Balloon Technique - The Air Pressure Control

Hi! I'd like to talk about air control.

Not the air you breathe, but the air blown into balloons.

There are two issues you may encounter.

First case to highlight, the balloon is much too inflated! It's very compressed, and the air almost reaches the tip.

Second case, conversely, the balloon isn't inflated nearly enough! It's all soft, and there's far too much room at the end.

Let's start with the one that's too inflated. The idea, is to keep the air, as much as possible, at the front of the balloon. And whatever you do, don't push it towards the end.

So for starters, we're going to cheat a little, by pulling on the knot, to recover some space, and give the air a bit more room.

Next, we're going to be very careful not to press the balloon more than we have to, and we're going to keep the balloon as compressed as possible.

To do this, as an exception, we're going to twist the balloon as little as possible, because the more you twist the balloon, the more you're pushing air towards the end. And that's exactly what we want to avoid!

So, only go around once, that's enough.

So of course, when the balloon is very compressed like this, it's best to handle it with precaution, and a little slower than usual.

And you can see that for now, I've been able to keep my margin at the end of the balloon, just by limiting how much i twist the bubbles, and by avoiding pressure on the balloon.

Oh! Here I've reached the end of the balloon, and I'm out of room.

We're going to cheat again a little, Instead of making segments one by one, I'm going to divide the rest of my balloon in two. Just two portions of equivalent pressure.

And later, I'm going to divide them in two as well.

You'll see! This way, I'm evenly spreading out air pressure between the last four segments. Let me check...

Yes, pressure is balanced between the front legs, the stomach, hind legs, and tail. I'll still try to give the tail a slightly more natural shape, and there!

To sum up, if your balloon is too inflated, you need to make sure that pressure doesn't go toward the end of the balloon right away, but stays balanced throughout your sculpture.

Now, with the under-inflated balloon, we're going to do the exact opposite.

When the balloon was too inflated, we were trying to keep the air in the front.

Here, on the other hand, our strategy will be to push the air as much as possible to the back of the balloon.

And if necessary, you can even block the balloon between your arm and side to force the air even further back.

And here look: we've already been able to shorten the reserve a great deal.

OK, next it's like usual, except we're going to twist the balloon as much as possible when making the bubbles.

So instead of twisting the bubbles three times, you'll twist... say, ten times if you have to!

Remember, twisting the balloon takes up space and pushes the air back. And in this case, that's exactly what we want to do.

So, press the balloon well when forming bubbles, and keep regularly pushing the air in the balloon back, as soon as air pressure builds up after a few bubbles.

You'll need to compress the balloon with both your hands, even your arm if you have to. Each time you block bubbles, for example here, at the legs, keep twisting the balloon more than necessary.

Continue like this, each time pressing a little more, to form the bubbles and the different sections of the balloon.

This time, we can afford to strongly accentuate the natural shape of the tail and stomach

And at the end, look: we completely made up the huge margin of empty balloon we had at the beginning.

Now, let's compare both figures together.

You can see that in spite of the balloons being very badly inflated at the start we've still been able to make our little doggies in both cases, and without popping them, or conversely, without the balloon getting undone.

All this, just by mastering air pressure control.

Air control is paramount! It makes the difference between a pro and a beginner, the difference between a balloon that pops in some poor kid's hands, or a balloon that unravels through lack of tension, so practice controlling air in balloons.

See you soon! For another lesson with... Môssieur Ballon!