Grapa-Ruha's Carving a meal for the Marq pg.10

Aloha, here's some of my first Tiki caving i did for my bike. Now i have found this place i see i have a lot to learn about Tikis and carving. The work i see here is amazing and a great inspiration.
I simply love the 'how to' posts as they are a great help in figuring out what to use and how to use it.
Now al i have to do is find some decent logs.

valve cap

Shifter

Bike from the front

[ Edited by: Grapa-RuHa 2010-04-29 07:36 ]

pretty cool for your 1st ones cannot wait to see your 100th
any wood is good wood if its the only wood you have

Ahh, you crazy Dutch and your bicycles. Great tikis. Valve caps is a great idea.

Thanks for the kind words. You both made some excelent Tikis.
Mr no name, i used broomstick to make the valve caps.
Here's a bigger one i made last week frome a big log, about 5ft, i got from a friend.
It had a bit of rot but since it was meant to be fire wood foor a beachclub, it was dry and ready to use.
So i brought my chissels the next day and spent al the time i had hammering out the top head and knocked out the bottom one the next day.

Somewhere during this procces i googled Tiki and found TG, so in the past week i have bought a hookknife
and got a few small pieces of oak branch to practice carving, and try and make some clean cut stuff.
I will make some pics of what i did with the hookknife tomorrow.

Hey, that's very cool. I like the red and white colors. That tiki looks like a genuine antique! :)

That's your first tiki's? Great work!

Thanks for the compliments, i still have a lot to learn but this place is great for that.
The color is from multiple layers of mahogany stain complimented by early sunlight. Here's a few pics of my first go with a hook knife. Got my finger good so i had to make it a cannibal :roll:

Excellent tikis. Some tikis are blood-thirsty so you have to remind yourself to take your time and watch your fingers. I suggest using a softer wood than oak when practicing the Hook knife. Look for some Basswood or Butternut at your local wood working businesses. Keep them comin!

Thanks Aloha station, I found that Basswood is available at some arts&craft shops. But i got a commission today for a stick shift on a motorcycle so i guess its the harder oak and a protective glove to keep all my digits attached.

Here's some pics off the Little Cannibal after cutting and sanding. Made him a Longboard for some after diner surfin and plan to put it all together on a base. I'm off to put some stain on this one.

Thanks for watching.

Luv this lil' guy.. He has so many great little lines, make sure to detail him before you stain him up, so you can see all the great detail.

Mahalo Freddie, If by detailing you mean making al those little lines a little darker than the rest. I have. If that's not what you mean, please explain. I'm eager to learn new stuff. Pics of the stained Little Cannibal will follow soon. Together with my next carve. A 2" pendant. Seems i'm going smaller and smaller at the moment.
Greetz,
Pat

Aloha, here's the pics off the finished cannibal and a Tiki pendant i started yesterday.
Thanx for watching.

Neat stuff. Can you please post a picture of the hook knife? I need to see one. Unfamiliar with that term. Thanks

love the skull!! and the surfboard. great carving!!!

Definitely some cool tikis and I see your skills are improving with each new one. You are a man after my own heart if you are using the hook knife for your carvings Here are a few of the hook blades I use

Happy Halloween all, And thanks for the great comments and compliments, they are good motivation.
Tucson Tiki, here's a Pic of my Hookknive and two other tools i use for the small work. I read about it from Benzart, who shows there are some mean and sharp types around. He also had warned about these B#st@rds having a taste for fingers and sting badly. Of course i had to find out the bad way how that feels. So if you are gonna use one of these, use a protective glove on the hand holding the project. Or else earn your first carvers medal, having a scar to show for all the hard work you put in. :)

Benzart, Thanks for the comments, i have read a lot of your postings on carving and they are a great help for first timers. I will try and find a hookknive shaped like yours, it looks useful.

Here's a pic of the pendant after staining and adding some beads.

Grapa-RuHa, Those little knives are the worst for fingers. Part of my carving kit includes super-glue for those nasty nicks. After you clean the cut just put a little super-glue along the edge and push closed. No more blood on the carving. Great new carving by the way.

Thanks for the reply and pics. I now know. Looks painful. Can't wait to get some.

Aloha, here's another small guy. I thought i'd try some maori style carving for a pendant. I could use some smaller knifes to carve the small lines as i was about to toss this guy in the fireplace halfway trough cutting the lines on his face. Glad i didn't as i learned a lot pushing myself to finish him.
And some paintings i did a while ago. Enjoy and thanks for watching.


Skull painting

Thought Worm painting

[ Edited by: Grapa-RuHa 2008-11-05 04:12 ]

The small lines you want are easier than you think. After sanding the surface smooth cut you lines using a sharp blade. Don't worry about making them as wide as what you have now. A single line cut into the smotth surface will pop once you put stain on it. The stain will soak into the thin line and become darker than the surface. Keep chopping!

Nice display of the hook knives. I only have one - an Xacto version that doesn't seem to be all that sharp for some reason.

Great paintings! I love the background on the skull. Really cool. Some process pics of that would be great!

Thanks for the tip AlohaStation, i'll try it out next time.
Big T, thanks for your compliments on the paintings. And i am sorry to say i don,t have any progress pics on my paintings. But i can tell you i learned a lot on cloudy backgrounds by watching Bob R. swing his brush. :)

More Nice stuff GR, your Maori guy, though rough, he has a Really tough looking, scary features and the human look is spot on. Excellent stuff in him! Your other works are good too, keep doing more and More and More and...
:P :) :lol:
Oh, I Almost forgot, I wanted to add links to This blade
and this set

You can find them HERE but it is not really a user friendly page so first on this page look for the"Shop Online" Button on the top left and then find the heading"Carving Blades & Knives" and you will see several options including a 6 blade assortment which ha 3 hook blades of different sizes. they are all useful but the best, most used one will be the "10B" with it's 7/8" radius. Once you get used to it you'll find it works the best. Then look for the heading "Warren Handles" to find a great assortment of handles that work with all those blades. (No I don't work for them! :) )
A BIG TIP when using the hook blade, BefORE you make the cut, LOOK at the projected path of the blade should it continue past where you intended the cut to stop. ANYTHING within that pathway WILL get CUT if it slips past that spot. Lesson? Make sure NO Digits are in that projected pathway and there will be NO Blood.
Hope this helps

myspace

[ Edited by: Benzart 2008-11-07 02:56 ]

Thanks for the compliments Ben, after i bought some books on oceanic art the fierce human look of the maori carvings left a deep impression. To explore the human-tiki look a little more i decided to try and carve a Moai in my own style. Started him last Sunday, first pics are from this morning. Carved some more today and spent most of today sanding.


Another painting from a couple of years ago

Log found in the woods. Helped it get rid of its could and wet coat and gave it a dry spot in the shed.

That new Moai has great character and expression! Well done!

That skull painting, you should check out Clysdalle's paintings thread. you two might be brothers!

Welcome, you have some great first tikis here and
it looks like your hooked now.
Enjoy

Lookin Gooder and Gooder.

This moai is really cool.
Hats off, Sir.

Benjamin.

Very nice Moai! Nice detail. Happy Carving!

Sorry, double post.

[ Edited by: Tikilizard 2008-11-12 08:20 ]

Nice Moai! New, unique design. And just when I think no one else can come up with a new take on it!

Wow, all your comments and compliments are a big motivation to push on. Thanks to you all for that.
4WD, Thanks for finding my long lost brother in art :wink: but i think we have both been influenced by the same 60's/70's poster artist on the way we paint our skulls.
Seeksurf, looking at what i have carved over a 20 day period, I must be hooked. But it's my best addiction so far.
Benz, Benella and Tikilizard, thank you
BigT, thanks for calling it unique, that totally made my day.

I have given the Moai a Moko and a first layer of stain.
Pics of the finish will follow soon

After staining this guy I had to get some work done. After work i went to see The Mansfields rock out at our local venue. And let me tell you, if you like your Rock loud,mean,fast and dirty (think ramones,misfits,cramps)you should attend one of their gigs. This was one of their last european gigs, so they should be back in Colorado pretty soon. When someone passed me a beer and asked me how my tiki carving was going i realized i had forgotten to take pics of the stained Moai. So after the show i rode my bike back to the shop and took him home for a late night fotoshoot. So without further ado, here's the Moai all stained and i am really pleased with the result. The only thing I'm still debating is if i should make his eye complete with an iris or to leave it the way it is. Any comments on that are welcome.
Enjoy and thanks for watching.

[ Edited by: Grapa-RuHa 2008-11-14 02:18 ]

Sweet looking Moai grapa - I kinda like how he looks cool and relaxed as he is. Nice stain job.

cheers.

Grapa, That is a great piece of work! The tat's are perfect for the face. I have never seen a Moai with an eye but you pulled it off perfectly. I would leave it just the way it is. An iris would make him look to human and the way you have it now makes him look very "other worldly". Sweet!

WoW! great job man this is poppig now!

Fabulous Grapa!

Nice details

Nice colour

All around envious

Mc

Aloha and thank you all for your comments and compliments. I have decided to leave him as is and give him two layers of finish. The idea of a moai with eye is not as original as some of you may think. On this piece i was very much inspired by Benzard's Moai/Moko work as wel as some books i have on oceanic art.
Having it on display at my shop has generated some great reactions, and people who are familiar with my 2D work immediately recognize it as my style. Time to start something new.
Greetz,
Pat

I started on a new small guy trying to carve a full body. I think its good practice for bigger stuff i will attempt in the future (when summer returns most likely). He has changed a little since I took these pics. I made the head a little rounder and spent a lot of time sanding and sanding some more.
Thanks for watching and helpful pointers and critique.

Keep up the great work !

Mahalo Hodad,
The little guys body turned out quite good, but as i was carving his face, a wipe out with the hook knife messed up his eye pretty bad. So as not to get frustrated with this, I decided to start on a pendant that a customer commissioned. It was meant to look like the first pendant i did but since that was one of my first small carvings and I learned a lot since I decided to make him a new one. Now he has something to choose.


Now back to saving the small guy.
Thanks for watching.

Excellent lines on that Moko, you made a difficult task look easy! :)
Your smaller pendants are good too but will get much better when you find the real hook blade, excellent look though, keep up the good work.

Good start on the small full-body Grapa-RuHa...don't get too discouraged
by the slip of the knife. As a wise man (Benzart) once told us in
Tennessee Carving Skool...if you make a mistake on one side...do the
same thing on the other side. Your carvings are coming along nicely...
keep chizzlin'.

Thanks Benzart, thats a big compliment as it was a hard task and i have been sweating and cursing my way trough my 'good' plan to give this guy a Moko. :)
I'll get the right hook knife in a while, but since my girl and me are expecting our second child within the next couple of weeks my mind is not set on tool expansion.
Though the glasses you posted got me thinking, i used them doing touch up on negative film for the print industries.

Here are some pics of the finished small tang. Thanks for the nice comment Conga, that Benzart dude is pretty smart for his age :wink: I want carving skool to.

Nice new piece.

Benjamin.

Well sometimes those "Good" plans turn out a but different than than we thought but it really boils down to biting off more than we can chew and then Chewing it and you did that with Excellent results. The best way to learn more in carving is to tackle things that are beyond your skill level, then Finishing them. Usually the results will be surprising. Your latest guy is good and the inlays really helped give him some character.
Keep it up and you'll be a carver one of these dayz :P :P :P

Nice Work, Grapa!

I'm really diggin the small guy and the pendant. I just bought a hook knife myself and haven't tried to use it yet for fear of whacking a finger. Guess its kinda silly I'll use chainsaws at unnatural angles all day but the hook knife is scaring me. Anyways, good lookin stuff!!! I look forward to seeing more soon.

The moko on that guy is just absolutely phenomenal!!! Great spacing, outstanding flow, really pleasing to the eye.

On 2008-11-22 05:54, congatiki wrote:
...if you make a mistake on one side...do the
same thing on the other side.

LOL!!! I had a drum instructor tell me virtually the same thing about repeating flubs to make them seem intentional!

Fine results my friend. I love these things to look well travelled.