a local shopping centre, we have now been commissioned by that same shopping centre to design and build decor for the Olympic Torch Relay.
Building the Titanic has created huge public awareness on an International scale, therefore I am able to promote Worldwide Balloons Decor (my decorating company) as a very competent and professional company, and I am finding that I am getting immediate positive response when I quote for new jobs"!
Here are a few more photographs from project Titanic taken by the very talented Ben Hanna
The Titanic frame arriving at Victoria Square shopping mall
Attention to detail and all to scale!
The Titanic would not have been complete without these little models of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio!
For more great pictures and fantastic information regarding the building of the Titanic visit www.buildingtitanic.com, Fiona & Rodney's great website that documents the whole project from conception through to completion!
Once again a huge thank you to both Fiona & Rodney Fisher who invited both myself and John to work on this amazing project and for all the wonderful information that they have shared with the balloon community!
Here are a few of Fiona & Rodney's amazing sculptures!
Since posting the Clown balloon wall that I taught at the Balloonland Event, Israel, January 2012, I have had many requests asking how it was made. So here is the first of 2 blogs showing 2 different wall techniques, with a little introduction to balloon walls.
Clown Balloon Wall created by delegates at Balloonland Israel January 2012
There are many different ways to create walls with balloons! We can use latex rounds, non-rounds and foil balloons such as Qualatex Starpoints and others too! So, we need to determine which type of wall we want to create or more importantly, which wall best suits our or our customers needs?
So why are we proposing a balloon wall to our clients... a client will never ask you for a wall, it is your job to sell what it can do for them... sell the emotion and not the product!
To create their corporate logo?
To create a theme background?
To create a theme entrance?
To create a photo or stage back-drop?
To enhance a trade show or exhibition stand?
Balloon wall techniques using latex round balloons:
Duplet Square Pack
Alternate Size Square Garland Pack
Traditional 4-Balloon Garland Pack
There have been a few people during my career as a Balloon Artist who have inspired me to create balloon walls, Ian Herd CBA and Bruce Walden CBA.
Bruce Walden created this Balloon Wall Mural Paper, and this proved to be very important to me when I first started to design walls, without this, it was extremely difficult to determine which type of wall best suited the design or logo that I wanted to build within the wall. Today, I have created my own 'Mural Paper' on my computer, which saves me a great deal of time when creating a design!
As there are a number of different techniques, I am going to focus on each one separately, today we are going to look at how to create a DUPLET SQUARE PACK WALL.
Duplet Square Pack Wall
Characteristics:
Flat Surface Straight Sides Good definition on straight lines & Diagonal lines Wall can be made with a double sided pattern or with a plain back. Not as robust as other wall techniques.
The Mardi Gras wall above is an example of a wall that has been made using the Duplet Square Pack technique. It features with Step-by-Step instructions in the Master Series DVD available from Qualatex distributors.
Here is another example this time with a logo built into the BAPIA logo built into the wall.
Regardless of which technique you use there are a few simple rules when making a wall:
The balloons MUST be inflated with precision, every balloon must be accurately sized!
I will only make garlands/ Columns/ walls using Dacron line and not monofilament. Dacron is strong, yet soft against the balloons, it will not stretch when under tension.
Wall Construction - How to fix the columns together.
This is such an important part of the wall construction, if done badly the wall can distort and not look good. The following technique was taught to me by Ian Herd, there are many people who use 260Q to fix a wall together, but for me the elastic band and paperclip method is the best technique!
Project
I recently designed a wall for a class that I taught at the Balloonland Event in Israel, I knew that it was a pretty complex design and a great challenge for the class!
First I needed to get my inspiration. I knew that I wanted to create a wall with a clown face. To help me with my design I found a clown face Cross Stitch pattern on the internet! This design is far too detailed for my wall, but I liked the shape and features, so I down scaled the design to work for me.
Cross Stitch Pattern
My version of the Clown Face
Here is my interpretation of the Happy Clown design featured above. Once I have created the design that I want to make on the mural paper, I now break the wall down into columns, this makes it much easier when building each of the columns.
Now I can easily see the balloons required for each of the columns! Looking at the columns above you can see 18 columns, each column has 44 duplets - 88 balloons per column! This whole wall uses1584 balloons!
Black - 1086 Orange - 114 Blush - 189 Yellow - 22 Lime - 48 Rose - 8 Robin's Egg Blue - 40 Purple Violet - 8 Blue - 8 White - 44 Red - 17
If you count the balloons that you can see, you will only count 792 balloons, this is because every balloon you see has one behind it! To make this wall easier, we used Black balloons as the back balloon.
This picture shows balloons being counted out to make the columns.
This shows how important it is to 'read' the pattern as you go!
This shows the columns being linked together with the elastic bands and paper clips
The Clown wall that we made was not perfect, it was a group exercise with 20 people working on it. When you work on your walls, I recommend that if possible only 1 person packs the balloons on to the Dacron line, everyone has their own tension, varying tensions will effect the overall look of the finished wall...
Example of Technique
Here is a small project that I have put together to help explain the technique with a short DVD. You might find it useful if you right click on the design and print it off whilst you watch the DVD so that you can follow the pattern as I make it, I think that you may find it easier to understand it a little easier.
I hope that you have found this blog useful? There are many different walls to create walls and other techniques for creating a Duplet Square Pack wall. I always recommend that you use the technique that suits you best.
Start with a simple project to learn and perfect the technique before you embark on a large scale project for a customer.
I have just had the pleasure of working as part of the Green Balloon Campaign team, at the first of many (we hope) public Balloon Art Festivals.
This is the first time I have ever really spent time talking to the public about our industry. Their reactions and comments regarding the balloon sculptures were amazing, everyone from the very young to the not so very young absolutely loved them! I suppose that I should not be so surprised, but it was great hearing their comments!
Sue, Amber & Claire talking to families about the Green Balloon Campaign
"Wow"... "I did not realise that you could make such fantastic things from balloons"? "are they really balloons"? are just a few of many questions we were asked. Comments such as "this is such a beautiful art form", "I have never seen anything like it" and "you really would not know that they were balloons"!
Dolphin sculpture created by Jodie Norris
But what truly amazed me more than anything was that most people that we spoke to did not realise that latex balloons are 100% biodegradable.
Here are a few facts that we shared with the visitors:
Qualatex latex balloons are made from 100% natural latex- not plastic. Qualatex latex balloons are biodegradable, and decompose as fast as an oak leaf.
Latex balloons come from rubber trees. Latex is collected by cutting the tree's bark, then catching the latex in a cup. Latex harvesting does not hurt the tree!
Latex balloons are Earth-friendly! Rubber tree's grow in rain forests. Latex harvesting discourages deforestation because latex-producing trees are left intact. A tree can produce latex for up to 40 years!
This for me, is was what made the weekend so rewarding, the opportunity to be able to inform the public the true facts about latex balloons. We talked to both children and adults, school teachers, artists, people from all walks of life. Some shared their concerns regarding the environment, so we informed them of the
BAPIA Code of Practice, the Balloon Council and the Californian Law, all of which demonstrated that as a profession and an industry we take environmental issues very seriously!
Picture by Huw Evans Picture Agency- Cardiff
The Red Dragon Centre with their publicity team gave the event such great media coverage, including radio, local and national newspapers. In excess of 40,000 people visited the centre over the festival weekend!
So how did our campaign start?
Bob Armstrong CBA with Bob's daughter Claire Cummings of Dr Bob's Balloons have been the driving force behind the launch of this project. Bob and Claire started the campaign 6 months ago, when they started visiting local schools, giving a fun but clear presentation to the children on how balloons are made, how latex is tapped from rubber tree's and many other important facts including how latex balloons are environmentally friendly. These school visits have been very well received by the schools and pupils alike and it was felt that it was a good time to expand and grow the campaign by creating a public event. Bob and Claire contacted John Bowler at BAPIA (the Balloon and Party Industry Alliance), and they joined forces to take the campaign forward.
