In november, VRMag returned with a brand new issue. Marco Trezzini chose one of my Sziget panoramas for the interactive index of the issue. The issue got a very nice mention on boingboing. If you just glance over the article on boingboing, it is almost as if John Gaeta is talking about my panorama ;-)
Time is starting to run out! I need to make some new kites before the new kite season starts. First a Mio! Garu's pet ninja cat. Yesterday i've finally bought the cloth. Here are its proliminary drawings.
It's based on a traditional korean fighter kite + one kitten :-)
People who visit the Portsmouth Kite festival often also visit the Bristol Kite Festival. Since they are held only one week apart and it's only an hours drive away. We try to visit both but unfortunately we don't have a car (or a license for that matter). This year we made an return trip to Bristol by plane. It's sounds stupid but that's actually a lot cheaper than staying in England for the week.
Last year August we went to the Portsmouth Kite Festival (again, third year in a row) and again we had a GREAT time. Blue skies, fair breeze, beautiful kites and lovely people.
We took a lot of pictures which i planned on posting as soon as we got home... Didn't happen but no worries, the time has finally come.
Bas Vreeswijk is a regular visitor and as always he brought along a shipload of beautiful traditional Japanese kites. This is just one of many.
I've changed jobs recently as you all must have noticed by now. My overall happiness has improved by 500% and what better way to celebrate this than by building a new kite!
My new colleagues really enjoyed our kite display (during a company boat trip) and demanded a Tremani kite. I don't know if they really expected me to go along with this but I did so here it is... (drumroll)
We took these pictures on a very drab, windless (newyears) day. But we couldn't resist finally testing the kite. It flew absolutely perfect (tears are forming in my eyes just thinking about it). Not all my kites are this well behaved...
It's been over a month since I returned from my odyssee. I have finally put some of the panoramas I took during the first leg online; the Portsmouth International Kite Festival 2005.
Just in time for the festival, Tessa finished the new, spinaker nylon version of our Edo (the previous version of this kite was made of Tyvek). The kite made its maiden flight on the Portsmouth festival, like it's Tyvek predecessor before it at the 2003 festival. And like the Tyvek version, we had a lot of "fun" with the 17 bridle lines (each more than 30 meters), much to the amusement of some of the other kiters. Normally we have the bridles down, we can do this, but just not in Portsmouth, it seems. Anyway, the edo flew nicely, even in very low winds. And when an edo is not in the sky, it makes a very nice sunscreen (pano) ;-)
Tessa and I will be attending both Portsmouth and Bristol kite festivals, and Tessa didn't think one new kite would be impressive enough. So she set to work, doing a remake of our Tyvek Edo. The paint was blistering off, because the acrylic she used was too expensive (too much pigment vs not enough glue). But this time, instead of using Tyvek and paint, Tessa is using spinaker nylon and applique techniques.
More than a year ago I outlined some grand plans for the Hoeben.net theme. One of the ideas was that I wanted to be able to give each family member/blog and each topic a sub-theme. IE: mostly the same theme as the rest, but subtle (or not so subtle) changes to reflect the content of that section of the site.
This is now finally somewhat possible, and I have subthemed the kites topic as a showcase. If you're reading this message on its own page, you should already see the subtheme. If not, head on over! Do scroll down for an additional nice touch...
This was our second joint tyvek project. A 2 ½ by 1 ½ meters Edo.
Unfortunately I decided to use really expensive acrylic paint... The kind with a lot of pigment but hardly any glue :-( It looked really beautifull just after I had finished but then the flaking began. I've tried repairing it and putting it in the sun for numerous hours but it's no use, expensive paint sucks.
This is my first home build kite, a Sanyo Rokaku Hakaku. Which is basically a "double Sanyo Rokaku. Rokaku means 6 sided, hakaku means 8 sided. It was built by Aldo, painted by me. It depicts a "Dragon Ball Z" dragon holding a dragon ball (left claw). We used to love watching that show on Sunday mornings. 2 hours (!) of sweet mind numbing entertainment. Untill the cable company cancelled the Cartoon Network channel. Grrr...
