![\"Tremblay](\"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/paint0705.jpg\")
<\/a>Tremblay working on the portrait of Shaikh Zayed.<\/p><\/div>\n
And if the pressure of time, weather and height wasn\u2019t already enough, the decision to create a portrait of one of the UAE\u2019s most prized figures has the butterflies churning too, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of pressure to do a nice portrait because Shaikh Zayed is such a charismatic icon. Throw the weather elements and hot air balloon into the mix and you can imagine the nerves I\u2019m feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Armed with a 10×10 metre canvas, some glue, and three shades of dark, medium and light sand, Canada-born Tremblay will be working against the clock on Monday as the quick drying glue could mean the difference between failure and success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will first have to trace the portrait with the white glue before jumping into the hot air balloon, ascending mid-air, then dropping the sand down. My time-frame for this will literally be a matter of five or 10 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Floating about 20 metres above the golden dunes of the Dubai desert, Tremblay will have to repeat the process three times with each shade of sand, so he is hoping everything goes \u201call right on the night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHopping in and out of the balloon will be challenging. I remember I went up the Burj Khalifa once and I didn\u2019t really like it. Height is a bit of a challenge for me. It\u2019s kind of scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lecturer in Modern Art at the Canadian University in Dubai, Tremblay decided to take on the feat in tribute to the 40th anniversary of the Canadian Embassy in Dubai, which is being celebrated throughout 2014. Using a technique created by Tremblay himself, preparation for the big finale has been pretty smooth sailing so far, although he\u2019s been unable to try his hand at the true size canvas.<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to space constraints, I have only been able to practice on smaller canvases, but I have done a few portraits so far, and people have reacted well to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
And praying that the sand reacts well with the wind, the brave artist is hoping mother nature will be on his side on the day. \u201cSo far the weather has been stable, but the natural elements could always play against us, if not in regards to the sand, it could still affect the team operating the hot air balloon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Admitting there has been a instances where he\u2019s asked himself \u201cwhat am I doing\u201d, Tremblay said he is excited to see what the future brings for him in terms of performance art.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore, I just used to paint but I love performing in front of people now.\u201d And he said he has one dream he wants to fulfill involving another Dubai icon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to produce some art atop the Burj Al Arab\u2019s helipad platform, so if someone wants to invite me, I am game. Maybe something for the Expo, but for now, I\u2019ll keep my concept under wraps.\u201d<\/p>\n
via –\u00a0Khaleej Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sylvain Tremblay will attempt to create the world\u2019s largest sand portrait depicting the UAE\u2019s iconic founding father from the confines of a hot air balloon. Come early Monday morning, innovative artist Sylvain Tremblay will attempt to create the world\u2019s largest sand portrait depicting the UAE\u2019s iconic founding father, Shaikh Zayed \u2014 all from the confines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[241],"tags":[1337,1338,1039,1336,1335,420],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-armchair","tag-khaleej-times","tag-portrait","tag-sand","tag-shaikh-zayed","tag-sylvain-tremblay","tag-uae"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sylvain.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3RIC2-vX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1985,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/1985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}