Balloon Art: Getting Started

Balloon Art: Getting Started - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats.

Hi, I am Steve Yarosko with Big Wind Balloons from Orange County, California and I do balloon entertainment at parties and corporate events and weddings and whoever needs balloon entertainment. If you want to do some basic balloon art, to just get started, what you need of course are some balloons which you can get from a magic shop or you can get from a party store. The most basic size for making your basic balloon is this, it is called a 260, it is called a 260 because when you fully blow them up they are 2 inches in diameter and 60 inches long.

And you also may want to get some other balloon shapes like, you may want to use a round balloon, this is a 5 inch round balloon or some other shapes that are available as well. But to make a basic balloon shape the other thing that you may need is a pump if you cannot blow it up. These are available at party stores as well, but just for speed I can blow these up by mouth so I will do that for you right now. So here is your basic balloon. So, when you blow up your balloon, you want to make sure you leave a very good tail because you want to let the balloon, as you twist, be able to expand out. So that is one of the key things about balloon twisting is to always leave a tail if you are going to twist it.

Another key thing is when you are twisting, is to always twist in the same direction for each bubble. If I was to twist this bubble a different direction, it would easily untwist the first bubble or the second bubble. So it is important to always twist in the same direction. And as you make more bubbles, the other important thing is to always hold on to that first bubble. I can make a series of bubbles and as long as I hold on to the first bubble these bubbles will stay; but of course if I let go, they all come untwisted.

A couple of other things that you may need when you twist balloons, because a lot of people like to draw on the balloons, so you would need pens. A lot of people use Sharpies, just Sharpie pens, I have a whole bunch of different colors in my bag and you can use that, if your, say this was a head, you could make a couple of eyes just like that. The one thing is that if you do use Sharpies, if this balloon were to pop, the ink would re-liquefy and it could get on peoples hands or on peoples furniture, so a lot of times with younger kids, if I am going to give the balloon to younger kids, I use Expo Markers, dry erase markers, which will not re-liquefy when you draw on them and when the balloon pops or deflates.

Other things you may need, I use scissors. Let's say I am making a small balloon sculpture and I do not need the rest of the balloon, I can just cut off the part that I do not need. And there are just different shapes of balloons and that is all you really need to get started in balloon twisting.

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Howto & Style

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• getting started
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• Steve Yarosko
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• Expert Series