Aloha everybody!
Haven't posted for a while, as I've been nutty busy prepping for an artshow that had the plug pulled on it and then miraculously came back to life in the most unexpected way possible...
(That's the Sam's/Kona/Don the Beachcomber art show... check it out at the thread below!)
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=31205&forum=1&start=60&66
I made a couple of Maori tiki inspired Valentine's Day tins.
Tins are made of, well, tin, I suppose... (I got them from a craft store) and I painted them to look like Maori tiki faces, all heart-shaped and everything.
The tins measure 5.5" across and 1.25" deep.
I also created a set of tiki Valentine's Day cards, and then I created some more!
Remember in elementary school when everybody passed out little paper valentines to the whole class? I love the vintage look of those, and the punny way they were written.
They measure 2.5" x 4.25" each. I planned them so that when they were printed, there would be eight to a page, so eight was the number of different styles I needed. I had a few extra ideas, and after I thought about it, I came up with eight more.
They're one-sided and do not open (they're not greeting cards). They do not come with envelopes. The idea was to recreate the look of those vintage type valentines. I think I got the style down pretty good, too bad I couldn't have them die-cut... not that would be cool!
Each one started out as an 8.5" x 14" painting, and then I transferred them to the computer, adding the text and the hearts, then I had them printed.
Here are both sets, with the original drawings:
This was the first idea that came to mind. It's a typical punny valentine idea, blowing your top over someone. It seemed like a perfect idea for a tiki valentine card.
This was the second idea that I had, and what really got the ball rolling, because once I came up with it, I was really inspired to continue making more. It's kind of funny and creepy at the same time. Plus, the shrunken head looks like a heart. I tried to incorporate heart shapes into the images as much as possible. The tiki in the background is based on PNG imagery, since it could, with a little tweaking, and some liberal color styling, look like a heart. plus, there were PNG cannibals, so it seemed appropriate.
This is also a typical valentine pun, but with a tiki angle, and the wall-eyed pufferfish looks like a heart!
If you look at the original drawing, you'll notice the hula girl has a left foot, but it somehow vanished when I was painting it! Oops!
I really wanted to do a moai card, and after wracking my brain, I came up with this phrase. I was a little disappointed though, because I really wanted to do a play on words with "moai", but I couldn't come up with anything.
More PNG imagery on this one. He probably wants to eat you.
The image in this one is based on the lino-cut greeting card that I did (that was inspired by two tiki-lovebirds that I know). The idea is two tiki facing each other create a mirror image, with the negative space of their mouth forming a heart. In the original lino-cut, the tikis are reddish-brown, and the heart is the color of the paper, an off-white. Here I had to come up with a solution for the heart to be a valentiney pink, so I had a mass of hibiscus flowers in bloom behind the tikis.
This was the last card of the first series. I wanted to make a card with a monkey, and the monkey around phrase is another typical valentine pun. The headdress of this lono type tiki has been modified to look like a series of hearts, the mouth of all the tikis are similarly modified, and painted with a reddish brown interior to enhance their heart-ness.
This was the first card I did for the second series. It's pretty tikiphile-specific, I think, because I'm not sure how much of the general public knows what an a-frame is, but I couldn't resist the delicious pun!
This is one of the original ideas that didn't make it int the first series. I've actually seen a vintage valentine with this phrase, but it was all cutsie... so I made it the creepy card of this set. Again with the cannibals! And I wanted the victim to look like a stuffy 18th century British explorer.
My slight disappointment over the first moai card turned to elation when I came up with this phrase, making a play on words using "Moai"! It took a lot of rewriting to get the phrase to be as concise as possible and make sense. Plus I got to do those freaky long-fingered moais!
This card had a completely different layout at first, with an illusion of depth, but then I changed it to be more graphic, map-like and flat. Both versions of the drawings are pictured above.
This image incorporates an idea I had months and months ago, a crab with a tiki face on it's back. And then I made it pink and heart-shaped too, which to me, totally works for a valentine crab!
I wanted to use the word "lei" in a card, but I didn't want to go with the totally boring cliche of lay as in something sexual. Plus, the bird is an i'iwi, a native bird of Hawaii!
I wanted to have a card relating to the creation of tikis, but I couldn't come up with a phrase and image using "chop" or "carve", so I went with the more general "made". The carver in this card looks just like the fisherman from the "Great Catch" card, but I though I gave him a different tapa cloth pattern. I was mildly surprised to note that they were virtually identical!
This in a way was the pièce de résistance of the whole series. It takes a very typical, generic punny valentine card phrase and combines it with classic tiki culture icon, the Kon Tiki raft and smashes them together like a ship in a south-seas storm! I was originally thinking of something like an outrigger, but then I noticed with a little reshaping, the mouth of the Kon Tiki looks like a heart. A little more shaping, and the whole head is a heart! Make it red on a pink sail, and you're in tiki valentine business! Again, this one is very tikiphile-specific, and that's what makes it so great (to me, anyway!)
So after all that, I made up a set for Manuel for Valentine's Day. Since I obsess on details, I knew the valentines needed to be presented in a special way. Since they are meant to recall elementary school Valentine's Days. I made a little mailbox for them, like the kind kids make to receive cards from their classmates. The mailbox is thick craft paper folded over with foamcore braces inside to give it depth and shape. The mouth is cut out into a heart to receive the cards, and a red paper backing inside completes the heart motif. The details are black ink.
The negative space from the mouth is used on the back as the catch for the little door that opens to retrieve the cards.
Manuel loved it! I was happy.
Thanks fer lookin'
Yer pal,
Eric October
http://ericoctober.com
[ Edited by: tobunga 2009-03-03 15:24 ]
