Instruction

Larry is an instructor with experience teaching classes around the world. He has taught elementary school children, as well as professional balloon artists. The following are just a few of the things he offers.

Regularly Scheduled Balloon Art Classes in Rochester, NY

Larry teaches classes through the Rush-Henrietta Continuing Education program, located in the R-H Senior High School. These classes are open to anyone with an interest in a new art form and are intended for beginning and advanced students. Larry's R-H classes

Instruction using variety arts

Performances with a curriculum-based theme are presented in many school situations. Audience participation and learning is a critical part of the entertainment.

Educational shows are a category of their own.

Private balloon art classes can be arranged anywhere around the world for balloon professionals or beginners ...

Getting Started

Balloons are provided for all participants. Beginners will learn to inflate the balloons properly. Pumps are available for those that have difficulty. During the course of the workshop, everyone in attendance will make at least a few simple one-balloon animals and will become familiar with a number of the basic twists used for creating more elaborate figures. Samples of various types of balloons are available to experiment with.

Entertaining with Balloons

Larry has performed in venues ranging from street corners to stages. Balloons appear in all of them. Larry teaches what he has learned over the years about entertaining crowds with the use of balloons. This class is geared at those that have at least a rudimentary knowledge of balloon twisting. Intermediate through advanced twisters will learn something about the performance aspect of ballooning, and may walk away with a few new twists in the process.

Balloon Fabrics

Balloon weaving, or balloon fabric creation, is a growing art form that involves the use of many balloons to form a single piece of art. The time that goes into a weaved sculpture can range from minutes to many hours. Larry teaches some basic and very advanced techniques and discusses the approaches he uses to designing large scale works. Examples of what can be done through weaving are available. The material taught in this class should be of interest to balloon decorators and balloon entertainers as it has uses in both areas.

Balloonicature

Caricature with balloons. This is all about making faces of friends, family celebrities, or anyone else you happen to want to produce out of latex balloons. this is most often accompanied by instruction in other advanced balloon twisting techniques.

Decorating with non-round balloons

Learn to use non-round balloons to fill large rooms and decorate events. See twisted creations in a different light. This isn't stuff to be handed out to lines of kids, but creations that will make a room more memorable.

The Internet and your business

This class is intended mostly for balloon professionals interested in learning to design more effective web sites, learn to use web resources, or understand what e-commerce is all about. The class draws on Larry's 10 years of experience running BalloonHQ.com. Balloon HQ is one of the few Internet-only businesses to be around for this length of time, and one of the fewer that has continued to grow, even when others were shutting their doors. Those outside of the balloon industry interested in Larry's perspective on growing an Internet community may also find his insights useful.

Design and construction of massive sculptures

Larry, along with Royal Sorell, holds the record for the largest non-round balloon sculpture in the world. He has also designed and built the world's first piloted balloon sculpture. Learn how a sculpture of this magnitude is constructed.

Advanced twisting

New, unusual, and different twists are taught in this class. This is intended for those that are looking for something different than just a few new sculptures.

Other stuff

If you are interested in learning from Larry, but are not sure the above descriptions exactly meet your needs, please ask. He'll be happy to work with you in creating the right class for you.

Balloon books

Juggling