Post #709037 by danlovestikis on Fri, Feb 21, 2014 8:51 PM

hang10tiki

TikiHula

Chippy

Tiki Bob and I thank you. He really likes to play dress up. I do enjoy carving these Tapa Bobs while watching TV.

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Back to Moai Mike's mug. He requested his name go on the back with the letter's standing out. This is where I left off today.

When I do a project I usually have to experiment and think it through. First I knew that the clay I had cut off the Moai cast was a good thickness to use for the lettering. I rolled it out flat.

I recently bought this kitchen tool and tried it out cutting the clay.

The tool gave me perfect pieces that I could put on the mug for the lettering. However it would be easy to introduce those deadly air bubbles at each attachment point. I decided to try a different approach.

I started shaping two pieces of clay that I had rolled out.

I put slip on the backside as glue, this also will force out the air bubbles, then I stuck them on the mug. Next I pressed from the center out and then smoothed the sides.

I wrote the words Moai Mike on the clay

and then using these two tools I cut out the unwanted clay.

Once I was done I used a wet brush to smooth the clay as much as I could. It is very soft and sticky so I used a lot of water.

Just a view to show show thick the words are right now.

These can be left this thick or carved or later sanded down.

I still need to add rocks and tapa to this mug.

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It has been summer weather here. We have no water for crops and that's really a disaster but since we have such good weather it was time to play like a couple of kids. We went to the Sacramento ZOO.

This was the closest I've ever been to a flamingo. What a great bird. VampiressRN have you used your Flamingo Bob I made for you?

I see a monkey I think of all the great paintings by zerostreet. Tiki Tony will have a Planet of the Apes monkey mug in the future.

Dan bonded with a friend.

We found one dead palm in the ZOO that had been carved.

Then it was back home to play with clay.

Cheers, Wendy