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Issue 44: Otto’s Creations
Amy The joy of seeing someone else enjoying, might be the life motto of Amy. Amy is a professional restaurant manager, who runs two restaurants just a bit outside of Taipei. At the same time she loves...
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Issue 44: ProFile with Otto Vossen
Amidst my travels to India, Malaysia and Taiwan last year I kept bumping into one of the most enjoyable and personable kite people I’d ever met… Otto turned up everywhere, displaying his unique hand...
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Issue 45: Flying Nun Kite Plan
I’m not sure exactly how old this kite design is, but I imagine it’s at least as old as Sally Fields’ television sitcom from the sixties. It’s a great kite for kids’ kite making projects, because it...
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Issue 45: The Original Eddy Kite
Based on the Eddy Kite Patent No. 646, 375 issued on March 27, 1900. Introduction Back in the mid to late 1800′s there was a quest for scientific information about our earth. Obtaining it from...
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Issue 45: The Remaking of a Legend
Introduction I had been building and flying what I thought were real Eddy style kite designs for a few years. I had made a number, mostly of wooden dowels and simple materials such as drafting paper...
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Issue 46: Applique – How do they do it?
The focus of this article is to help explain with both words and photos just some of the many techniques available to create you very own appliqued kite! This article is intended for people that may...
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Issue 48: Midwest Area Kitemakers Retreat (gallery)
Photos by Grant Lovett, Ron Schwartz, Rick Agar, and the Larkey Family
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Issue 48: Midwest Area Kitemakers Retreat
I just returned from the 18th annual Midwest Area Kitemakers Retreat, (MAKR,) in Oregon, Illinois. This was my third time attending and like my previous two visits, I made or renewed some great...
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Issue 48: Drachen Archives: Featured Items
No one (to The Drachen Foundation’s knowledge) owns an original Roch Donzella “Monobloc” kite from 1911. So DF recently added to its archive a replica, constructed under the careful tutelage of...
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Issue 49: Junction Kite Makers’ Retreat
The Texas Tech Extension Campus once again extended an invitation to the kite makers for a Retreat, general fly time and friendly gathering over Memorial Day Weekend. This is the 18th year of an...
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Issue 55: Dave’s World: Weifang Kite Museum
The first time I visited the International Kite Museum in Weifang was back in 1989. I was impressed with the huge structure. But the displays were dusty and haphazard. And oddly, everything was for...
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Issue 56: Dave’s World: Livin large in lunen
Mike Agner and I are just back from the huge German festival of Lunen. What we found was a festival where the beer budget for staff exceeded the total budget of most US events. There was precious...
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Issue 59: Fort Worden Kitemakers Conference
When I heard my name announced at the banquet at the Washington International Kite Festival, I figured I had won a kite. It was hardly that. It was a scholarship to the 2008 Fort Worden Kite Makers...
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Issue 63: Drachen Archives: Making Kites Fly
The front end of every exhibition is the vision. It was Francisco Toledo’s vision to design and paint his images on handmade paper at a mill outside of Oaxaca, Mexico ten years ago. In ten years,...
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Issue 65: That Airbrush Look, from a Can!
I admire the beautiful appliqué work of today’s kite artists. But one long-time kitemaker told me that the only way to develop those effects is by “putting lots of cloth through your sewing machine.”...
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Issue 65: Kite Plan: The “Sedgwickcube”
We first saw this kite bobbing over the boardwalk at Ocean City, Maryland during the 1998 Maryland International Kite Expo. Strolling underneath was its genial maker, Lee Sedgwick of Erie,...
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Issue 65: Drachen Archives: Traditions of Woodblock
In Japan in the early 18th Century began a great kite-hysteria that lasted through most of the 19th Century. This 200 year period also saw the dramatic rise in popularity of the Kabuki Theater, a...
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Issue 66: Pictorial: Johan Hallin (Sweden)
When I first met Johan Hallin from Sweden, and saw his beautiful feather kites flying from the end of his fishing pole, I was anxious for everyone to see them! Johan’s feather kites are the most...
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Issue 70: Kite Plan – Ohashi’s No-Bridle Kites
When is a bridle not a bridle??When it is a single line attached to a single point on a kite. Eiji Ohashi of Japan, known around the world for his kite trains, originally called this design system the...
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Issue 71: Kite Plan – Stacked Deltas
Whether the Marconi-rigged kite actually gets added performance from its overlapping jib and Venturi slot is questionable. However, there is no denying that it is a spectacular looking creation. This...
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