Post #426957 by tobunga on Sat, Jan 3, 2009 1:40 PM

So I've finally had a chance to post what I've been doing for the past month... and what a crazy way to send out 2008!

Grog graciously included me in the Tiki Wonderland III art show at Tong Hut on December 6th, and I was in a mad rush to get work completed for it.

Some of the new stuff that debut there was a couple of lino-cut prints.

The first was this two-color Tangaroa print. (4" x 6")

The second print was sort of a modular two-color piece. (5" x 7")

I made five different 2" x 2" blocks. Two Tangaroa faces which I printed in black(mostly), and three tapa pattern blocks that I printed in red (mostly). On each print, I changed the position of the blocks, so each print is unique.

I also made more mini tiki mask plaques.

Each mask is about 5" in diameter and is based on PNG imagery.

Also debuting at Tonga Hut were these Tiny Tiki Framed Figures.


Each figure is about 2", and is made from sculpey and painted with acrylic. Figures come in 4" x 5.5" frames, backed with vintage tiki shirt material. Each one is one-of-kind, as the sculpt, painting, and fabric are different for each piece.

Also making a appearance that night was the prototype for a new plush tiki doll, Li'l Lono.

The doll is about 16" high, made of corduroy for a woody look, with a hand-stitched detail. This one went to Kinny, as his comment that he wanted to see a tiki doll with a big headdress finally prompted me to complete this doll, since it was kicking around in my head for a while.
When I gear up to make more (later today, in fact) the design for the headdress will probably change somewhat.

So then, the following week on Friday the 12th, the 'Tis The Season To Be Tiki show opened. I helped contact the artists and I also created the post card for the show.

So that had me busy collecting artwork and delivering it to the gallery, in addition to working on some new stuff.

The next day we went down to San Diego to host a tiki drink night at Manuel's folks' house. They have a bar in their den, and we transformed it into a tiki bar for the night.

We brought some of our tiki stuff to dress up their bar, including the foamcore
a-frame for the tiki art display table I made for selling my tiki wares. However, we didn't have any actual tikis of any substantial size.

So, I busted out the foamcore and created two tiki relief figures. I wrapped some board in burlap for the background and floated the figures on top. They came out pretty good for an afternoon's work!

I also finished another project I had started a while ago. I found two round glass bowls at the 99 Cent Store, and the moment I saw them, I thought FISHFLOATS! I got some info from a thread here on TC about net-weaving, and cobbled together a couple of floats... such as they are. We decorated the bar with these too.

Then, back to LA to finish up my submissions for Cammo's First Ever Worldwide Online Tiki Art Show on Monday, December 15th.

I made two more sets of Tiny Tiki Framed Figures.

I also made a tiki ornament.(5" x 5")

It's called Have Yourself A Moai Little Christmas.
The wooden snowflake's pattern is designed after Rapa Nui Birdman petroglyphs. A sculpey Moai sits in the middle, with a banner below that says "Have Yourself a Moai Little Christmas".

Then I had a little bit of a breather to get my Christmas projects in order.

Every Christmas, I seem to have stumbled into this tradition of making ornaments of us for our families. This year, I took inspiration from our Halloween tiki costumes.

The ornament is about 6" high (without hanging wire) and features a photo of us in our tiki costumes. The top half of the ornament spins around to reveal our faces out of our tiki masks.

Like all good tikiphiles, we love our rum! We've been experimenting with creating tiki drinks and when we have a new one, we have a "tiki dinner", usually something Asian, like a stir fry or miso with udon noodles, along with our new creation.

We call it "Going to Changitos", which is the name of our home tiki bar (which in actuality is two shelves: one for our rum and other booze and the other for our tiki mugs).

So to make Changitos more official, I made a 11" x 14" sign, based on a logo concept I created and gave it to Manuel for Christmas.

The idea for the logo is a tiki/monkey figure. The design is such that it is one tiki, but divided down the middle, the two halves become two monkey/tikis face to face. ("Changitos" means little monkeys in Spanish, hence the monkey theme).

One of the drink ideas we are developing is the use of a home-made hibiscus syrup for flavor. We bottled some syrup in little jars and gave them to family for Christmas. I designed a label to go on the jars. It was fun designing it!

Another Christmas tradition I've developed is making ornamets of us for Manuel. They are usually based on our Halloween costumes of that year.
So this year, I made ornaments based on our Halloween tiki costumes.

The ornaments are made from oamcore with burlap skirts. Our heads are made from sculpey. The figures are about 5" and 6" high. Manuel loved them!

And the last bit of art I did in 2008 was these two New Year's Eve Tiki Hats!

We had a couple of hats from last year, and we wanted to wear them this year, but they weren't tiki at all! So the afternoon of the 31st, I whipped out my trusty x-acto knife and cut up some gold cardstock into some tiki figures to adorn our hats. I also made some tapa pattern to go on the gold band around the hat.

Right now, I've got a bunch of new projects percolating in my brain, and I'm trying to figure out which to tackle first! So here's to an art-fueled 2009!

Mahalo fer lookin'!
Mahalo everyone for all you support and inspiration!
Happy 2009!

http://ericoctober.com

[ Edited by: tobunga 2009-01-03 13:44 ]