A gallery of some kites I designed and made during the last 5 years

All images and designs: Copyright 1995, 1996 - Kai Griebenow. All rights reserved.

I started making kites about 1990, after going to a kite festival in Dortmund, Germany. Here, Hermann, a nice Indonesian fighter-Kite specialist who now lives in the Netherlands, gave me my first fighter Kite as a present. So I started making fighter Kites.

At the beginning I was working with paper and bamboo. The kites had all kinds of different sizes and shapes. One example you will see here soon is a copy of an Indonesian fighter. I made, these kites in the winter of 1990/1991.

After that (and several tears in the paper sails) in the same winter I started making them with Tyvek. I painted the sails and you can see my Vietnamese fighter and Indian fighter as examples.

Tyvek is a material one can use too, but Ripstop Nylon is certainly better. So I started using it. The kites still all have bamboo spars. The Boston Fighter, which I developed in 1993, has the same dimensions as the Indonesian Fighter kite. I always use the colors blue, red and yellow in these kites and a symbolized wave. This kite is very responsive and fast.

I also made a bamboo Thai Chula that winter. I used bamboo spars and Tyvek for the sail and decorated the kite with sprayed on textile colors.

Another fighter kite I made is the Korean Fighter Kite. This kite is very responsive. After the upper bamboo spar broke a couple of times I replaced it with a 3 mm fiberglass spar. It is still flying well.

In 1991 I started using a sewing machine for the first time. I made a Genki, a little Delta and my first Rokkaku. This Rokkaku had a white sail and the design was painted on. At that time I really was not good enough to do a real appliqu or patchwork kite. So that year I went to a lot of festivals with my kites. I also bought a couple of stunt kites and was happily flying them.

End of 1991 I made my first really big kite (still my largest), a 20 foot Delta. This kite had the tendency to sail though and after some trouble I took a big scissors, cut the keel out and, voila, my 21 foot Delta Conyne was born. I will include a photo of this transformation soon. The external view shows the Conyne flying at the Smithsonian Kite Festival 1995.

During that period I was also under the influence of George Peters' beautiful kites and created my Mouseman. This kite is about 6 meters long. I like to fly it in steady winds at the beach.

I do often such transformations of kites. Don't be afraid to repair your single line kite! It is not a big deal! Just be brutal enough to change it! A hole in a sail of an appliqud Rokkaku is just a challenge! As an example, here is a Delta before and after a repair job ;-).

The picture of the delta before repair is still missing :-).

A little later (after a couple more kites) I made a 5 m wingspan Genki. This monster has a very simple design and a lot of pull. After breaking pretty much every cross spar I was finally happy with a 22 mm fiberglass spar and extreme aluminum ferrules. I figured out later that I will never make a Genki of such dimensions again, 3 m is enough! If you want to make something big, make a Delta Conyne . It's just my opinion ;-). Some Genkis made have a wingspan of 10 meters or more. Nop Feldhuizen, inventor of the Genki, makes them with 9 meter wingspan.

I also made a patchwork Rokkaku at that time, late 1992. I lost this Rokkaku (after flying it for only 6 month) in Franklin Park, Boston, due to a broken line. It happens ;-). The picture was taken at a kite festival at Hampton Beach, NH.

In 1993 I relocated from Germany to Boston, USA. After some starting trouble, I found my home here in the kite scene of New England. I am a member of Kites Over New England (K.O.N.E.) . One of the most dramatic changes I experienced in 1993 was going to the Kite Retreat in Junction, Texas. It had a tremendous influence on me! I had to start making appliqu kites. I chose Rokkakus for the first tests. My first one after Junction, Seeing (also called Eye-Rokkaku), was a simple example and more for testing. Two kites I made in Junction are the Sendai Dakos with my own original motifs. The second one I made in memory of Leeland Toy who passed away that year. They are made with original Japanese paper, colors and bamboo. Unlike the colors I normally use for paintings, these colors really let the light go through and start to shine!

The second very important influence in 1993 came from a visit to Memphis, Tennessee. No, not Elvis but a rebuilt American Indian village called Chucalissa, built by The University of Memphis . I was very much amazed by the simple, power- and colorful symbolism the Native Americans use in their art. So, I made two other Rokkakus, called Indian Impression and (Attention: 350 kB) Chucalissa . The guy on the right of the picture, is me ;-). Another (smaller) picture of Chucalissa can be seen here . One nice thing about Seeing and Chucalissa is, that I can fly them as a pair of eyes in the sky.

Another Rokkaku I made, One Way , is just an idea I had in an airplane. I got the idea when I was flying from Germany to Boston, leaving my old life and my friends behind me. One way?

After that I was kind of OK with applications. So what next? Influenced by Scott Skinner I tried to make some patchwork kites and made a pair of matching Sode Dako (Kimono Kite). Their pattern is a modified Log Cabin (today, Dec. 4, 1995, I learned that this pattern has a name: Court House Steps ). You can see two of them in flight. One is shown here larger and more detailed.

One of my latest kites, made in Autumn 1994, is a patchwork Hakkaku with about 450 pieces. I don't know whether I can make anything better, I will try.... This kite was awarded the first prize in the single surface category at the Smithsonian 1995 (where the following picture was taken) and also Philadelphia International Kite Festival . Here it also got the Benjamin Franklin Award. It was a long road to this! See a detail of this kite and also a picture in flight. If you want to know who helped me with the kite, find out who my friend Charly is. The photo shown below you can see here with your external viewer, because on my screen the colors are much better!

What next? I will try to make my kites even more personal, will try new color combinations and techniques ( Scott Spencer gave me a wonderful idea). Currently I am working on a train with 100 kites.

Last update January 30, 1996.

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