Balloon Distortion to Create Fun, Exciting and Fascinating Decor

The technique of distorting balloons to create a differing shape or form has been around for as long as I can remember, so at least 30 years! We often see balloons manipulated to create faces, flowers and many other exciting shapes.

One of the hottest trends right now is distorted flowers: these are often used as an accent detail in  'marquee' style balloon decor as shown below. This beautiful design was made by the extremely talented duo Aleks Hernández, CBA and Nelly Mildred, CBA of Waikiki Incredible in Yucatán, Mexico. If you look closely, you will also see that the ballerina's face shape in the centre of the design was also created using a distortion technique.

In the video below, Avital Shechter, CBA of Nir Balloons, Israel, demonstrates how to make a distorted balloon flower.

I have experimented with distortion many times with varying success. It is definitely a case of practice makes perfect!  A few years ago I demonstrated how to make a toadstool using the distortion technique on BMTV, along with some other cute design ideas! Check out the video below to learn step-by-step!

I know many balloon artists who are, at least in my opinion, masters of distortion. One of my favourites is the extremely talented Steven Mayhew, CBA, Owner/ Balloon Illustrator at The Balloon Workshop and Director of Marketing & E-Commerce at L.A. Balloons.

Steven Mayhew, designer/illustrator and author of the truly amazing ABC Balloon Book. 

Steven at work creating his incredible Walrus sculpture! 

I interviewed Steven for a past Very Best Balloon Blog post - A creative hobby that turned into a wonderful children's book - an interview with Steven Mayhew. One of the questions that I asked Steven was:

You have used a lot of distortion to create fantastic shapes for your animals. Do you use anything to help you when you distort your balloons?

‟Distortion was a very important technique used to create parts of the animals, as I didn't want them to all just look like the balloon animals we all know and love. I kept my tools simple when it came to distorting the balloons - a balloon straw, a basic pump, an Air-Pro inflator, the Nikoloon System by Niko Fric, and whole lot of patience.” 

To read the full interview and to see some more of Steven's incredible animal designs click HERE or go to

https://theverybestballoonblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-creative-hobby-that-turned-into.html

Zebra Balloon Sculpture by Steven Mayhew
The Balloon Workshop.

Check out Steven's website; The Balloon Workshop - https://www.theballoonworkshop.com and on Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/TheBalloonWkshop

To learn more about Steven and his amazing book, check out this video! 

From a simple toadstool, to the amazing creations that artists such as Steven makes, distortion is definitely a unique and incredible art form! 

To read further posts on distortion and techniques, check out these posts:

Balloon Distortion Techniques Part 1

Balloon Distortion Techniques Part 2

Balloon Distortion Technique Part 3 - How to Make a Face

Once again I would like to thank all the wonderful contributors to the Very Best Balloon Blog! I hope like me you are truly inspired by their creativity and generous contributions and of course, and thank you to you for reading my posts! 

Happy Ballooning! 

Sue

www.suebowler.com

Follow me @suebowler

Happy Easter — Rabbits, flowers, and chicks!

Eggs and chicks, like rabbits and hares, are synonymous with Easter. This dates back to Pagan times when eggs were considered a sign of fertility and new life. The early Christians adopted this symbolism because it helped them remember the Resurrection and having new life through Jesus.




As a small child, I remember decorating and painting hard boiled eggs, then rolling them down a hill on Easter Sunday; the first egg to reach the bottom without breaking was the winner! Today, we still enjoy Easter traditions as a family, including an Easter egg hunt (chocolate eggs, of course) and everyone really enjoys the excitement of hunting for eggs.

In the past I have made a few different designs that would work well for Easter. I love the Easter colour palettes, especially Yellow, Spring Lilac, Rose, and Lime Green as it is a great reminder that spring is on its way!

11" "Easter Bunnies & Daisies"

I made this cute rabbit in 2010! The body was made using a 20" Qualatex^® Deco Bubble, filled with under-inflated 11" ‟Big Polka Dot” to represent Easter eggs.

The head of the rabbit was made using a distortion technique. If you would like to learn how to make the head, click HERE for a direct link to the post I wrote about distortion.

How about spring flowers? I thought that these would work well for spring and Easter decor.

I loved making this flower. It was very different from other styles of giant flowers that I had made before. I liked the fact that the head of the flower tips over rather than facing forward. This flower stood approximately 5' (1.5m) tall.

This flower design was made using 27" and 13" ‟Taper Green Leaf” Microfoil balloons and the 11" Green Rainbow SuperAgate^® and the 11" Yellow Orange Rainbow SuperAgate latex balloons.

This flower stood approximately 7' (2m) tall.

18" ‟Baby Chick” Microfoil Balloon.

As soon as I saw the new 18" Baby Chick Microfoil balloon, I knew exactly what I wanted to make with it ‑ a baby chick of course! This lovely simple design can made in just a few minutes, and by

18" ‟Happy Easter Hatched Chicks.”

adding a helium-filled Easter balloon bouquet you can really add value the cutest Easter design.

Material List:

4 - 11" Orange latex balloons
4 - 5" Yellow latex balloons
1 - 12" Yellow Quick Link Balloon™
2 - 160Q Orange
1 - 18" ‟Baby Chick” Microfoil balloon.

Scraps for attaching
Ribbon
Weight for base

Here are a few more ideas that you could use for Easter or spring decor and some of my favourite balloon assortments!


I love this ‟Breezy Butterfly Delight” design. It looks amazing with the 44" ‟Luminous Butterfly” as a topper for this ‟Big Polka Dots” Quick Link column.

11" ‟Big Polka Dots” - Assorted Spring Lilac, Rose, Goldenrod, Lime Green, and Robin's Egg Blue.

11" ‟Big Polka Dots Colourful Assortment”. 

11" ‟Daisies & Butterflies.”

Easter is such a lovely time of the year. Spring arrives along with so many beautiful, vibrant colours!


Happy ballooning!

Sue
www.suebowler.com

Balloon Distortion Technique Part 3 - How to Make a Face

Easter Rabbit by Sue Bowler CBA

So far in Distortion Techniques Part 1 and Distortion Techniques Part 2 we have seen some incredible examples of distortion using balloons!

To conclude this 3-part blog, I want to show you how to create a simple 'face shape' that should help you to start creating your own amazing faces!

Step 1. 

Use four Qualatex^® balloons

1 x 16" White 

3 x 11" White

Step 2

Using a straw or chopstick, insert the three x 11" balloons inside the 16" balloon making sure that they sit side by side with the necks all positioned at the opening of the 16".

Step 3

Establish which balloon is positioned in the centre and partially inflate to create the top part of the head. Check that you have the two other balloons sitting on either side as the picture below.

Step 4

Knot the inflated balloon, you can remove the excess neck after the knot if you prefer.

Step 5

Now carefully inflate one of the 'cheeks', it does not matter which one is inflated first. The balloon will curve a little, see picture below.

Step 6

This is a little tricky, you now need to inflate the second cheek, but without knotting the first one, as you will probably want to adjust them both by adding or removing air until you have got the 'perfect' shape and size!

Tip
Twist the neck of the balloon that you have just inflated and grip it between your fingers whilst you inflate the second cheek, as already mentioned,  it is a little tricky but with practice, it will become easier.

This picture shows the shape that you are trying to make with the 3 x 11" balloons.

Step 7

You can now tie the necks of the 'cheek' balloons together, this means that the 16" balloon is still 'open' and you can add a little extra air if you want to make the face a little bigger, but you will lose some of the shapes definition.

Step 8

To complete the design you can draw a face. I have used this same face shape for a rabbit and for 'Casper' the ghost.

This is an image of 'Casper' that I used to copy the face

Now it's your turn to try out distortion, whether you create a face using the Nikoloon Tool as in Distortion Technique Part 2, or by putting balloons inside balloons, try it and see what you can create! Remember, practice makes perfect!

A huge thank you to all the designers who's pictures and designs I have shared with you to write this blog!

Happy Ballooning!

Sue

www.suebowler.com

Balloon Distortion Techniques Part 2

Making those amazing faces!

For the past few years, I have seen more and more detailed faces using the distortion technique!

The detail in Masako Normura, CBA of FuwaFuwa, Japan, sculpture, was awesome, we all studied the Geisha face with huge admiration! Masako's sculpture came second in the Large balloon sculpture category at the World Balloon Convention 2010.

Masako created another great large sculpture a WBC 2012, she used many different distortion techniques in this sculpture.

Masako Nomura, CBA

Today, many balloon artists are using a similar technique in their everyday work...

Here are some amazing ghosts heads made by PartyFiesta Shop, by positioning several balloons inside a bigger balloon these amazing faces can be created!

Partyfiesta Shop, CBA, Italy

This Witch was created by Mike Harris, CBA of For Every Occasion, the face detail is so good! Mike used a Nikoloon Tool to make the face.

Witch by Mike Harris CBA

Witches Face by Mike Harris CBA

Witches Face by Mike Harris CBA

Many of you may know Niko Fric, CBA. Niko has designed a tool called the Nikoloon Tool which allows you to do many fantastic things with latex balloons.

Nikoloon Tool

He has a great website www.nikoloon.com filled with information, pictures and step by step guides! Here are a few of the faces that he has created using the distortion technique and Nikoloon tool!

By Niko Fric CBA

By Niko Fric CBA

By Niko Fric CBA

Here is his guide to making a face... but visit his website to see these instructions and more in greater detail! www.nikoloon.com Niko will ship the 'Nikoloon' anywhere in the world... free shipping!

There are many different techniques used to create distortion with balloons, in the Part 3 of this blog I will show some simple ways to create shaped faces... but like anything, it is practise and experimenting that makes perfect results! Do you remember when you first tried to tie a balloon! Don't expect to make the perfect face the first time you try :)

Happy Ballooning!

Sue
www.suebowler.com

Balloon Distortion Techniques Part 1

By definition distortion is the alteration of the original shape... we can use various distortion techniques with balloons to enhance our designs!

My first public attempts at distortion had varying degree's of success. However, before I talk about my own experiences, I have taken a look back through my IMAGES magazines archives to see when I was first inspired by distortion!

Dream Maker - Jim & Pat Skistimas 1993

Jim & Pat Skistimas created 'Dream Maker' at the 1993 International Balloon Arts Convention (IBAC). The wizards face was created. Balloons, foam board, and wire frames were stuffed inside balloons that were sometimes partially inflated to create facial features! 

Up until then, there had been very few examples of the distortion technique... bearing in mind, we did not have the luxury of the internet and the World Wide Web to see all the amazing balloon work that we see almost by the minute today!

Distortion can apply to both latex and Microfoil balloons.

When we think of distorting balloons, we generally think of using latex balloons, and in the main creating faces. But there are other forms of distortion techniques!

4" Lime Green Microfoil Star & 4" Red Microfoil Heart... I have drawn a line to show where to heat seal these balloons,  remember not to fully seal as you will not be able to inflate both sides!

I like to distort foil balloons, we can use 4" & 9" Microfoil Star and by simply heat sealing the star down the centre we can create a Holly leaf or with 4" & 9" Hearts some great lips!

These would look fantastic in a Valentines centrepiece design!

Ideal as leaves using both Lime Green and Green Microfoil Stars... for other leaf shapes try the same technique with Microfoil rounds!

Mardi Gras Centrepiece by Chris Horne

You can be more adventurous with Microfoil balloons using an Iron, I found a fantastic 'vintage' travel iron on Ebay that has a small but heavy solid base, perfect for 'ironing' balloons, which I used when I created the shade for my 'Tiffany Lamp'  earlier this year at BACI, but a good 'Craft Iron' works well too! 

Create a template of the shape that you want to make in the foil (keep the valve within the design so that you can easily inflate the balloon once you have created the shape), draw around your template, then using the hot iron, seal around the shape you have drawn! To keep your iron clean use greaseproof paper between the balloon and the iron as the heat will remove some of the colour from the balloon.

Chris Horne created this beautiful centrepiece using this method!

Craft Iron

Stuffing machines can really help when distorting a latex balloon, look at these awesome 'eyes'! Perfect for Halloween! Pat Billups CBA, created these 'eyes', using an 18" Diamond Clear (stuffing balloon), opened it up in her stuffing machine, and the "pupil" and "Iris" positioned between the Diamond Clear and a 16" White!

Eye's by Pat Billups, CBA

My first true attempt at using the distortion technique was at IBAC 13, where I used it a few times in both my large sculpture and my centrepiece design.

I encountered many problems with my large sculpture, I really wanted to create an exciting and large Alien head, but after popping too many 3' balloons in the process, I ended up making it far too small, and the head became totally out of proportion with the rest of the Aliens body! This was one of my first big sculptures, it is not my favourite but it was a great learning curve!

Alien and Boy! by Sue Bowler CBA

Frances Meyer Bear - by Sue Bowler CBA

My other attempt at distortion at IBAC 13 had much greater success and in fact it came first in the centrepiece category... my first IBAC and a 1st place, you can imagine my excitement!

I used a combination of foam board and balloons to create the Bear

Here are a few more examples of distortion. Distortion is fantastic for making shaped heads, like the bear and rabbit!

Today, I see many very advanced techniques used to create amazing distortion effects for faces and heads.

These amazing hands where part of the sculpture built by the Brazilian Team at the Qualatex Event UK 2011!  

The heads on these 2 fantastic character would not been the same without the use of the distortion technique. This sculpture was built by Team Russia also at the Qualatex Event UK, 2011 

Please read part 2 of this blog where I will give you some good pointers towards making a face!

Happy Ballooning!

Sue