New work posted! Inexplicable business card holders! Tiki Bob keychains! More Islander! Pg. 15!

Aloha everybody!
Haven't had much time to post or paint lately, it seems... but here's a new piece:

It's called The Encounter, or lost Bumatay rediscovered, or the clairvoyant blowfish sees his future, an afterlife hanging in a tiki bar.

It's 11x14 acrylic on canvas. This image is inspired by my desire to obtain a Bumatay tiki mug from the Stockton Islander. I've heard that tikis carved by Andre Bumatay have mysteriously gone missing over time, so this painting depicts the rediscovery of one that ended up at the bottom of the sea (one that looks like the mug I covet). The startled blowfish, at the moment of discovery, has a vision of his own future, where he spends his afterlife hanging in a tiki bar, beloved by all. I like the bug-eyed look of the Bumatay tiki, and reflected it in the expression of the fish.

Oh, my eric october website now has a shop! You can visit at:
http://www.shop.ericoctober.com

Lots of tiki stuff, including giclee prints, and other non-tiki stuff...

Thanks fer lookin'!

Oh my gosh Eric - I'm way behind on reading TC, and then I find this treasure trove of stuff that you've been doing! I'll take one of everything you posted for FI. And the puffer/bumatay is just incredible.

Hope to see you soon!

very raddd dood!

Very nice mate, love all those prints - great style! And great creativity with those lamps too :D

Eric does it again!
ya gotta feel sorry for that puffer...Who would really WANT to see their future?
The ball's rolling again-
keep that momentum and go go Gadget!

He He He.... blow fish!

Mahalo everybody! Thanks for the encouraging words!

Here's some new stuff:

I created a banner for Tonga Hut's 50th Anniversary. It's about four feet by 18 inches, acrylic on canvas stretched inside a bamboo frame (not sure of the frame's measurements). It was great seeing it hanging at the Hut amongst all the revelers at the 50th Anniversary party!

I also made some 1.25" 50th Anniversary buttons. There were about 100 of them, and they were placed on the tables for everyone to help themselves. By the time we got there at 10pm, there were none left, but it was nice to see people wearing them!

For Halloween, Manuel and I went as Tikis! We worked on the costumes for about two weeks. They're made mostly of cardboard and paper mache. The arms are cloth, to give us some flexibility. (Manuel is Lono, I'm Ku). We went down to Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood on Halloween, and our tikis were a big hit... every twenty steps or so, someone would stop us for a photo. Then someone else would get a pic, then someone else, then like 10 more people would come up for pix... it was lots of fun, but a little unusual having people clamoring for our photo... still, we appreciated that people liked our costumes... made the work worth the effort!

It was great how many people know what we were, too. We realized, or hoped, that we were raising tiki awareness!

That's it fer now! Thanks fer lookin!

Those costumes are AWESOME! They look just like youe paintins! More pics if you got em.

i was wondering who made the pins, glad i got one. the costumes are incredible! very cool, will have to check with friends of mine who were in WeHo to see if they got pictures with you.

Hi Eric,
Your costumes were awesome!
You guys were the talk of the party... everyone loved them.
It was funny how "Lono" kept hitting the top of his head.
You got mad skills son.
Especially the ability to drink a beer in that thing :D

You kids are Hilarious!
You make cool stuff!
:)

Dude! My friend was there and she saw you guys!!

Those are the best danged Tiki costumes ever!

You two ROCK the house! :-)

LOVE the costumes!!!!!

Aloha Eric!!

You and Manuel looked fabulous on Halloween!! Your costumes are amazing!! You are such a creative and (super!) nice guy. It was really fun to see you. I hope that we can meet up again soon!

xo
Gem

I think we should have a tiki costume party. Uhm,....I know, I know.

Tobunga - You are a magical tiki elf sent to bedazzle us puny humans with your clever supernatural artist abilities and charms. I, for one, am completely under your tiki voodoo spell.

dude, ur out of control!!!!!

those tiki costumes r the best i have seen!!!

alohas, t

Here's a shot my friend Denise got of y'all!

Eric,man! amazing costumes dude! agreed with the toe, best tiki costumes I've ever seen

Hey everybody! Sorry it's taken me a while to respond to your comments... I've been busy working on a bunch of non-tiki stuff for a couple of upcoming shows.

Thanks so much for your enthusiastic reaction to our tiki costumes!

4WDtiki: Thanks, I didn't notice, but I guess the costumes do resemble my tiki paintings! I wasn't going for that specifically, but I guess it can't be helped!

OceaOtica: Glad you liked the Tonga Hut pis, too!

Murph: Had a great time on (post-)Halloween, although Manuel's headdress kept crashing into branches and hanging parrots!

Bowana: Thanks for the pic! We've never managed to get a shot of any of our costumes out on the boulevard in West Hollywood on Halloween... we usually have no where to carry a camera!

hiltiki: Great Idea! We should have a tiki costume party! I know what I'm wearin'!

SparkleGem: Great hanging out and talking on Halloween! Loved hearing your tiki and Witco stories!

Brad
Kinny
Babalu
Robb
BigToe
tikithomas
Bowana
OceaOtica
4WDtiki...

Thanks for your kind words! Your great work inspires me and keeps fueling my tiki passion!

Here's some stuff I'm madly trying to complete before the Tonga Hut show on the 6th:

This is a little box that I painted with tapa cloth designs. I made three little lino-cut prints of tiki faces to go in the window. (I couldn't decide which one of the three to make, so I made them all)

This is a set of buttons based on the March Of The Tiki Gods painting I did.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post mre stuff soon!

Thanks fer lookin'!

So I've finally had a chance to post what I've been doing for the past month... and what a crazy way to send out 2008!

Grog graciously included me in the Tiki Wonderland III art show at Tong Hut on December 6th, and I was in a mad rush to get work completed for it.

Some of the new stuff that debut there was a couple of lino-cut prints.

The first was this two-color Tangaroa print. (4" x 6")

The second print was sort of a modular two-color piece. (5" x 7")

I made five different 2" x 2" blocks. Two Tangaroa faces which I printed in black(mostly), and three tapa pattern blocks that I printed in red (mostly). On each print, I changed the position of the blocks, so each print is unique.

I also made more mini tiki mask plaques.

Each mask is about 5" in diameter and is based on PNG imagery.

Also debuting at Tonga Hut were these Tiny Tiki Framed Figures.


Each figure is about 2", and is made from sculpey and painted with acrylic. Figures come in 4" x 5.5" frames, backed with vintage tiki shirt material. Each one is one-of-kind, as the sculpt, painting, and fabric are different for each piece.

Also making a appearance that night was the prototype for a new plush tiki doll, Li'l Lono.

The doll is about 16" high, made of corduroy for a woody look, with a hand-stitched detail. This one went to Kinny, as his comment that he wanted to see a tiki doll with a big headdress finally prompted me to complete this doll, since it was kicking around in my head for a while.
When I gear up to make more (later today, in fact) the design for the headdress will probably change somewhat.

So then, the following week on Friday the 12th, the 'Tis The Season To Be Tiki show opened. I helped contact the artists and I also created the post card for the show.

So that had me busy collecting artwork and delivering it to the gallery, in addition to working on some new stuff.

The next day we went down to San Diego to host a tiki drink night at Manuel's folks' house. They have a bar in their den, and we transformed it into a tiki bar for the night.

We brought some of our tiki stuff to dress up their bar, including the foamcore
a-frame for the tiki art display table I made for selling my tiki wares. However, we didn't have any actual tikis of any substantial size.

So, I busted out the foamcore and created two tiki relief figures. I wrapped some board in burlap for the background and floated the figures on top. They came out pretty good for an afternoon's work!

I also finished another project I had started a while ago. I found two round glass bowls at the 99 Cent Store, and the moment I saw them, I thought FISHFLOATS! I got some info from a thread here on TC about net-weaving, and cobbled together a couple of floats... such as they are. We decorated the bar with these too.

Then, back to LA to finish up my submissions for Cammo's First Ever Worldwide Online Tiki Art Show on Monday, December 15th.

I made two more sets of Tiny Tiki Framed Figures.

I also made a tiki ornament.(5" x 5")

It's called Have Yourself A Moai Little Christmas.
The wooden snowflake's pattern is designed after Rapa Nui Birdman petroglyphs. A sculpey Moai sits in the middle, with a banner below that says "Have Yourself a Moai Little Christmas".

Then I had a little bit of a breather to get my Christmas projects in order.

Every Christmas, I seem to have stumbled into this tradition of making ornaments of us for our families. This year, I took inspiration from our Halloween tiki costumes.

The ornament is about 6" high (without hanging wire) and features a photo of us in our tiki costumes. The top half of the ornament spins around to reveal our faces out of our tiki masks.

Like all good tikiphiles, we love our rum! We've been experimenting with creating tiki drinks and when we have a new one, we have a "tiki dinner", usually something Asian, like a stir fry or miso with udon noodles, along with our new creation.

We call it "Going to Changitos", which is the name of our home tiki bar (which in actuality is two shelves: one for our rum and other booze and the other for our tiki mugs).

So to make Changitos more official, I made a 11" x 14" sign, based on a logo concept I created and gave it to Manuel for Christmas.

The idea for the logo is a tiki/monkey figure. The design is such that it is one tiki, but divided down the middle, the two halves become two monkey/tikis face to face. ("Changitos" means little monkeys in Spanish, hence the monkey theme).

One of the drink ideas we are developing is the use of a home-made hibiscus syrup for flavor. We bottled some syrup in little jars and gave them to family for Christmas. I designed a label to go on the jars. It was fun designing it!

Another Christmas tradition I've developed is making ornamets of us for Manuel. They are usually based on our Halloween costumes of that year.
So this year, I made ornaments based on our Halloween tiki costumes.

The ornaments are made from oamcore with burlap skirts. Our heads are made from sculpey. The figures are about 5" and 6" high. Manuel loved them!

And the last bit of art I did in 2008 was these two New Year's Eve Tiki Hats!

We had a couple of hats from last year, and we wanted to wear them this year, but they weren't tiki at all! So the afternoon of the 31st, I whipped out my trusty x-acto knife and cut up some gold cardstock into some tiki figures to adorn our hats. I also made some tapa pattern to go on the gold band around the hat.

Right now, I've got a bunch of new projects percolating in my brain, and I'm trying to figure out which to tackle first! So here's to an art-fueled 2009!

Mahalo fer lookin'!
Mahalo everyone for all you support and inspiration!
Happy 2009!

http://ericoctober.com

[ Edited by: tobunga 2009-01-03 13:44 ]

Wow, a whole bunch of cool art and ideas mate, nice work :D

Geez, is that all you got done?!? :roll: :lol:

Too much cool stuff, it appears your mind is overflowing like LLT's!

I love the concept and execution of that revolving photo ornament.

I love your bar logo, and the syrup label would make a great T-shirt...

Tobunga!
sheesh!
Christmas Spazz!
can we get some paintings
out of you now?
:)

Aloha everybody!

I've been working on some new stuff... here's some of it:

These are sort of Tiki Valentine's Day cards.

The first one is inspired Maori tikis:

I've always thought parts of Maori tikis looked like hearts, like their mouths, and sometimes their tongues and the shape of their heads. So I pushed the heart idea farther, and made every part of their bodies heart-shaped. The two tikis have their arms linked in a tiki embrace.

This linoleum block-print card is 4" x 6". It is printed with brick-red ink on a textured, fibrous paper and comes with a matching envelope.

The next card came about from all the tiki-romance that's been in the air lately, and was inspired by two of our tiki friends.

The image is two Ku-type tikis embracing. The negative space created by their mouths (and noses) forms the shape of a heart.

This linoleum block-print card is also 4" x 6". It is printed with brick-red and maroony-brown ink on a textured, fibrous paper and comes with a matching envelope.

Cards are 6.00 each, including shipping! PM me if you are interested!

Thanks fer lookin'!

Hey Tobunga,
Gave me lady them cards and she loves them!!
At first, the one on the left, she did not see the Tikis!! She only saw bunches of hearts. I thought that was neat as we all look at things different. Once I pointed it out, she couldn't believe she didn't see them!! Then the Tikis were all she saw!

Kind of a cool thing. Shows your cool style and the way they were done!!
Anyways, thought I would post as they are very well done and they made a great Valentines card!!

Aloha everybody!

Haven't posted for a while, as I've been nutty busy prepping for an artshow that had the plug pulled on it and then miraculously came back to life in the most unexpected way possible...

(That's the Sam's/Kona/Don the Beachcomber art show... check it out at the thread below!)
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=31205&forum=1&start=60&66

I made a couple of Maori tiki inspired Valentine's Day tins.

Tins are made of, well, tin, I suppose... (I got them from a craft store) and I painted them to look like Maori tiki faces, all heart-shaped and everything.

The tins measure 5.5" across and 1.25" deep.

I also created a set of tiki Valentine's Day cards, and then I created some more!

Remember in elementary school when everybody passed out little paper valentines to the whole class? I love the vintage look of those, and the punny way they were written.

They measure 2.5" x 4.25" each. I planned them so that when they were printed, there would be eight to a page, so eight was the number of different styles I needed. I had a few extra ideas, and after I thought about it, I came up with eight more.

They're one-sided and do not open (they're not greeting cards). They do not come with envelopes. The idea was to recreate the look of those vintage type valentines. I think I got the style down pretty good, too bad I couldn't have them die-cut... not that would be cool!

Each one started out as an 8.5" x 14" painting, and then I transferred them to the computer, adding the text and the hearts, then I had them printed.

Here are both sets, with the original drawings:

This was the first idea that came to mind. It's a typical punny valentine idea, blowing your top over someone. It seemed like a perfect idea for a tiki valentine card.

This was the second idea that I had, and what really got the ball rolling, because once I came up with it, I was really inspired to continue making more. It's kind of funny and creepy at the same time. Plus, the shrunken head looks like a heart. I tried to incorporate heart shapes into the images as much as possible. The tiki in the background is based on PNG imagery, since it could, with a little tweaking, and some liberal color styling, look like a heart. plus, there were PNG cannibals, so it seemed appropriate.

This is also a typical valentine pun, but with a tiki angle, and the wall-eyed pufferfish looks like a heart!

If you look at the original drawing, you'll notice the hula girl has a left foot, but it somehow vanished when I was painting it! Oops!

I really wanted to do a moai card, and after wracking my brain, I came up with this phrase. I was a little disappointed though, because I really wanted to do a play on words with "moai", but I couldn't come up with anything.

More PNG imagery on this one. He probably wants to eat you.

The image in this one is based on the lino-cut greeting card that I did (that was inspired by two tiki-lovebirds that I know). The idea is two tiki facing each other create a mirror image, with the negative space of their mouth forming a heart. In the original lino-cut, the tikis are reddish-brown, and the heart is the color of the paper, an off-white. Here I had to come up with a solution for the heart to be a valentiney pink, so I had a mass of hibiscus flowers in bloom behind the tikis.

This was the last card of the first series. I wanted to make a card with a monkey, and the monkey around phrase is another typical valentine pun. The headdress of this lono type tiki has been modified to look like a series of hearts, the mouth of all the tikis are similarly modified, and painted with a reddish brown interior to enhance their heart-ness.

This was the first card I did for the second series. It's pretty tikiphile-specific, I think, because I'm not sure how much of the general public knows what an a-frame is, but I couldn't resist the delicious pun!

This is one of the original ideas that didn't make it int the first series. I've actually seen a vintage valentine with this phrase, but it was all cutsie... so I made it the creepy card of this set. Again with the cannibals! And I wanted the victim to look like a stuffy 18th century British explorer.

My slight disappointment over the first moai card turned to elation when I came up with this phrase, making a play on words using "Moai"! It took a lot of rewriting to get the phrase to be as concise as possible and make sense. Plus I got to do those freaky long-fingered moais!

This card had a completely different layout at first, with an illusion of depth, but then I changed it to be more graphic, map-like and flat. Both versions of the drawings are pictured above.

This image incorporates an idea I had months and months ago, a crab with a tiki face on it's back. And then I made it pink and heart-shaped too, which to me, totally works for a valentine crab!

I wanted to use the word "lei" in a card, but I didn't want to go with the totally boring cliche of lay as in something sexual. Plus, the bird is an i'iwi, a native bird of Hawaii!

I wanted to have a card relating to the creation of tikis, but I couldn't come up with a phrase and image using "chop" or "carve", so I went with the more general "made". The carver in this card looks just like the fisherman from the "Great Catch" card, but I though I gave him a different tapa cloth pattern. I was mildly surprised to note that they were virtually identical!

This in a way was the pièce de résistance of the whole series. It takes a very typical, generic punny valentine card phrase and combines it with classic tiki culture icon, the Kon Tiki raft and smashes them together like a ship in a south-seas storm! I was originally thinking of something like an outrigger, but then I noticed with a little reshaping, the mouth of the Kon Tiki looks like a heart. A little more shaping, and the whole head is a heart! Make it red on a pink sail, and you're in tiki valentine business! Again, this one is very tikiphile-specific, and that's what makes it so great (to me, anyway!)

So after all that, I made up a set for Manuel for Valentine's Day. Since I obsess on details, I knew the valentines needed to be presented in a special way. Since they are meant to recall elementary school Valentine's Days. I made a little mailbox for them, like the kind kids make to receive cards from their classmates. The mailbox is thick craft paper folded over with foamcore braces inside to give it depth and shape. The mouth is cut out into a heart to receive the cards, and a red paper backing inside completes the heart motif. The details are black ink.
The negative space from the mouth is used on the back as the catch for the little door that opens to retrieve the cards.

Manuel loved it! I was happy.

Thanks fer lookin'
Yer pal,
Eric October

http://ericoctober.com

[ Edited by: tobunga 2009-03-03 15:24 ]

Your Valentine sets are awesome. I love the style in which you drew them.

Now perhaps next year I will actually have a Valentine to give them to so I hae a reason to order some :wink:

Regardless the whole concept is really great.

You have been busy Eric! My favorite is " The Moai think about it..." :)

It's a bit late this year, will you put these out next January? I read great stuff about the Kona night (wish I could have been there :( ) Congrats on a successful show.

ha!! very clever!!....you really should think about having these printed as a set.....very nice product....and a person doesn't need to be an expert on tiki to understand the humor of these cards...i think the general public would get it...

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2009-03-02 04:59 ]

I wish I got any one of these in my hand made V day envelope when I was in grade school.

those are too cute,Eric!
Shrunken head baby is my favorite!!!
Manuel is one lucky tiki!
You could run whole cities
on the energy from your creative brain!
YAY!

Eric, really really dig the vintage feel to these, great illustrations and clever wording

WOW! Witty, fun, great designs - I want these cards! All this work is excellent, glad Manuel loved em. You kick Hallmark's ass.

AMAZING cards - you have a great style to your work!

maybe I missed this, but did they get mass produced or did you just do a few of them?

I never send out valentines cards, but I would send out yours!!!!!

I've seen your work scattered around other threads and I have to say that you are producing some very unique and cool pieces of art. I wish I could have been at sam's/kona/DTBC to see your work in person!

NICE!

Eric, Ur a genius!!!
i agree with LLT, the cute shrunken head is SUBLIME
alohas, t

Eric!

It was so great seeing you & Manuel at Kona!
and Oh Mah Gee! your artwork is so freakin cuuuute!
I loved going through all the valentine's they made me giggle!

you should do more cute stuffed tikis.....dolls...anything! because they are so freakin adorable!

:D

Aloha everybody!

I'm so behind in posting, I've been so busy lately!

Thanks everybody for your kind words about the tiki valentines cards.
The were produced pretty close to the wire this year, but if I can figure out whom to solicit about have them produced on a large scale, they may be available to purchase next year at like Target and Wallgreens! If not, I'll just print some up myself!

So I'm finally getting around to posting pix of work I did for the Kona/Sam's Salute to the Swordfish show on my own thread:

"Kona Tapa"

11" x 14" ink on paper. The Tikis and the Tapa Cloth border are based on Tikis and the Tapa Cloth that can be found at the restaurant.

"Swordfish Serenade"

The name comes from a suggestion by BigToe... Thanks Tom!
It measures 19.5" x 27", and is done in acrylic. I even made a kooky bamboo frame for it!

The piece is a celebration of Sam's and Kona, each represented by a swordfish. The tikis in the scene are tikis from the restaurant, and in the foreground shadows, a familiar figure foreshadows the future...

"Swordfish By Night"

11" x 14"
colored pencil on paper
It's based on the photo that I shot that was used for the flier for the show.

"Plush Swordfishies"

Each doll is 15" in length and represent the swordfish sign. The blue fish are the sign during the day, and the black fish is the sign as it appears at night.

Mahalo fer lookin'!
Yer pal,
Eric October

it was fun meeting you guys at the Mayflower.
Great Kona/Sam's artwork! Love how you delve into many styles,
techniques, and projects. Tiki stuff animals are a brilliant idea.
looking forward to seeing what else you got up your sleeves!

Wahiniana Art by Iokona

[ Edited by: Iokona Ki'i 2009-03-24 16:50 ]

Hey Eric,

It was great seeing all your work at the Tonga...Amy about killed me when I told her you offered me a tiki cookie and I didn't bring it home to her. Next time, I need to get Amy a cookie :)

Your Duk Duk hats are a riot brother!

Aloha everybody!

It's been months since I've posted new work... I don't know where the time goes!
Some of this stuff I've posted in other threads, but I'm gathering it all together here, plus posting new stuff.

Here's stuff I did for the Tikiyaki Orchestra's Lodge Night at the Mayflower Club in North Hollywood.
Since the theme was lodges and secret societies and such, I decided to do the Polynesian version...

I started with some Duk Duk Dancer figures.

Each one is 9" high and made from various materials, including felt and artificial leaves.

I also made some Aloha Jhoe's mascots, as they are stylized Duk Duks.

Each one is 9" high and made from various materials, including felt and flannel.

Then I made some larger Aloha Jhoe's figures, that also double as hats! The front fringe comes off, and they look really sporty and stylin'!

These figures stand about 17" high on their bases, and are made from various fabric, including felt, flannel, satin, with buttons.

This was also the debut of my Chocolatiki cookies!
There are currently three styles/flavors:

Chocolate Tangaroa

Mocha Hei TIki

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Marquesan

I was selling sets that came in a box that included a hand-rubbed block print of PNG inspiration!

The next batch of stuff I completed in time for the Hand Built show at Tonga Hut in April.

I happened upon two kid-sized skateboards and I immediately thought that I could turn them into something tiki. I had PNG on my mind a lot, so that was the direction I took.

I painted them with some PNG designs, both top and bottom, and finished them off with some polynesian-looking fringe I got from Kirby (Thanks, Kirby!)
The smaller skateboard is 18" long, and the larger one is 20".

I also made some mini tiki huts, which feature my first officially carved tikis, although they are only 2" tall. The Huts started out as bird houses, but with a little tiki ingenuity, I was able to transform them into mini-tiki huts, complete with marble-sized (well, actually, they're marbles) fish floats... for which I wove the netting myself. Now THAT was a fun task!

I had been toying with the idea of doing some colored pencil drawings on black paper, so I did one as a test, and I came out pretty good. I decided to do some more, and then as I am wont to do, I went crazy and made a bunch. I was very excited at the way they turned out... mysterious and moody... some of them even looked photo realistic! I was happy!

And then, since the show was the day before Easter, I decided, the night before the event, to do some Easter Island Eggs. It was a fun play on words, and people really liked them!

Each egg is 3" high. They are constructed of paper mache over a plastic egg, with a foamboard moai on the front, birdman petroglyphs painted all around, and a grass bow, or roof on top (I sort of thought the grass made the eggs look like little huts)

I was on a black paper/colored pencil kick, so I created an 8x10 drawing of Kirby's Rumpus Room, as a thanks for all the fun times we've had there. He liked it!

Then I made one for Grog, also 8x10, because he's so nice! It took a couple of tries to get it right, but I think it came out OK. I wanted to give his Grog character a 3D look, and I made the Moai look as if it was carved by Grog, using one of his mugs for inspiration.

I also got a commission from A Frame (Anders Anderson) to make a larger version (11x14) on one of the earlier drawings I had done. He requested a tangaroa in it, and I think it came out pretty good.

Then the Tiki Art Swap was announced, and it gave me the opportunity to work on some ideas I had for more plush tikis.

The first one I did was a PNG tiki. It's about 12" tall, made from various fabric including corduroy and flannel, with button eyes.

The second one was much more intricate, and I was very pleased with the way it turned out! This one was based on the Abelam style of tikis from PNG. It is also 12" tall, made of felt, corduroy, flannel and satin. I also decided that going forward, the plush tikis will sport a tag that is signed and numbered (1/1)

Each Abelam plush comes with a color version of the concept art I did while developing the idea for the doll. Each 8x10 drawing is original, in watercolor and ink.

Then I expanded on the plush tiki theme with a Tangaroa, also 12" high. It's made from corduroy and flannel.

I revisited my first plush tiki design, and after some debate, I decided to retire the original design. But Kuddly Ku II is here to take it's place! This version is more doll-like, as I was chagrined that most people referred to the first version as a pillow.

Kuddly Ku II is 12" high, made of corduroy and flannel and satin, with buttons on his nose.

I found a wooden hexagonal swag lamp at a thrift store and figured it would make a cool TIKI swag lamp. I stamped some fabric with the tapa patterns I had made a while back and replaced the yellow plastic that originally came with the lamp with my tapa fabric. I attached some bamboo on each corner, and then added a strip of burlap on the top and bottom. It came out pretty good, for eight bucks, the cost of the lamp!!

I then started working on some swag for the new Tikiyaki Orchestra album. Since it was all airline themed, I decided to do an activity sheet, like the kind they hand out to kids to keep them occupied on long flights. My idea was a paper airplane cut out in the shape of the 747 that was featured on the Tikiyaki Airways website. I did a drawing of the band also, that could be inserted into the top of the plane. I included the cool tiki drum, so there would be a tiki in it somewhere! These were included in the limited edition Jet Packs and Commuter Packs.

Here is the plane assembled.

Here is a larger version of the drawing of the band.

I also did a stamped mini-print to commemorate the listening party event that took place at Tonga Hut on June 27th. The image uses the color scheme from the album artwork and the piece measures 5x7. The prints were all signed and numbered.

Which brings us up to this weekend!
My mom's birthday is on July 5th, and this year my sister decided it would be a luau themed party. So naturally, I was all "I'll do the decorations!!!"

I wanted the decorations to be as authentic as possible, the only drawback being that I don't carve tikis... and I'm pretty dang broke at the moment, so there was zero budget... so I had to draw on all the (free) creative resources of my brain...

As the center piece, I decided to do an A-frame tiki hut and a moai. The 6' Moai is made of cardboard and paper mache, and was executed in about 6 hours (not including paper mache drying time). I never measured the A-frame, but it's probably 9 or 10 feet high. It was constructed mostly of cardboard, craft paper and palm fronds.

Both pieces started out as piles of material in the back of my car that were driven up north to my folks' house, with only a vague idea of how they were going to be constructed. I built both of them in the two days prior to my mom's luau birthday party.

I also created a sign for the luau. The party was called Loli's Luau. (my mom's name is Dolores, Loli is her nickname) It's made of foamboard and measures 30" long.

The week before, I made some tiki-themed wall hangings. They measure 17x26 inches and are constructed out of layers of foamboard. I made the frames to resemble bamboo, and the tikis to look wood-like. The backings are from a woven grass beach mat I got at the 99 cent store. All in all, fairly inexpensive for decorations of their size!





I wrapped twine around the handles of the war clubs to give them more dimension.

So that's pretty much what I've been doing these past few months. I've got a bunch of stuff in the works right now, but nothing at a stage that I can post anything coherent.

Mahalo fer lookin'!
Yer pal,
Eric October

Eric -

You never fail to impress me man! How do you find the time to do all this stuff?

Thanks for keeping me up to date with your arts and crafts. Very very cool.

You have been busy!

Had I known that the airplane activity sheet was included in the swag I would of bought one for sure! (not like i am already kicking myself for NOT buying one anyways!)

I LOVE the pic of Grog..Kirby's pic is rad...your Ku drawings/stuffed dolls are my favorite Ku design out of anyone's here ..and for the art swap I originally started creating a Duk Duk dancer doll as well so I love your idea to do one.

Plus I have always respected you for the simple fact that you rock that hat with a big smile on your face!

I hope your mom loves her party - the decorations are excellent and I really dig the font for her sign.

You never fail to impress me and this thread is eye candy galore!!

Awesome as always!

[ Edited by: leleliz 2009-07-10 13:32 ]

was wonderin what you've been cooking lately,Eric
and WOW!!!
So much Quality in that Quantity!

your pieces on the black paper are gems!

Don't ever stop!
:)

Holy Motherload, what a post! My favs are the black paper drawings, all of them! But I'm most impressed with how you turn scraps and trash into cool good looking tiki art! The cardboard Moai rocks!

Thanks for the HUGE update. Amazing work! All of it. Looks like your having lots of fun.
Very creative and beautiful. Brings a big ole smile to my face! :D