VanTiki Tiles - Ku Squared tile taking shape - 1/25

Love the work on the skull tiles - what kind of glaze are you thinking for them?

Aloha Folks -

Hewey - Stoked you like the skulls - I'm sculpting 2 more versions to make a set of 4 (gonna do one with no lower jaw and a bit more forehead, and a skull at a 45 degree tilt - all 4 should look great together, like some creepy catacomb).

Paipo - I am also totally into the patina glaze. Really feels nice to the touch - soft and smooth.

Pop - Mahalo for the support - it means a lot coming from a fellow "kiln in the garage/basement" artist! :) I've decided to alleviate the stress of waiting for a firing to finish by inventing a kiln window. Kinda like the glass door on your microwave - would let you see all the action take place! :)

Fres-tiki - Good question about the skull glazes. Looks like I'll be doing more glaze tests on those (back to the dreaded waiting!). I'll definitely do them in the colors I've already established for the TikiTiles - and I may do a few in the style of my "Trepanning Accident" skull mugs. They would not have the gloss coat, tho - as I don't know of a clear-coat glaze that fires to cone 6 (anyone out there use one?). I figure they'd look cooler with a bony matte finish anyway :wink:

OK - on to the new photos. Now that I am happy with the glazes, I have been firing a lot of tiles! I gotta get 2 more shelves for the kiln, as I am wasting a lot of space with each firing. Hope to fund that "studio expansion" with the current batch of Tiki Tiles on eBay. Here are the shots of the group I unloaded this morning:

Mahalo!
Henrik "VanTiki"

so cool, man. would love to see the tiki set combined with the skulls. what an awesome border it would make in my kitchen!keep up the great work!

Aloha Folks -

Nothing like pressing a few Spooky Skull Tiki Tiles on Easter Sunday! Soooooo happy with these guys. Here are a few on the drying rack. In about two weeks I'll be able to bisque fire and glaze them. Can't wait!

Mahalo for peeking -

Beautiful final Glaze! Those are gonna look sweet,especially at someone's Tiki Bar or tikified kitchen.bathroom.or even a detail in a living room! Kudos!

Wow! OMG! And double WOW! I can't get over how wonderful these look! Brilliant work! I'm very excited to see how the other skulls will look! Great work!

Aloha Folks!

I was finally able to peel myself away from the computer and get some glaze on the spooky skulls! I tried a bunch of different applications - and before you ask which one is my favorite let me just say that they are like my clay children and I love them all :) I shot photos from several angles so you can get a better idea of their form.

First up - "Bleached Bones" - these guys have been sitting on a sunny beach grinning at the waves since the day they were marooned. Lovely satin finish.

Next we have "Black Eyed Billy" (man - I am already grabbing straws with the tile names...). A variation on the Bleached satin white glaze - this time with blackened eyes and nose.

After that we have "Mossy Bones" - These fellows would be carved into the walls of a lost temple - guarding a treasure perhaps?

And last but not least, we have the "Old Bones" - A bit of the classic old skull look. These fellows would be at home in either a crypt or crawling out of an old grave. Matte finish - not for use in wet areas (ie: Showers)

Whew! That's it for Spooky Skull batch #1.

Mahalo for peeking!

Henrik "VanTiki"

Im continuously amazed at the incredible artwork you produce...

you have some serious sculpting skills... the tiles are a great idea because they can actually be used....

skulls are always in style...

Nice

I agree with monkeyman! Artistic AND utilitarian! Incredible scupts and finishes! Nice!

Oh man! My favorite is Bleached Bones, and Black Eye Billy, and the Mossy one, and that Old Bones I think you called it. Yeah that's my favorite! Especially the one with all his teeth and the one missing a tooth or two. Yeah I'd like one just like that, or two, or three, maybe more. It's hard to decide.

Great work, really nice :D

How about some old bones with a sprinkling of moss?

I love these tiles. The glaze on the tiki tiles is gorgeous. The skulls rock too.

Big Mahalo for the kind words everyone!
I should have the skulls added to my website by the end of the week for anyone who wants to skull-i-fy their pad :)

A Tiki Tile update!

Our bathroom is FINALLY tiled - all 260 pressed tiles have been grouted! Looks great. Also - as some of you know already - I love Geocaching. In search of a nifty "swag" item to leave in caches that I find, I decided to make some dedicated geocaching micro-tiles. Here are some shots of the work in progress:

I'll post more shots after I fire and glaze them.

Mahalo for peeking!
Henrik "VanTiki"

Man those look cool.

Yummy! Tiki cookies! :D

cool coins, I love the stamp on the back, great idea.

For as much time as I've spent looking at your mug thread, I never knew this one existed.

Do you have pictures of the finished bathroom, I'm sure it's amazing.

I love the little geo-catching coins, they are really cool looking.

Aloha VanTiki!!!
That is some Wicked COOL art!!! Mahalo for sharin, Aloha , Mooney

Mahalo everyone!

Took the first batch of Clay Tiki COins out of the kiln yesterday:

Super stoked!

Henrik "VanTiki"

VanTiki! I am awed by your incredible talent! Any photos of the tiles installed? I'm sure they look awesome, DYING to see!

Nice! Love the variety of colors on those.

On 2008-04-20 10:58, VanTiki wrote:

Took the first batch of Clay Tiki COins out of the kiln yesterday:

Looks cool mate! Great way to experiment with glazes too :wink: :D

Aloha -
Pressed a batch of Spooky Skulls for an order today, and I did my best to get some shots of them on the drying rack that showed the depth of the sculpted relief:

Mahalo for peeking!
Henrik "VanTiki"

your work is amazing! i love the tiles green tiki pat told me about them. have you got a price list or a web site i could check out. thanks

jd

JD, if you click on the row of tiki mugs in Henrik's signature it's a link to his web site.

Henrik, I love the tiles as well!! Nice work. I just ordered your "Quiet Guardians of The Golden Idol" tile set off of DaTiki, they will be incorporated into a small tiled patio table I have planned :)

Hey Van, lets see the bathroom tiles installed.

On 2008-06-21 09:31, sungod wrote:
Hey Van, lets see the bathroom tiles installed.

Hoo-boy. I was gonna wait till the bathroom was all finished, but that day seems to be growing farther and farther away!
I still have a lot of finish carpentry to do, but I snapped a couple of shots of the tile. We have a tubular skylight thing-a-ma-bob that provides really nice light in the room - and I tried to get some shots using only that light. Here goes:

Ta da! I'll do a photo spread when we finish up the bathroom properly (about 5 years from now at our current rate). We are really happy with the bathroom so far - now if we can just get some spare time to finish it!

Henrik "VanTiki"

Very nice!!!

That looks great so far! I love the color and design of the tiles. I can't wait to see photos of the finished bathroom.

It's just unreal how cool all your stuff is. Those tiles are nice!

Aloha Folks -

Hey! Remember this thread? I still have a soft spot in my heart for a well crafted hand-pressed tile, and with that in mind I FINALLY got around to sculpting some new tiki tiles. Very excited about the designs. Some are rather fantastical, others are follow a more traditional tiki style, and one is just plain weird. All, of course, will be ultra-high relief. Finishing up the first sculpt today - will be getting a plaster mold on it tomorrow AM. Gonna be a thick one! Will post shots of the other sculpts as they near completion.

Mahalo for peeking!
Henrik "VanTiki"

Mmmhhh...sweet! I'm excited about what's to come...
Oh, and what a nice bathroom too! Love the color of those tiles!

I cant believe I never saw this thread! I really love how that bathroom is turning out and your tiles look awesome.

I love those geo-catching items you did so I think your work really comes through on such a flat surface. Your newest piece looks like its going to come out pretty fine looking.

Great stuff (I think I say that too much!) as always

Has that 2003 Tiki Farm feel to it. The golden years of the farm and before I got into tiki. Maybe it don't look anything like TF but it certainly is NICE.

MarkusK and Leleliz - Mahalo! Believe it or not, the bathroom STILL isn't done! Need to get the crown molding in, and finish the medicine cabinet/closet/dirty clothes storage combo. I feel like such a lazy daisy.

teaKEY - Glad you like it. It is a mash-up (dare I use the term?) of Marquesan meets Mayan on top of the stone monoliths I always imagined in the jungles out here when hiking as a kid. I think it will look swell when I line up a bunch of them next to and on top of each other.

Henrik

Aloha Folks!

Welp, my weekend of intense tile making has come to an end. I'm gonna be cranking for the next two to three weeks on day job illustrations, so I know I needed to get the sculpts done and molded. The molds take two to three weeks to dry out, so the timing should be just right - come April I'll be able to step away from my computer and start squishing clay into the dry molds! Did three new tiles (didn't have time to sculpt my 4th design - I really like it and hated the idea of rushing it). Here they are in all their blurry hand-held studio light photographic glory: The Marq/Mayan/Idol mashup, The All Seeing Eye, and a Tangaroa-esque fellow heavily inspired by the amazing ancient tang carving Big Bro tiki posted in another thread. Man, I love the weathering on that carving!

Here is a peek at the molding process (and my dirty shop shoes). I was able to pull two molds off of the Marq Mashup, but sadly only got one off the All Seeing Eye. I was in the process of molding the last tile this morning when I ran out of plaster (I could have sworn my second plaster bucket was full!). So it will get molded sometime this week, and hopefully I'll be able to get two molds off of the sculpt. Fingers crossed!

Mahalo for peeking!
Henrik "VanTiki"

Veeeery Cool, VanTiki!!

Very Nice Henrik!

Dude, I don't know if I can go 3 weeks without getting my Vantiki fix.

Clay is your calling.

Two semi-opposable thumbs up. GROG like.

Jeez!

Can't believe how much time has passed since my last post on this thread! Needless to say - that day job project I spoke of has consumed us totally, and I just now was able to get some studio time in to press out the new tile sculpts. SUPER happy with the results - but I'll let you folks judge for yourselves!

Clarita, Babalu, and Grog - glad you liked the original sculpts - hope you like the pressed versions! THese will spend a week drying (should go fast - summer has officially arrived in the islands), and then it is glaze time. I'll press out some more next weekend. I need to wait for Ms. VanTiki to take our smaller dog to her saturday class, as the sound of de-molding the tiles scares the daylights out of the poor pup.

Mahalo for peeking!
Henrik "VanTiki"

Whoa VT...loving these all laid out together. Looks rather impressive !

Will you be selling these or auctioning them off on Ebay? I am esp digging the skull with the missing teeth.

On 2009-05-09 18:37, leleliz wrote:
Whoa VT...loving these all laid out together. Looks rather impressive !

Will you be selling these or auctioning them off on Ebay? I am esp digging the skull with the missing teeth.

Mahalo Liz! I'm going to be dipping my toes into the ocean of Estsy with the tiles. I'm putting together an Estsy.com storefront, and once I have the first batch done I'll sell the tiles there at a fixed price (no auctions! :)). Since these are molded "production" items, I feel better selling them at a fixed price. That's not to say that I won't do some special altered tile/glazed tile pieces on ebay in the future!

Aloha -
Henrik

They look great Henrik, especially the All-Seeing Eye. You press clay into a plaster mold, let it dry a little and pop it out? How do you prevent warpage? Every 6 inch test tile I ever made warped at least some.

Hey Mike - Warping is a problem, but I've dialed in a technique that works really well after reading about a bunch of other folks trials and errors with drying tiles. I set mine on metal wire drying racks, and lay a loose plastic sheet over them. This lets them dry out almost evenly - with the bottom drying a tad faster. This way the delicate bits up top get a bit more time to balance out moisture-wise and (so far) this set up has worked really well. As always, slow and steady wins the race - drying them too quick can cause a lot of distortion. Also - be careful how you handle the wet tiles as clay has a "memory". If you cut a flat slab, bend it, then bend it back flat, it will bend slightly while drying/firing!

When I with the lottery I'll head over to the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works to take some classes and see how they do it! :)

Aloha folks! Remember me :)
My apologies for the studio silence - I've been really busy getting various projects in motion for the trip to Tiki Oasis (SO excited!). One of the projects is 4 new tiki tiles, each featuring a carved visage. I've decided to go thick and deep with the sculpts on these new ones! Here is a peek at the first tile taking shape - please note that it is a work in progress, and I still need to add more details (wood grain, clean up, etc.)

Mahalo for peeking, and I hope to meet a few of you at Tiki Oasis!
Henrik

Van The MAN!!! Good to see your work and excited you'll be in SoCal this summer!

Mahalo Mike!

Quick comparison of concept doodle by the finished sculpt. One down, three to go!

Mahalo for peeking -
Henrik "VanTiki"