Thanks for inviting me to help Graham, I had a good time being Thelma for a few days

Heracles and the Cretan Bull

We are now 7 years into the long 12 year journey and we join Heracles as he awaits the 7th of his labours. King Eurystheus eventually decides and tells Heracles that he must capture the Cretan Bull.

The Cretan bull lived on the island of Crete, it was the creation of the god Poseidon and was meant to be sacrificed to the god however Minos (the King of Crete) decided it was too magnificent to sacrifice and he sent a different bull for sacrifice instead. Poseidon was obviously very angry about this and with the help of Aphrodite he caused the wife of Minos to fall in love with the Cretan bull. The result of this ungodly union between Bull and human was a creature called the Minotaur which I am sure I will cover in a future post. The Cretan bull however went away to cause havoc on the island of Crete by spending its days rampaging through the fields and villages.

On arrival Heracles met with the king who was so pleased to see the arrival of such a hero. News of the adventures of Heracles was spreading around the world and he was become quite famous, as you can imagine his arrival on the island of Crete was quite a big event for an island in need of help. Heracles soon tracked down the bull and caught it by the horns, holding it firm by the horns Heracles managed to manoeuvre the creature and wrap his arms around the beasts neck, he was then able to throttle it until it fell unconscious.

Heracles eventually took the bull back to King Eurystheus where it was again meant to be sacrificed but the gods refused the sacrifice and the bull was released to become the Marathonian Bull where it continued to wreak havoc until it was eventually captured and sacrificed by Theseus (of Minotaur fame).

This bull balloon is completely the invention of the great balloon artist Masayoshi Matsumoto, His balloon work is AMAZING and I don't really think I do it any justice so all praise should go towards him.

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Heracles and the Stymphalian Birds

It is week 6 and time for the next labour of Heracles, last week we left Heracles having cleaned the Toxic dung filled Augean stables in a single day. Heracles returns to the palace of King Eurystheus to receive his next labour, his 6th in as many years and is told that he must defeat the Stymphalian birds (sounds easy huh?), these nasty meat eating birds had claws of bronze, metal feathers that could be fired at its prey, and toxic dung (what is it about these creatures and their toxic dung?), no one could go anywhere near them without being harmed.

Upon reaching Stymphalia in Arcadia Heracles realised that the soft marshy land would not support his weight, he could not get anywhere near the birds to hunt them and kill them. The goddess Athena happened to be watching and decided to lend a hand, speaking to her immortal blacksmith friend (names Hephaestus, creator of Zeus's Thunderbolt) she had him create a loud rattle. Heracles was able to shake this rattle and scare the birds into the sky, once the birds where in flight he could shoot them down with his bow and arrow and the area was now free from the horrible birds leaving just a few to fly away never to return.

Heracles and the Augean Stables

Last week we left Heracles just as he had released the Erymanthian boar back into the wild, now a whole year later Heracles awaits his next task, King Eurystheus has had an entire year to think up a cunning and evil task for Heracles and this one was going to prove to be a challenge. The fifth Labour for Heracles was to clean the Augean Stables in one single day, this doesn't sound too bad at first glance but let me tell you about these stables.

The Augean Stables are home to a herd of over 3000 immortal cattle, because they are immortal they produce a LOT of toxic dung, the 30 years the dung had built up and now it was a complete mess that no one could get anywhere near. The task was not only set to give Heracles a real challenge, it was also given to him to humiliate him.

Heracles arrived at the Palace of King Augeas and told him of his plan to clean the stables in one day, the King just laughed and said "If you can do that then 10% of the cattle are yours to keep". So off headed Heracles to the stables, Firstly releasing the cattle into the fields to graze he then knocked some holes into the walls of the stables. Heracles then headed off to the two local rivers of Alpheus and Phyleus and as we see in my balloon sculpture he used his immense strength he diverted both rivers towards the stables, the rushing waters washed the years of dung out of the stables and his job was done.

King Augeas was so shocked that Heracles has succeeded he refused to hand over the cattle, this prompted Heracles to kill the king and hand over the reign of his kingdom to the kings much nicer son. The fact that Heracles was paid for the job would eventually prove to be a problem but we shall get to that in the coming weeks.

Heracles and the Boar

Last week Heracles had managed to capture (and release) the Golden hind for his third labour, this week we enter the fourth year and the fourth of the labours set by King Eurystheus. By now the King was getting rather irritated by Heracles and his success at completing the Labours, it seemed that everything the King could think of was just too easy for Heracles to do.  The king needed to think and plan a much more devious labour for Heracles but while he put more thought into the tasks he sent Heracles off to complete labour number 4.

There are not too many details about how Heracles completed the forth labour however it was to capture the Erymanthian boar. Some stories say that Heracles visited his Centaur friend Chiron who advised Heracles to chase the boar into the thick snow where he captured it and bound it and took it back to King Eurystheus. Just like the Golden hind the Boar was released back into the wild.

Because this week's story was so short I thought I would tell you why I am calling our hero Heracles and not the more well-known name of Hercules. My reason is quite simple, it is because Heracles is his correct name, it was the Romans who called our hero Hercules and as these are Greek myths I am telling I figured it would be best to call him by his Greek name. 

Heracles and the Golden Hind

Hello everyone, It is now week 3 of my Project 'Another Fine Myth', this week we continue with Heracles and his 12 labours. We have only spent 3 weeks on the 12 labours however as Heracles only completes 1 labour a year he is now into his third year. Last week we saw Heracles defeat the Lernaean Hydra, with the help of his Nephew he eventually severed all of the beasts heads and delivered the last immortal head to the gates of the city where King Eurystheus waits with the next impossible task for Heracles, to capture the Ceryneian (or Golden) Hind.

The Ceryneian hind belonged to the goddess Artemis, it was a huge deer which had golden antlers, hooves of bronze and it could run faster than a speeding arrow. For a whole year Heracles followed the deer but it was always too difficult and to fast to capture. Eventually Heracles happened to meet the Goddess Artemis and her brother Apollo where she told Heracles to stop with his quest, luckily Apollo reminded his sister it was the Goddess Hera that tricked Heracles into killing his family thus causing him to complete these tasks. Artemis despised Hera so it was decided that she would allow Heracles to continue as long as he returned the deer unharmed.

Eventually Heracles caught up with the deer, one night while it slept he captured it in a net and delivered the deer to King Eurystheus, Heracles released the deer back into the wild keeping his promise to Artemis.

This design is based on a deer by the incredible Japanese balloon artist Masayoshi Matsumoto.

Next week we meet a bit of a boar.

Heracles and the Hydra

Hello everyone, it's week 2 of my balloon project about Myths and Legends from around the world and I am spending the first part of the project with Heracles and his 12 labours. Last week we left Heracles as he had just slain the Nemean Lion and made himself some lovely armour from the impenetrable golden fur.

When Heracles returns to the Palace of King Eurystheus, the King is so shocked to see Heracles that he refuses to let him enter the city again and Heracles must display the results of his labours from outside the city gates. The king being such a coward even had a large bronze jar built to hide in (strange chap).

Labour number 2 was to slay the Lernaean hydra, a hideous 9 headed creature created by the Goddess Hera specifically to destroy Heracles. The hydra lived in the poisonous swamps near Lake Lerna and when Heracles first saw the beast, he immediately cut off one of the beasts heads, to his dismay 2 more heads grew back in its place. Heracles needed help so called upon his friend (and nephew) Iolaus who came up with a cunning plan. Working together Heracles would cut off a head while Iolaus scorched the stumps to prevent more heads growing back, soon the creature was dead and Heracles had completed labour number 2.

Next week Heracles must use his brains instead of his strength to complete his labour.

Heracles and the Lion

Hello all, well it is time for a new balloon project and this time it is all based around the subject of Myths and Legends, to kick off I am going to be covering the 12 Labours of Heracles, a story that has fascinated me for years.
To give you a bit of back ground info and to cut a VERY long story short, Heracles was the son of the affair that Zeus had with an immortal woman called Alcmene. Hera (Zeus's wife) obviously had a hatred for Heracles and one day she tricked him into murdering his wife and children (nice huh). Heracles was required to carry out a series of labours, if he succeeded then he would be purified of the sin, become a god and be granted Immortality. I will go into more details with the story of Heracles as we go but for now let's get to the 12 Labours.

The labours were set by King Eurystheus and the first labour was to slay the Nemean Lion, This ferocious Lion lived in the caves near the city of Nemea, for many years it had terrorised the city, it had a fur made of impenetrable gold and claws sharper than any mortal weapons. There are several different versions of the story, one says that Heracles eventually shot an arrow into the lions unarmoured mouth killing it, the version I have gone for is that after a long fight Heracles eventually wrestled the hideous beast to the ground, after wrapping his strong arms around its neck Heracles strangled the lion to death.

This part of the story ends with the beast being skinned with help from one of the claws, Heracles could then use the impenetrable skin as his armour. Next week Heracles meets a very nasty creature.

Quote from: Graham Lee on December 28, 2018, 11:03:57 PM
Looking forward to seeing them Rob, I wish you well with your new venture.

Thanks Graham

Hello all, I have a brand new balloon project for 2019, this time it is all about some amazing Myths and Legends from around the world.

I think I am doing about 1 a week starting sometime in the new year.

I was now onto my last Balloon world project, and I had made a large Grenadier guard, also I brought along Grahams Penguin that I made for his competition (which you should all enter)

Here are some Tulips I missed from the earlier part of the talk

My endangered species project

and another flower, I think I was talking about the environmental impact of balloons at this point.

Quote from: Graham Lee on November 16, 2018, 11:37:17 AM
I also did notice you made a two handed mermaid, he he

Yes Graham, I couldn't bear to put up with the complaints about that like last time he he

Here I am now starting to chat about the 4 balloon projects I have done starting with my 365 days of balloons and then moving onto Twisted Cinema.

Here I am talking about the subtle and almost unnoticeable differences between the classic  balloon dog and a slightly more complex version.

More about flowers, and then I move onto princesses and fairies.

So here are a selection of photos taken by Graham and Freddy who helps to organise the events.

I made 2 of these huge flowers to stand either side of me, and then with all my balloon talks I usually start off talking about the basic 3 twist balloon dog and flowers