New Tikis from Germany!

Awesome little carves!
One question though, just how big are they?

Yes, this is going to be cool.

I was also curious about the sizes they look great.

You da man!

Thank you very much guys!

Benella, if I will ever come to your beautiful town, we have to visit the museum together.

Heath and seeksurf, the size of the smaller tiki is about 3,9 inch and the biger one is about 5,9 inch.

Basement Kahuna, I will try to color them and also the door with the method you talked in your thread.
To mix pigments with buttermilk. I also heard that yogurt is great to.

Have somebody any experience with this technique? Can you give me a tip?

On 2007-12-20 02:05, haikai wrote:
Thank you very much guys!

Benella, if I will ever come to your beautiful town, we have to visit the museum together.

When you want ! My wife's best friend works at the musee du quai Branly... :wink:

Benjamin.

Hello european Tiki Carvers :)
hope your are OK

Hakai your work rocks and it's hard to wait for more
pics soon
We have to do a little TIKI Meeting on 2008 why not
and perhaps some TC Members from Europe can speak together
Tikis and more....

guten Rutsch ins Neue

Akuae

Hey guys,

it´s long time ago, but now I have five new pics for you.
I checked out the natural method to mix pigments with yogurt.
Here you can see the result - the finished coloring of the two PNG drum tikis.

Mahalo, Haikai

This is looking very cool, Kai. It give the hole thing a vintage look. I like that. Hard to believe, that it will hold. Will you put some clear varnish on to secure it?
And did I mentioned, that the patterns you carved into the door recently are awesome? I guess, no.
So, the patterns you carved into the door recently are awesome. :)

I'm really digging these guys nice work.
Yogurt? and it stays on?

I love your work.

Aloha friends,

Thanks to tok-tok, seeksurf and hiltiki for visiting my thread and your nice words.
Yes, it works good with Yogurt. It´s not complicated, it stays on and I think it looks realy natural.
While I colored it, I sometimes mixed a little bit water by.

I have two new pictures of the door for you. I colored it with the same method.
Than I brushed the door with a steel brush and finished it with wax.

Greetings,

Haikai

WOW me like! This is going to be cool.

Love the doors! The coloring is great! I don't understand your comment about the steel brush.... wouldn't that scratch the wood? They look so nice and clean.

Hi,

Thanks, seeksurf! The next step I will create ist the interior of the box. An A-frame shack, a fire place, palms .... I will post the pics, if I have done the next steps. I try to be busy! :)

TheBigT, first I mixed Yogurt with pigments and colored the wood. I used a lots of pigments and so the color was very top-dress and for my liking too clean. So I used a steel brush to remove a littel bit of the color.
Very careful and only with the direction of the wood grain.
After that I used an old flannel and polished it a little bit with wax to close the wood pores.

Have a greet weekend,

Kai

Happy to see you're back my friend.
Very nice work on the outside part of the box. Amazing how you colored the thing with your pigments and I'm sure you've stopped breathing during the step with the steel brush :wink:

Mahalo,

Benjamin.

Hi guys!

Thanks benella! I hope you are alright and busy in carving. :)

And now here, I have some funny pics for you. Last weekend I visited a friend in Munich.
He is a realy hot rod and custom car freak and started with a new self-construction project.
He wants to built a single seater and I helped him to carve a model for the cars tail.
Just have a look! Mahalo, Kai

Very cool.....I sure am glad I'm not the guy who has to clean that shop!!! LOL

Excellent stuff HaiKai. Love these:

AND These

and these finished:

Nice to see you still working away!

Wow those doors are looking amazing!!(yogurt?)

tikis aren't enough so now you're carving a CAR???? :o :o

you're stuff is continually pushing the limit - great work!!

The door has turned out great. I love it very much. I am very anxious to see how the project will go on.
How is it going with your US-dispatch?

Aloha,

Meheadhunter, yes you are right! When I was finshed with the carving job the garage looked like a cabinetmaker's workshop. You have to break an egg to make an omelet! :)

Benzart, thanks for visiting my thread. I´m glad that you like my last things I have created. Hope you are fine! One time I will attend at a carving workshop with you.

Clarita, how's it going? Yes, yogurt! And it works well. I read also at Basement Kahunas thread, that it´s possible to use buttermilk. Greetings to Argentina!

harro, hahaha! :) Sure, a wood Hot Rod for my friend Berny. "Berny Rubble" :)
It was a funny job and a challenge to carve a accurate form for his car.
When he´ll get on with his car project, I´ll post some pictures.

tok-tok, thanks for the entry. I´ll do my best to post the next pictures soon.
My next step is to create the interior of the box. Yesterday, I searched at a model making forum and find out, how to create a self-made palm. Next week I´ll start with it.

Last week I send ramba-zamba´s and my package to the US. Wow 120 €! We were to late and had to send it with air mail. I hope I will be a great show. We have to ask Tom, that he should make some pictures.

Thanks all and have a great weekend.
Cheers, Kai

Hi friends,

I have some new pictures for you. I´m just working on a new carving job.
A 27 inch high KU out of cherry-wood. I also build me also a better workbench.
Here you can see the workbench and the first pics of the KU.
Hope you enjoy them! Mahalo,

Kai

Good stuff HaiKai, very nice carving.

Aloha Haikai!!! Now that is one sweet looking tiki you've got going my friend,keep up the nice work,Aloha Mooney

Great detail Haikai! The coloring of the cherry wood is sweet. How long has that taken to carve?

Absolutely Amazing my friend. wow wow wow.

I saw the pix of the basel and I'm very happy now to see some pix of your work that is always fantastic.
I'm happy to learn you've met Alex. He's very a very very nice guy. I unfortunately couldn't come to Basel to meet you and Alex but I'm sure I will be able to come another day.

Hope everything's fine for you,

Benjamin.

HaiKai, How do you make it look Easy. What do you have so far, 20 hours in it? I Really Love the Lines in the head and headdress, thay all flow beautifully!

aloha Haikai - thats a great start to yet another masterpiece from you - we need to see more pics from you!

Love the lines and details going into this one already.

cheers,
harro.

Hey friends,

I just came back home from the HofbräuHaus at Munich.
The sun is shining, the spring is coming and than I am reading your nice words.
I realy feel good now. Thanks for your entries! :) Your comments are realy important for me.

So, cheers to Tahitiki, MooneyTiki, Tikilizard, benella, Benzart and harro!

Tikilizard, yes you are right! The coloring of the cherry wood is very nice. I will post a pic of the finished tiki,
when I have oiled the wood. Than the color will comes out much more.

benella, I am also looking forward to meet you in personal. It couldn´t be a big problem! Paris is only 7 hours away by car from my hometown.
In a contry like the US it is only a little excursion. :)
I will check out, if there is a chance to take part at an exhibition or festival in France. I would be very interesting! And I have also to visit your beautiful town once again!

Benzart, thanks for your compliment, but it was not really easy for me. That´s my first KU and I put a long time in it to control,
where I have to placing the right forms. It´s great to have a new challenge, so you are always much more motivated in the piece.
But you are the master and know it!. Fortunately I only need 11 hours till now.

harro, I will try to finish the KU in the next 1 or 2 weeks and so I will post the next pictures for you.

Thank you all for inspiring me and for the possibility to take part on such a beautiful tribe,

Kai

On 2008-04-19 09:16, haikai wrote:

I will check out, if there is a chance to take part at an exhibition or festival in France. I would be very interesting! And I have also to visit your beautiful town once again!

My friend, I hope your chisels and hammers are all well packed in your car with some wood because there will perhaps be a chance to make it because Paris offers lots of things to do it. I will search each track to make it possible !

Benjamin.

Hi guys,

thanks a lot benella. That sounds realy good. If you know an event or someting like that,
which could make it possible, so please let me know.

Here I have some of my first test pics for you. I want to create a pendant serial out of an avocado nuts.
It worked well and I carved this little fellows. Mr. Monkey Man and Little Moai
They still change their color, during the drying.

Servus, Kai

Kia ora Haikai - Did I read that right? Avacado seeds/nuts?? What a cool idea! Please keep us informed of how they fare with drying - if they prove sturdy enough I might have a go myself. Perhaps a varnish would help protect them once dried..?

That Ku is the bomb too! Are you sure your G.Grandfather wasnt of Hawaiian bloodlines..? :wink:

Herzlichen Glückwunsch!

Tama :)

A cherry Ku? You must have arms like a gorilla to carve cherry-wood. Very nice work!

Alooohaaa!

Thanks Tamapoutini and pappythesailor for your nice words on the cherry-wood KU.
That´s right, cherry-wood is normaly very hard, but it´s like butter in my gorilla hands. :)
No, I prepared my chisels very well and gave them an exact grinding. So, it works very good.
My experience is that you can work very rich in detail with such a hard wood.

Tamapoutini, oh yes, that would be cool, if my G.Grandfather was of Hawaiian bloodlines.
So I could visit him always in my holidays. :lol:

My avocado seeds/nuts update:
That´s the avocado seed with his paring. You have to abscise it.

So you get the real seed, which you can carve with a normal knife. Mostly the seed have two halves.
Here you can also see the different colors. First the seed is very light and after carving it´ll get dark parts.

Here are my latest two avocado carvings. First I´ll let them dry and than I try to grind them.
For the finish I´ll polish them with wax. I think it could be very pretty.

Here are the two fellows I carved yesterday. They don´t change their colors anymore.
But they dry in 2 - 3 days and get very hard realy like wood. That´s a cool way to carve small things.

I´m looking forward to show you the first "Original Haikai Avocado Collection" :wink:

Aloha to all of you, Kai

Haikai,

Let me second what Tama has said...your carving on these seeds is very cool indeed! Your work always blows me away!

Thanks for posting your progress pictures.

Thanks Babalu! It´s a funny and interesting thing to carve with avocado seeds. I will make some more tests and keep you up with some pictures. At the moment the seeds are dry. They shrunk a little bit but they are hard now and look like wood. Perhaps it would be a way to create little shrunken heads!

Cheers, Kai

Hello Haikai,
you are a great Nussknacker
i love to see news from you
your stuff rocks
greets from Alsace

Alex

On 2008-05-05 14:11, AKUAE wrote:
Hello Haikai,
you are a great Nussknacker..

phew! its ok; it means 'nutcracker'.. (sounded like an insult) :lol: :wink:

How're those Avacado-Aku-Aku's holding up Haikai?

Tama :)

I was wondering the same thing, how are they holding up? Did they warp after they dried? The idea of carving them is really intriguing.

Wow, very cool! Can you stain them???

Hey Akuae, Tama, JohnnyP and surfintiki!

Thanks for your entries. Sadly, I haven´t carved new avocado tikis yet.
I´m still working on our new Forbidden Paradise website and on a time-consuming piece
for the Hukilau Artshow. More about that next week!

Now the avocado figures are realy hard like oak- or cherry- wood.
In front of they level off and in the back they warp a little bit.
There is now a little recess, but I think it doesn´t matter.

Cause the seeds are now hard, you can grind them very well and I also think you can definitely
stain them. Perhaps I can make some new tests next week.

Kai

I already started with the grinding at the little Moai.

I like! that little detail work is tough. How
do you do that.

I already started with the grinding at the little Moai.

I thought they looked quite cool they way they were (with the miniture 'tooled' look), but its interesting to hear that they can be reworked once dry. What tool are you using to grind them?

Im sure we've eaten at least a couple since you first posted these guys but I keep forgetting to save the stones..

'Wer den Kern essen will, muss die Nuss knacken.' *Maybe you will become the worlds' greatest nut-carver some day!?

Lovely work as always.

T :)

Great work haikai! Now I finally know how to spend the boring evenings in my hotel room during the work week: Eating guacamole and carving the avocado seeds later ;o) Sweet!

Viele Grüße,
MarkusK

Cool stuff Haikai, I didn't know Avacodo seeds were carvable? Have you ever done this before?
LEt us know how they dry out.

Aloha,

Puhh! That was a realy busy week and I worked every day till eary in the morning. :roll:
But now I fortunately finished my latest piece for the "Fine Art Tiki" artshow during
the Hukilau festival and the Harold Golen Gallery.

I created an 31 x 8 x 8 inches wooden display cabinet, which I called "The Forbidden Paradise".
A mystical and adorable Polynesian diorama with many details, tikis, figures, plants .....
and much more. But see yourself!

The "The Forbidden Paradise" display cabinet will be shown during the Hukilau form June 12th to 15th
at the Yankee Clipper Hotel in Fort Lauderdale / Florida.
Then it will be shown from June 16th to July 12th at the Harold Golen Gallery /314 N W 24th street in Miami / Florida.

I would be very happy if some of you will visit the artshow and give me some feedback to my work.
Perhaps, somebody could make pics of the show.

For more information visit:
haroldgolengallery.com
thehukilau.com

Now, I will spend some days on water and make a boat trip in the north of Germany.
I will relax a little bit and brood about a new project! :)

Here I proudly present the "The Forbidden Paradise" display cabinet:

First you can see the whole cabinet with the carved relief on the top and the stilts.

At the relief you can see the tiki god protecting the vulnerable and occult paradise with his shields and the wisdom of the ocean.

The skull eyes are out of bone!

"Forbidden Paradise" from different views!

The shack of the inhabitants!

The tree house and the rope bridge!

The tiki figures of the cabinet!

The inhabitants!

The plants!

And if the blue night is comming, turn on the lights!

Feel good at the "Forbidden Paradise" and follow your dreams.
Good night!

Haikai

Tama, seeksurf, MarkusK and Benzart thanks for your entries. The avocado update will follow soon.
Than I will have some news and give you an answer to your questions.
Hat´s of to your work!

HaiKai, What an Incredible piece Your Forbidden Paradise took a Lot of imagination and skill to work out and put it all together. I Love the little people, the tikis, Even a Rootball tiki and then, THEN, you turn on the lights for Added Drama. This is really a Top Shelf Show Stopper. Congratulations!
I will Definitely check it ouit in person and take lots of photos.
HAPPYHAPPYHAPPY!