Sketches and Ceramics by MP *1997-Present*

Just received my Therm Tower & Frank mugs in the mail today, MP, and they look great! Scratch two off my list as I eagerly await the Skull & Square Bob mugs...

Thanks again.

Choppa the Mug looks great! When you going to carve some tikis out of those lil' logs? Every log cabin needs a tiki.

Right on MP! Choppa the mug is a great addition
to your unique style.

Hey everyone, thanks for check'n my stuff!

So at the end of my page I wrote "Choppa the Mug" as the title
of my new piece. I meant to write "Choppa da Hut". But then kenny
coined "Choppa the hut" later. Dangnet, how can I let'm know I thought
of it first. Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I know!

Flux Capaticors!

Heres the kenny Trade painting finished. Finally, sheeeeesh!

Fuzzy, better pics later

Kenny I hope you like the PNG Cobras. Gotta take some good pics and wrap it up for shipping.

Babalu - Thanks a lot. I talk to Maddog about using low fire in raku.
We also talk about it in my clay group and everyones "like" why the hell not.
So I was "like" ok, I'll do it. And they were like, and blah, blah bla
Im gonna raku again soon with a bunch of low fire glazes. Cool seeing those
buzzy pics of you at work. Keep rockin.

Maddog - It is a hat, Its a hut-hat. Soon to be the rage at your local Pacific Sunwear.

Grog - Thanks for stopping in. Also, thank you again for having me down to the hand built show in April.
I have been super busy and inspired since. I wish I could come down for Tiki Wonderland.
Please have another Hand Built show this year, I would come down there in a heartbeat.

Tobor64 - Thanks for the support brother. I dont know when the new mugs will be done
but its on the list.

TikiMango - Your right, our log cabin needs a tiki. We have more logs coming in the mail.
Thanks for coming by.

Iokona Ki'i - Thanks a lot! Hes getting bisque fired right now. Im hoping for the best.
I get a little lazy with the hand building joinery sometimes.

Cheers everyone

Great Rising Spirits! Almost like the Great Pumpkin rising out of the pumpkin patch :lol:

Turned out great MP. So much cool stuff coming from the studio-barn!

:)

speechless!

Mahalo empee!

Aloha friends, want to share some more raku fun from this weekend.
My clay group planned this one about three weeks ago and I had these
slip casts ready so off I went. I spent about eight hours glazing these
guys on Saturday, then it was off to the mountain on Sunday morning.

Some of the first batches lining up. All day we were treated to sun, crazy clouds,
hail, rain and a little bit of snow.

A group shot of everybody together. Glazing and firing nine raku mugs in two days is a crapload of work.

Here are the Irwin mugs in celedon, lo fire neon red and lo fire neon orange. I try not to scour
them to hard so they stay a little smokey looking.

Here are the Square Bobs all lined up. The first black one just has white crackle on his face and his bark left unglazed
got a ton of carbon jammed in there. Both of the others have white crackle faces and neon red
and neon orange lo fire glazes.

The first "frank" here has a glaze called abalone, this luster glaze can have crazy efects including gold colors.
Frank here is kind of like shark skin. In soft light it has subtle rose colors and the in brighter light it looks just like copper.
Check out the knarly, bubbly skin on the red Franks right leg.

This color reminds me of the orange guitar amps.

Frank got some crazy flashing and some crusty texture on his left leg.

In some areas I added clear crackle on top of the lo fire glaze which didn't crack much but added some
lighter texture/difference that helped the overall look of the piece. Another killer day with friends and fire!!!
As always, thanks for looking.

If anyone is interested, I will be putting all of these mugs on ebay starting tonight and the next few days.

dayum...all look amazing MP!!!!

Great billows of carbon smoke!!!!! Very nice finishes MP, love the random flashes!

wow

those are beautiful. if you have any interest in a trade, please let me know. you do great work in the raku.

These are looking just great, keep up the fine work.

wow the bobs look awesome all raku'd up.

Good stuff as always MP. Love these colors!

Yay!

RAKU MASTAH!
Beautiful Batch there!
the orange and red colors POP!

Carbon king you are empee!

The Bobs are amazing!
What am I saying?!
They are ALL amazing!
Love your lines, style, and proportions. Mahalo for sharing!

Henrik

Your such an animal Mike!! Awwww, the fire! It's all about playing in fire isn't it ;-)

These Tiki mugs are an absolutely new step on the ladder of tiki-evolution. Incredible professional work and amazing design, I dig that stuff!

MP, i lust after these, and am envious of you set up to do Raku. Stunning works!

Beautiful, beautiful work.

Awesome!, Awesome!, Awesome!
Great color combos!
You Rock MP!

I have really enjoyed being outbid on these MP :)

Incredible work, all with the unmistakable, inimitable MP style!

Happy New Year everyone! Thanks everyone for your recent visits.
Ive been peeping in but just couldnt muster a up a response. Lame, I know.
Surviving, Xmas and a recent family illness has kept me and my family on the ropes,
but all is well and has settled back into place.

First, back to the raku post.

BigToe and MadDog - thanks for coming by again you kick ass artists.

Pdrake - thanks for the props. It means a lot that you would want to trade with me.
Your work is killer. I went for the sales because we need the cash, Bad.

Atomic Tiki Punk, Leleliz, Grog and LLT - Thanks for coming by and boosting my tiki spirit.

Vantiki, Babalu and OceaOtica - Kind words from 3 mudslinging masters. I am humbled again!

El Buho, Iokona and liz again - Thanks so much!!!!!!!!. I am overwhelmed.

and Tobunga, thank you. I cant wait to see you and Manuel at the Lei over.

I want to thank everyone for saying hello on my thread and for
those who picked up an mp art piece this year. It all kinda started joining TC
and asking grog to be in the handbuilt show. Ive known about TC for along time but
really didnt dive in because I thought it was probably a bunch of boring blogging or
something (and because there weren't any pictures on the homepage). Damn, I was
so wrong. Just plain Dumb. Joining TC and sharing my art with all of you & meeting a bunch
of you this year has made 2009 a blast. I hope to meet more of you in 2010!

OK, enough mush.

Heres what Ive been up to lately.

The first batch of stuff is a group of black velveteen experiment swatches.
I still havent mastered the black art but I have decided the Leeteg technique just
requires to much time for me so I want to attack it Tijuana style where you just jam
the paint into a short nap velveteen. I have known about Leeteg for a long time and have
collected black velvet paintings most of my life, but it was seeing Heather watts and
Robb Hamels work somewhere in 2008 (here on TC)that made me want to do my own. Ive done
a handful of velvets, but besides the S.Bastard and the Frank velvets they arent really tiki
and there not that good so I will spare you.

I did this batch around christmas. I was making ornaments with my son
and thought glitter would look sweet on velvet, like rhinestones do.
It pops big time. Also take the end of your brush and jam strokes in the
paint for some cool textures.

Im hoping to get a couple of tiki velvets done for the
Tikiyaki Lei over this month

Next is a little painting for a friend who came by the studio looking for
some new things.

I call this guy "The under sea grump". He was just sitting around
for a couple of years unfinished and uninspired and my friend ask
me to finish him up for her.

Still more tweeking to do.

Next is sort of a hot rod painting with one mp moai in it called
"Beat it grommies". The classic situation with the older cool kids
telling the youngsters to beat it!

Here it is the way it sat around most of 2009.

Here I have added another color layer just recently.

Fill in the outlines again.

A close up

Feels like I just wrote a book report.
Stay tuned for more.
Thanks for looking and I hope you have an awesome 2010.

I am loving that more artists on here are bringing their style over to a velvet medium.

Between you and Bai its nice to see some new people tackle it.

Loving the Tiki Bob (but then again does that surprise you??)

See you --and all your killer work--at the Lei Over. Happy New Year!

EMPEE!
a hearty salute to you my friend!
Those organic and undersea feeling ornaments/experiments on velvet are SUPERB!
we have another velvet master,until now, hiding behind clay and canvas!
What a flippin GREAT batch of new ones!
The grump is a tight one
and the frame just OOMPHs it!
The changes you did to the grommies piece
gives it a whole new punch and a little moreaggressive/hard feel
you captured BULLINESS in a painting!
Success!
Keep on plugging,my friend
don't stop til you get enough!

great stuff as always,mp! Absoluely LOVE the jellyfishes!

Aloha Mikel!

Great to see your work process, the experiments, completions, revisions... even the velvet experiments have the unmistakeable MP touches!
And you're right, the glitter looks great, I like the way you're using it!

Hope you can get some velvets completed for the Tikiyaki show, but what ever you have on hand will undoubtably be incredible!
See you then!

Oh and Kinny, the fact that an actual Michael Jackson sad clown sticker exists is very disturbing...

Thanks Leleliz, I have always loved the velvet. Just need to unlock more
of the secrets. I mean, just get off my ass and do it!

Kobra Kenny, thanks for the encouraging words and inspiring us all with
your sweeeeet work. You have been cut'n N rip'n lately!

Thanks Zero! Tiki jelly fishes with glitter. Thats it!!

Eric, thanks for stoppin in. I cant wait to party with you and check out your new
goods. Love all yer newly posted wares!!

Heres a couple more tweek pics on the grommies painting

I asked my son what was going on in this painting and he said
"The worms are trying to get into the machine"

Great work MP! The Grommies is really starting to POP and I love the tranparency of the little jellyfish guy. It's hard to see in the still photos but I bet that glitter adds a new dimension to the "dark art", kinda like Heather's metallics

Alternate title: "Grommies in the Machine"!

Nice work, Mike!

Bowie

Nice work on the grommies painting! See you on the 30th at the Tikiyaki Lei-Over. Let's make some drinkin' money!!!

Thanks Mike, photos really cant show what glitter does on the velvet.
It really pops and moves. Everybody grab some velvet and glitter and try it out!

Bowie, great title and also a great album. I am now cuing up omegaman.
By the way great f'ing work over there on your thread. You, as the "kids" say,
are "going off". Excellent work.

Falin, Thanks a lot man! Yes, lets make some drinkn money. Cant wait to hang out
with everyone and get sloshy. Got to keep grind'n the art.

Cheers!

Cool experiments going on there MP!
And OH, I frickin love this piece!
Would make a great series.
One of my favorites of yours.

Hey Mikel, just saw your new Bob inspired pieces on the Tikiyaki Palp Alto thread... get 'em posted here posthaste so people can properly admire and gush over them! They are so AWESOME!!!

Hey Thanks A ton Jason and Eric!
Here are some new pieces Im working on for the Tikiyaki show on the 30th.
We just loaded them for a bisque firing. Praying these guys hold together.
I rushed the drying time, A big no no. Well see how they do. Now my
attention turns to some fun black velvets.

Choppa the hut made it through, off to glazing.

More to come.

The Bobs are great - I love 'em!

Some of the best mugs I've seen. Taking two of the best mugs and combining them into one, you can't beat that.

Talk about a variation on a theme, great stuff MP!

Lol, Teakey and Ray thanks so much! It was a lot of fun
whoopn this batch up. There in the kiln now, hope they make it!

You beat GROG to the "Suffering Bob". GROG had the same idea, but hadn't gotten around to doing it. GROG call dibs on the "Bob Shot", Tiki Bob shot glass. That next on GROG drawing board.

These look great, good luck in the firing and in the show.

question for Grog, was the version of suffering Bob in your head this good??

Don't let GROG call any dibs!
He's too slow and lazy!
it's TWUE!
example:The Tiki Magazine Bamboo Ben cover....
Ernie told us about it about 9months to a year BEFORE the issue came out...
he was PLANNING on PAINTING a cover/homage to
Norman Rockwell's famous self portrait....
Well, with a month deadline looming,and
absolutely NO WORK done on the cover
His laziness caught up with him and
he had to switch to Photoshop
to finish the art....

It's gonna be a looooong wait
to get anything out of GROG!
we told him about the Clown Show
5 years ago!
so he MAY have something done for that event...

Great Mugs,empee!
Don't let anyone stop your groove by calling dibs!

Dibs are a losers' way to do something YOU had planned on doing...
only worse!
:lol:

The basic body shape was the same, but GROG think MP's sculpt is better than what GROG would've done. The sketch GROG did had a different expression on Bob, he had a down-turned mouth and was half-lidded. And the bark texture was more like the original Bob mug. GROG like the texture on MP's mug better.

MP rocks!

Combo-Bobs, what a cool concept and great execution! :lol:

Sorry Grog, Im not a real tiki artist so I gotta steal stuff and mix it together to make it tiki.
I was really planning a bastard-vics/skull mug marriage but I chickened out. My bastard and bob were
on the counter. It just lined up. Thanks for the good luck wishes!

Now Kenny... you give Grog a big hug at the clown show and tell'm you were just kidd'n.
By the way you told MP you didnt do theme shows. Whats this clown bizness. Now for fibbing to MP
your sentence is to do a collaboration with MP in his Haunted Hot Rods art show.
Your plywood car blank will be in the mail.:)

Thanks for dropping in Mike. Always happy to here from you buddy.

i don't do theme shows that deal with hotrods,cars,and pinuppy chix....
too juvenile for my tastes!
but clowns......
that's a different story!
i'll give ol' Ernie a hug today at TikiG's Chop
and at the Clown Show next week...

i love Ernie,lazy as he is!

and i love you too empee!
Wish you could be Choppin and Artjammin with us today!

Grog if you make a sufferin' Bob also consider one sold to me :) I am so glad I bought your Java Bob already .

MP I call dibs on one of each of your Bobs.

Fantastic.

On 2010-01-22 21:39, mp wrote:

Sorry Grog, Im not a real tiki artist

Why you most certanly are a tiki artist! Wonderful work as always MP...Hot Damn!!