Post #690836 by swizzle on Wed, Aug 21, 2013 5:33 AM

Thanks MDM. The glaze fusing works very well, i've used it several times since, including a piece it didn't quite go to plan on which you'll see coming up.

You might have been a little too slow Hale Tiki as Bob'O'Nut has been retired?

Thank you for the compliment hiltiki. Not all of my pieces all come out very clean though unfortunately. A lot of the time there is touching up and re-firing.

Awww thanks Wendy. I really wish i could have made it back to Oasis. Hopefully next year.

Well it's been a while since i last posted and i have made lots of things including a couple of new pieces. This post will be a bit of a photo dump and i'll try and keep the talk to a minimum and no go into too much detail. I'm also going to try and post everything in the order in which they were made but it might not be accurate.

First up is my Lance Corporal Stoney bowl. These first two i wasn't happy with the glazing, the orange one had a lot of glaze skips i covered up with the lava and the tiki on the grey one had a darker brown put over it. They both still have flaws but definitely look much better than they did. I'm going to give these ones to my friends.

This next one was a failure which ended up in the bin. This was the third variation i tried with this design and this is where i used the glaze fusing trick but it didn't quite go to plan. The fusing worked fine but the bowl slid and moved off centre on the tiki's head. After i took it out of the kiln i checked to see if the kiln was level and it is a tiny bit out so that could have been the reason why that happened but i'm not 100% sure.
I was disappointed as it had taken me a lot of time making that bowl (which also developed a crack during it's bisque fire which i repaired with Magic Mend-thanks MDM-but it reopened in the glaze fire anyway), however i was not going to give up so i made the piece again but this time carved a recess out of the bottom of the bowl so that it wouldn't move. This time it worked.

(In these pics you can see it's not centered.)

Here's the fixed version. Although i'm quite happy with it i won't be making another one. I liked the idea but it just doesn't look right and was too much work. It looks like he's wearing a sombrero. :D

After the bowls i made quite a few Bob'O'Nut's i had orders for. Some in the original colour i made it in and also a few custom ones. I also made a couple for myself on which i was just playing around with. Those few are up first.
At some stage i'd like to buy some gold or platinum lustre (that stuff's expensive) and do the eyes and mouth on the purple and black one below.

Robert'O'Nut the 3rd. He's a little fancy.

Bob'O'Rock, with a lava and rock like texture.

A gift/bribe. (It's not what you think :lol:)

This one is in my collection also. I tried a different brown and this is the result. I call him Hungover Bob as he's looking a little pale.

This isn't all the photos of all of them but on a few mugs i experimented with some different materials other than just brush-on glazes and this is a sample of what they look/looked like. I got some interesting results which i was surprised by and also happy with. Fortunately my customers were too. The first pic is one of the mugs without any clear on it and the other pics are what happened after a coat of clear was applied and it was re-fired. I think it's given it a real rustic look.

This is a group shot of nearly all of the variations i have made. I do have two more custom ones on order at the moment i've yet to start which will be quite different. I'll post pics of them when they're done.

Next are some stickers i had made with the logo i designed. After these were made i had a smaller version printed too. I also had some business cards made but i don't have a picture of them.

This weekend there will be a Tiki exhibition at Kustom Lane Gallery here in Melbourne. Besides a heap of Australian artists exhibiting, myself included, there will be work on display by several U.S. artists including, Tom "Big Toe" Laura, David Lozeau, The Pizz, Ken Ruzic and several more, including a few from Japan. I've been working hard to get a heap of stuff together and everything posted from here on will be going in the show, except for a couple of pieces i've already sold.

First is a few different colour and texture combinations of Lance Corporal Stoney.

I also sculpted a volcano and made a mold of that. It has two reservoirs for some overproof rum.

When i made the volcano i also sculpted a moai that i've made into pendants and also have added to some bowls i'm still working on. I also made a few new molds of the skull that you can find earlier on in my thread, and i have done the same with that. Made pendants and added it to some bowls.

Here's most of the pendants i've made so far.





Edition of 5 just for the show.

And here some pics of a new bowl i've been playing around with. I have more in various stages of completion including the one with the tapa style pattern. I've also made a couple of Lance Corporals with tapa patterning on them but the bowl pictured is the first one to be glazed and fired. It's name is Colonel Peek-a-boo for a reason that should become obvious.

And last but not least, with all the pendants i'd made i hadn't really thought about how i would display them so i whipped up a quick stand that holds 16 pendants and my business cards. I'm pretty happy with the result for a couple of hours work.

That's it for now.

Cheers
swizzle