Glass Eyes

So I found some red glass round blobs of glass (beads, I guess) and I placed them on the face of my tiki #2 carving, and thought they looked pretty good. Before I glue them on, I thought I'd search around this forum for opinions on glass eyes, the use of such devices, or maybe an example of one of your carvings, with "eyes". I couldn't find diddly squat on this subject here.

So I started a new topic, hoping that you guys might enlighten me to the protocol for potentially blasphemous additions to a carving. I realize that the "classic" tiki doesn't have these acoutraments. Since I have not found any examples of them with eyes, I pose the question!

TikiGap

TikiGap,

Most Maori carvings used abalone for inlays all over the carvings but they especially used them for eyes. I put a NZ carving site URL on one of my recent pages of my thread. Check it out.

-Gman

Hey! The first tiki I ever owned was a Moai style Tiki surfer neck pendant from the early 1960's. It had rhinestone eyes and was made of very toxic Glow-in-the-dark plastic.
I miss it to this day.
It still holds a special place in my heart.
(i.e. My upper body still has a radioactive half-life of 20,000 years, and I can take my own chest x-rays just by turning out the lights).

I say try those eyes out. See what they look like.
"Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead !!"....Admiral Whatshisface

[ Edited by: HelloTiki 2006-01-27 19:41 ]

Hmmm... that's two 'ayes' and no 'nays' so far. I might go ahead and glue them on - I'll stick a pic out here when I do. (I'll use elmer's for now :wink:

I hadn't realized that the early Moai guys has shell on 'em. I should pay more attention to those details! Duh!

What would Ben do?... Hmmm...

Aaron did one with Blue Tile eyes and high-lites that was the Mutts-Nuts.

When he was describing it, I didn't envision it as being the spectacular piece that it is.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=10587&forum=7&vpost=122760&hilite=tile%20inlay

Clearly his constant ingestion of Marmalade (Robertsons Goldshred is his brand) has catapulted his work to the height it is. The argument could be made that deviating from a single piece of carved wood is not pure as an artform. (just as some people frown on painted pieces and so on)

It is my opining that this piece, which he chronicled from it's idea stage and graciously "step-by-stepped" for us, embodies high levels both artistic design and craftsmen skills

Oh man, you're bustin' my balls here, Gigantalope. Okay, maybe I did try marmalade once... maybe twice. But I only took a little taste, didn't even swallow. Seriously, you better knock it off or I'll have to spill the beans on that Marmalade Forum of yours...

TikiGap,

Check out the Maori carvings here....they have all sorts of eyes to look at.

http://www.nzindigenousart.com/

-Gman

Oh, Tikigap - sorry I digressed. Use all your creativity like Gigantalope (Paul) said. Don't paint yourself into a corner or stifle your ideas. If you've got a vision of what you want to do, I say go for it and bring it to life.

Aaron

Thanks! How is that marmalade, anyway? "Robertsons Gold Shred" http://www.foodlocker.com/23300-2.html looks pretty good! But I'm a newbie... whats that all about?

Thanks for the encouraging words - I'm going to go for it with the eyes... I'll post a pic soon.

Hey the http://www.nzindigenousart.com/ link is way cool too. That's some cool stuff they got over there...

That's some pretty awesome stuff you're doing, Aaron. I'm going to try my hand at some big stuff soon...I hope.

Thanks to all for the inspiration!

[ Edited by: tikigap 2006-01-27 22:01 ]

As a kid in the late 1960s I remember the tikis in the department store lanai/garden store areas used to have eyes made of "cat's eyes"--the operculums of tropical sea snails (tegulas and turban shells, I believe). I hate to admit this, but we used to secretly pluck them out and pocket them, which is the only reason I remember that little detail. Anyway, that's another possibility for tiki eyes that has been used commercially. (Or maybe those eyes were only on the coconut monkeys?)

Just make sure that any kids who collect seashells stay the hell away from your tikis! :)

http://www.seashellcity.com/seashells/operculumshells.html

[ Edited by: mbonga 2006-01-27 22:11 ]

[ Edited by: mbonga 2006-01-27 22:13 ]

Those cat-eye's are really cool! Thanks for the link! Oh, and as far as the popping out the eyes and runnin down the street with them, I'll keep that in mind when choosing the glue!

[ Edited by: tikigap 2006-01-27 22:30 ]

here is a wall lamp I carved and put glass marble eyes in. It turned out cool I thought. The eyes glowed red when the lamp was on.

[ Edited by: keigs20 2006-01-27 22:37 ]

I can't believe you guys forgot about the Maori pendant I did for BigBroTiki that had the glass eyes, I guess it was before your time. here he is without eyes

and here he is with black glass eyes.

They were inserted from the back.

tikigap,
I grew up in Arlington, don't miss it a bit. If you want to get glass eyes go to a taxidermist that is where I get mine for fish carvings. Also try e-bay, believe it or not they have a whole catagory under glass eyes.

Keigs20 - Nice work! Very cool wall hanging...

BenzArt - The black eyeballs stand out nicely in that carving... looks a lot better that without... yep it was a little before my time :wink:

TFisherArt!
Oooh... thats a good one! A taxidermist - I'll try that! Thanks! I can't wait to move out of this place!

TikiGap

[ Edited by: tikigap 2006-01-30 08:23 ]

Treeline woodworking also has a great selection of eyes..

http://www.treelineusa.com/cgi-bin/shopper?search=action&keywords=eye-item

I got some electric ones from flashingblinkylights.com - they have quite a selection.

[ Edited by: tikigap 2006-03-02 06:26 ]

i can make them out of glass in pretty much any color and size!
-john

On 2006-03-02 09:34, john wrote:
i can make them out of glass in pretty much any color and size!
-john

Hey that's a great idea! I'll keep that in mind! Thanks John!