Post #358254 by bigbrotiki on Wed, Jan 30, 2008 11:22 PM

Sigh. Now: WHO here would like to have a fine black velvet painting hanging in their home bar/rec room? Quite a few folks, I would assume.
So: Here is a genuine request for material with which WE, the TCers, could help the creation of such paintings become a reality....AND, even better, put the concept of making them yourself out there, maybe sowing the seed for more people to get into it !!!...and all we can muster up is this?

The only person who came even close to posting something productive in terms of model material was the initial poster himself! Embarrassing.

To keep Tiki culture alive and growing, you have to do a little work, contribute, water the Tiki Garden!
Why do I have to do everything round here.... This is not even my expertise....grumble grumble...

Koolau had a good suggestion: Old postcards. Now good ones are not that easy to come by, but with all the hunters and collectors here, there must be more than these two for example:

Then there are the Mai Kai calendar girls:

And old tourist photo books and brochures. This guy has nice shading for black velvet portraiture:

But ultimately, the classic black velvet subject is the Wahine, preferably in the nude. Now we do not necessarily need a Polynesian nude, one can simply ad the island elements to a classic nude photo in the painting:

I easily could see her sitting on a rock, with a waterfall pouring over her. This and the next two nudes are by 50s photographer Andre DeDienes, who did tons of nude photo books for the adult "artistic" photography connoisseurs of the mid-century.

Here is a leafy nature girl that would look nice on velvet:

And look at her....uh, GUITAR !:

Beachcomb, I would not worry about copyright until you plan to make thousands of paintings, really! So you can go and use contemporary photos like these:

On the next one, which is another example of low angle key lighting, I tried to do the "crank-up-the-contrast" trick, which was unfavorable for her facial features, but then, who's complaining...:

The two contemporary photos above are by Teva Sylvain, descendant of Sylvain, THE outstanding photographer of Tahitian Vahines in the 20th Century. If anybody ever turns this classic photo by Sylvain below into a good black velvet, I want it:

'nuff said.