Tiki Tiger Studios: Big long Egyptian trip report!

you said FANNY! :lol:

LLT- Yes, in some ways this was another first for me with all the many lighting sources under the water, and the movement in water as well. Might seem kinda silly, but I filled up a pitcher of water in the tap and used a straw to blow air into it to sort of study the movement of the bubbles and how the light reflected on them with two light sources. I still didn't get it exactly right, but it is a fair illusion of how it looks.

i was gonna ask about them bubbles....
the sign of a true seeker!

looking forward to the Tonga piece
hoping you'll post some studies as you progress
and not leave us out in the cold!
and mahalo for all the cheerleading!
TC is certainly a refuge where us artistic misfits can gather!
:)

Just a quick li'l update in the tiger world:

Bought some sheets of wood veneer and some long rectangular small wood pieces for sides. I am going to make my own wood panels to paint on, it is ever so much cheaper. For the price I was paying for a single panel or canvas at the art store I can make about six to eight wood panels myself.

And I have two projects now that I want to do. The aforementioned Puffa Puffa Cereal box parody and the following revelation:

After seeing absolutely the most mind blowing billboard I have ever seen in my life over in the Mai Kai Archaeology thread: http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=26630&forum=1&start=105
I ABSOLUTELY MUST make a painting of this sign lit up at night in all the beautiful splendor it must have once possessed. Bonus is the fact that the photo has an indepth description of the colors and how it looked (that pineapple was actually gilded with gold... holy crap). The only thing that worries me a little is the end pole tikis are a little difficult to make out all the details properly in the photo clipping. I am super excited about doing this one though I love light reflections and shadows, it is going to be fun painting all the various multicolor light reflections in the gilding of the pineapple alone. Not sure of what the size will be yet, but I am thinking something along the lines of 15 X 25 for a nice oblong rectangle.

Still going to do the Tonga Room too, but that one is going to take time to research and lay out.

Can't wait till I get the wood cut and assembled and can start painting!!! :D

I don't know if it helps, but Michael's has a coupon for 40% off any single item in every Sunday's paper, once in a while there's a 50% off. They sell canvases. You can usually find the coupons online too, you can print as many as you want but you have to make a separate trip for each coupon.

Can't wait to see the next project

On that note I go to Goodwill stores on a regular basis and you can find all sizes of canvasses there for under 10 dollars. Usually they are painted on but you can paint over them.

Thanks for the suggestions folks. I did look into Michaels with the coupon thing, but even with 50% off the wood panels still cost about $12, and the canvasses are close to the same. Whereas the hand built wood panels will cost me about $5.00 each, and I can size them how I want.

As for Goodwill... they have gone way up on their prices round here, and I almost never find any suitable canvasses (about all I find is the pre-printed "art" canvasses, and they have this weird plastic sort of varnish layer that paint doesn't stick to that well). It is actually rare if I can find a bargain on much of anything I want or need at Goodwill these days sad to say.

Wood Panels are probably your best bet,tail!

As for Goodwill... they have gone way up on their prices round here, and I almost never find any suitable canvasses (about all I find is the pre-printed "art" canvasses, and they have this weird plastic sort of varnish layer that paint doesn't stick to that well). It is actually rare if I can find a bargain on much of anything I want or need at Goodwill these days sad to say.

a vigorous sanding will add some tooth to adhere some gesso over those canvases
should take paint too especially cel-vinyl....
the KartoonKolor ones are the ones i get(from Art Supply Warehouse here
and i think you can order them online if they're not in your vicinity!

Thanks LLT I will try that some time. Meanwhile however I am very very pleased with the homemade wood panels. Out of one single sheet of wood veneer which I paid $11.45 for, I got 18 pieces in various sizes. So this means once I am done and have them gessoed and ready for painting the cost of materials for each one will be $4.00 or less...can't beat that. Next step is to cut up the side framing and glue it (or nail it) to the panels. I like how smooth the wood is on this veneer too, so I won't have to do much with the gesso before I can paint.

Here is a pic of the haul so far, and no waste pieces at all.

As you can see by the Wheaties box, the smallest panels are just a few inches larger all around than a cereal box (those are for my cereal pinups project of which the first one will be the Puffa Puffa Rice parody). One of those large ones will be the Tonga Room painting, and probably the mid size one will be the Mai Kai billboard one, unless I decide to use one of the larger ones I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Getting all kinds of excited now! So much painting ahead... whoopee!!!

Is that Luan board? Many of my paintings are done on Luan which I buy at Home Depot. I love working on it and prefer it canvas anyday!

I also thought the smooth surface would mean an easier time prepping it, but I found that if I didn't gesso it well the paint just seemed to get soaked up in the wood grain and dry brushing was extremely frustrating.

Howdy ZeroSt, no it is not Luan (however you spell it) it is I believe a birch wood veneer panel for paneling walls. I have used Luan board before for theatrical backdrops, and while it is wonderful to paint on, it cracks very easy and doesn't "breathe" well so I imagine difficult paints like oils would be very hard to use on it. Yeah I know raw wood soaks up paint like a sponge, that is why I think before I gesso I am going to use a roller and lay down some white house primer (which is practically the same thing as gesso, it just doesn't have as much "chalk"so less tooth and not as thick. I do this with the Luan when I do backdrop paintings, and then just use house paint to paint the backdrops, so I figure it shouldn't be too much different if I lay down a layer of primer, then some gesso. Seems like everything is an experiment these days. :wink:

I Just can't afford to keep shelling out $22-$30 per panel/canvas ($11-$15 on sale with a coupon, but that still is too much for my current budget). Especially if I want to save up for some new supplies like an easel so I don't keep getting neck aches from looking down. As they say, "It's whatcha do with whatcha got". :wink:

Well I am still working on getting the new painting panels together, but I am also a stagehand in a upcoming theatrical play and as such I get a half page ad in the program. I made an ad that looks like something you might find in the phone book in the 1940's for a Tiki bar to go with my website theme. Thought you guys might enjoy it. It is for a play called "A Tuna Christmas" so there is a little injoke about one of the characters in there, in case you are wondering about the Didi line.

It being the season of spooks and specters, thought I would share this little Halloween piece I did a while back. I originally did this for my art site as a background pattern, because I was going to have the backgrounds change seasonally but found out it was more trouble than it was worth. It is based on the creepy legend of the night marchers.
The overall pieced together pattern:

The single art design:

Happy All Hallows Eve TCer's!

May be a little while before I do some more art. I took a bit of a less than graceful fall down the stairs at the theater I am volunteering at, I didn't break anything but need to rest up for a few days to help my muscles that got jerked around to the point the doc said they almost tore. Meanwhile what strength I have has to be devoted to the play I am helping with. I will be doing more painting soon though don't you worry.

"That's not flying, that's just falling with style" - Woody

Hope you are on the mend soon. I liked your "menu art" ad but will the the theater patrons get that it's an ad for your website? (Some cool stuff on that site BTW)

Rest up! Hope you get better soon!

Aloha Tigertail777, I'm new at this posting thing myself. I just finished going through your thread, had to tell you I love your work. You have great talent and I can't wait to see your progression on the Mai-Kai billboard. Hope your feeling better soon. :)

Thanks everyone for the well wishes. Looks like I may have more bruised muscles rather than torn ones, so will be getting back in the saddle again soon.

Mike; the patrons may or may not get it. I have gotten very little response from the older more straight forwards ads so I figured I may as well do what I want and see how it goes. I really wanted to tie the new ad into the 1940's Tiki bar theme on my new site. I kind of envisioned doing this kind of advertising as if it were a real historical Tiki bar and tying it into the art from the beginning of the site, I would like to get some matchbooks done and some other paraphernalia eventually.Thanks for stopping by the site and checking it out. Any new mud slingings from you in the works? :wink:

ZeroSt. Thanks I will of course be keeping a close eye on all your doings, paint brother. :wink:

Umeone: Thanks so much for the kinds words I really appreciate them. I am very much looking forwards to doing the Mai Kai billboard painting. I love painting shadows and lighting and I can see in my mind how wonderful that billboard sign must have been. I really want to bring that vision out and show people what a thing of beauty it once was.

You have been so busy. I needed to go back and read your thread from start to finish. Doing that I found you had asked me a question that I missed. Here's how you paint on glazed ceramics and have it stick.

You clean the surface with rubbing alcohol and do not touch an area to be painted with fingers or the paint will not stick.

Use Liquitex glossies. I used to get it from Michael's with coupons but they stopped carrying it in my area so now I order it through Dick Blick's on-line store. They are horrible and often half of the lid are loose and paint is all over the inside of the box.

After you paint let it dry for 24 or more hours. Then you bake it in the oven at 325 degrees (do not preheat that's bad for ceramics and place them on a cookie sheet) for 45 minuets. Let the ceramics cool in the closed oven until they are room temperature.

As long as the piece is not heated the paint if fine. Put it in a dishwasher and paint will go everywhere. Just like the red paint on the old Harvey's mugs. Lots of vintage mugs etc. have this cold paint and it has survived well.

I'm enjoying your journey creating fine art. Cheers, Wendy

Hey man!
Glad those Muskles are only bruised!
take it easy...
the colors on that Ad are great and really evoke a nice nostalgic feel
like the graphics on old hallowwen candy!

I have gotten very little response from the older more straight forwards ads so I figured I may as well do what I want and see how it goes. I

PERFECT!
I've always believed if you just do what you love and get real good at it
and make it uniquely your own
that the regular folks will finally get it,albeit a little late..
or not and we all die unknown and destitute! :lol:
But st least able to have such a blessed life as that of an artist!

Here is a new piece... a very strange and weird piece. I have never done any really "artsy fartsy" art, especially anything using recycled materials before but figured it would be interesting to give it a try. I was invited to a group art show that will be displayed in the lobby of the theater I volunteer at, with the theme being Christmas gifts. I knew I would not have time to make a full painting so thought over what to do. While I was cracking open pistachio nuts I had the thought of how interesting it would look to paint these nut shells. Then I had another idea; I wondered if I could make a primitive lenticular out of them. For those that don't know, lenticulars are those pictures with a special plastic laminated on top that when you tilt them they appear to move or change. Basically how this works is there is several pictures sliced into thin strips and then meshed together in such a way that they separate each other with every other line. Then the special plastic has lines in it that act something like a magnifying glass so that when you tilt the picture you only see one set of lines that go together and form a full picture, tilt it the other way and you see the other set of lines and a different picture. It actually works much like the lines on a TV screen.

So my idea was since the nutshells are concave and only show one side at a time when tilted they could conceivably act like a lenticular with three separate picture views: straight on, tilted to the left, and tilted to the right. I knew that because the painting in the the nutshells would not offer a very high "resolution" due to the dot size when viewed that it would have to be a very simple and basic subject. Since the theme of the show was Christmas gifts I decided to dig into my roots; I was born in Honolulu and some of our Christmas traditions stem from when we lived in Hawaii, for instance I have to play a Hawaiian Christmas record we have every year as we bake cookies. I have always liked pineapples; both the flavor and the form and their symbolism of hospitality so decided that was a simple enough subject for the straight on part. With a little testing I realized the two side views would have to be even simpler and went with the Christmas colors of red and green. I almost went with the title of "Mele Kalikimaka Pineapple", but felt the viewers would need a bit of a hint to look at it from different sides. So may I present "Red & Green Pineapple" to you. It is painted pistachio nut shells glued to a recycled wood tray that has been wood burned.

First the straight on view:

From the left where it becomes a red pineapple:

From the right where it becomes a green pineapple:

Bottom and side view showing some of the tapa wood burn design:

Not sure I will try anything like this again anytime soon, but it was an interesting experiment and I kind of like the primitive feel of it. Don't know if it will sell or not at the show but it was fun to do. :wink:

Great concept! :lol: It even worked out reasonably well (wish I could say that about all of my ideas). I think you're right that your "dot resolution" is the limiting factor here. All in all I would say it was a successful experiment :)

Bold experimentation! Nice job!

I am in total awe, the fact that you could explain it so well and then execute it so well! :D Congratulations on an awesome job! :) Wow...really... I'm very impressed!

Very cool idea. I love art that changes from different angles. Thanks for sharing your work.

Thanks guys, I really was not sure how people here were going to accept such a strange piece. It's nice to know I can get a little crazy with things and still have people like it.

Wendy: a belated thanks for telling me about the paints. I appreciate your taking time to tell me, and I would like to try them out some time. :)

Viva la Experiment tigertail!
:)

You are welcome. That is really a great new idea executed beautifully. Question, have you thought about pouring clear resin on it so that it could be used as a tray or simply protected. It's very pretty and fun. Wendy

That is actually a great idea Wendy! I have not messed very much with resin, but I think it could work wonderfully. If it doesn't sell at the show I will try to do that, it's a very cool idea that allows the art to actually be utilitarian as well as decorative, thanks for the idea! :)

Right now though... let the curtains of heaven part...

I HAVE BEEN HIRED!!!

I am in training right now, but it will soon work into a full time job, and it isn't some lame retail or burger flipping job....OH NO! It is a real honest to goodness 9-5 DESIGN JOB! It's even in the same town I live in; it is a place that creates art glass etchings via sandblasting and other art glass pieces. I will be doing a lot of the art design work as well as pitching in with all the other tasks round about the place. I have been training for almost a week now, and despite all the insane new equipment I need to learn it is an awesome place to work. So I get to not only do hands on traditional art (they like most of their designs to start with real pen & ink), but also working on graphic design digital stuff...the best of both worlds.

Here is my new work place: http://www.moonshadowetchers.com They do some incredible stuff!

So this means I will be able to afford art supplies finally to make more Tiki art...I am ecstatic, after two years of not finding much work (aside from the occasional freelance gig) I am dancing with joy... this is going to be a GRRREAT! Christmas! :D :D :D

Very cool Tiger, congratulations!!! Don't bust a hip doin' the happy dance :D

Congrats Tigertail- Moonshadow does some great work. Also "nuts" about your latest. Good concept and execution.

Congratulations Tigertail777!!! The job sounds so awesome, I hope your enthusiasm has no limits! :) You are right it is going to be a Grrreat Christmas! :lol:

Thanks Mike, Cy and Umeone! I'll try not to bust that hip doing the happy dance. :wink:

Right now one of the biggest challenges is trying to figure out the plotter and plotter software...that thing is some kind of beast!

In a few weeks I should get my first paycheck then I can get those art supplies and get back to the poly pop painting. :)

Well, I have not had a lot of time to myself with work and other commitments, but darn it I needed some ME time. So I have started on the "Wacky Packages" style parody of the "Puffa Puffa Rice Cereal" box. Not too much at this point, just the basic sketching but so far I think its going to be a fun one to do. :) Instead of "Kellog's Puffa Puffa" I thought it would be funny to make it "Kapakahi Pumice Pumice"...I know, I know my sick humor is in evidence. :lol: You will note the lovely wahine is holding the mask from the back of the box as a shield.:lol:

Here is the original cereal box I am parodying for those that don't know it...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60585948@N00/377950956/

Puffed Pumice? That'll get your teeth clean! Looks promising, hope they give you enough time off work to finish it :D

Yeah puffed pumice would be hard on the teeth, but hey you would not need to brush your teeth after eating. :wink:

Quite a bit of progress on this one over the weekend after I stole some time for myself. I am not going to get very painterly on this one as it is more of a graphic sort of design, but I do want to have the wahine have some shadow and tone to stand out. Not entirely pleased with the kerning on the lettering, but being hand painted I guess it's not too bad. I will be putting the other "pumice" word on there after I trace the first one so it looks identical. "Kapakahi" means more or less messed up...or a not right situation from what I can gather so I thought it appropriate, and has a close enough sound to "Kellogs".

Hey tigertail777, its been days where's the update on your fun art piece. I'm waiting back to work! Wendy

Howdy Wendy, well I am gratified that you are watching my progress... but right now I am trying desperately to learn the ropes at my new job, most especially the software (Flexisign). My employer has been more than patient, but for some reason I can't seem to get a handle on some aspects of the job (especially all the math) so have been constantly worried about getting fired. There is one heck of a lot more to etching glass than meets the eye, it seems every aspect and step of the job is an art form unto itself. I have never been good at math so all this fractions into decimals/millimeters, X and Y axis coordinates etc is driving me quite insane and I have been having to do a lot of "catching up" homework at home.

Long story short: only one thing has been on my mind and taking up all my time...work.

However, I do need to take some time out for me before I truly go nutters so I will probably be working more on the painting this evening. God I could use a vacation in a tropical paradise right now so I guess painting one is the next best thing. :wink:

A bit of an update just for you Wendy and Dan. :wink: (and anyone else actually following along)

So I got some time to work a little more on the cereal box parody, it's getting close but not quite there yet. I am finding this one a little harder than I thought because I want to keep the stark graphic design sort of look to it that the original box has, so that means I can't get all "painterly" with all the shading details on a lot of it. The volcano on the original Puffa Puffa Rice box, is deceptively simple, but really quite detailed and ornate in its own way. Some parts of it such as the smoke and eruption have a painterly blending of colors, but most of the volcano itself is starkly elemental in shapes. I decided to go with something that is akin to an old animation cel: the shading is in single non-blended stages on most of it, except for little bits where it has a brushed or airbrushed feel like the smoke, which is exactly how you would do that for an animation cel. Originally I was going to make the pumice rocks coming out of the volcano black, but it didn't look right. After researching a bit I discovered that pumice stone can actually be a variety of colors including a yellowish wheat. I was also going to make the wahine more island authentic with a bit darker skin, but as I started on it I realized that she would have just blended into the volcano background. So I decided to keep her "peachy white", I guess she will be in good company with all the tiki bar matchbooks featuring white wahines I have seen over the years.

On another note: I was dumb and started painting on the flat panel without adding the sides since it is intended to be a deep "no frame" painting with the sides almost as big as the sides of a real cereal box. I found out putting on the sides AFTER is not a good idea. I hid nails OK, except when it is at a certain angle, but one corner part has a small splinter out of the wood (the right bottom corner of the volcano). It's really not very big, but if you look closely it is visible which kind of bothers me.

Here is the progress so far...

From the side showing the depth

Detail of the wahine

I want to paint the sides with all the nutrition information panels and all the authentic stuff from the real box, but am having a very hard time finding any clear pictures of the other parts of the box. All I can seem to find is the front and back. If anyone has some decent pictures of the box sides and box top/bottom I would be grateful if you could share them please.

Christmas went pretty well, we had a nice tree:

But I have been having a problem for several years off and on with a very bad ingrown toenail.I don't have any insurance and could not afford to see a podiatrist, so figured if it was gonna get done I would have to do it. Tonight I could not stand the pain of it any longer and performed some self surgery with an exacto knife and needle nose pliers. Below are my surgical tools, along with circled in red the main "root" I extracted from the toe (there was actually a lot more to the ingrown nail: it had three offshoots of sharp points about the thickness of a needle growing in three directions).

Here is the big bad toe, kinda inflamed. I had to use the exacto to actually "saw" away an entire edge of the toenail, then used needle nosed pliers to yank it out. I had to constantly keep it under running hot water to keep it soft enough to do all this. The pain was pretty intense, so after I was done I had to take some pain killers.

So, with one toe partly "de-clawed" this tiger is going to be hobbling around for a bit (again).

:lol: Thanks for the graphic do-it-yourself home surgery in a box tips :lol: Hope everything heals up well.

I'm no painter so I got lost in the technical mumbo-jumbo, but the progress is looking great. As far as nutritional information, that's a pretty recent development and probably wouldn't be found on a vintage cereal box.

Hang in there with the job, I know it will all click in place soon :)

Mike

Carve deeper.

:lol: I suppose I should have carved something tiki into the toenail while I was at it. :wink:

On 2011-12-28 04:00, Will carve wrote:
Carve deeper.

Hilarious!

On 2011-12-28 06:29, MadDogMike wrote:

On 2011-12-28 04:00, Will carve wrote:
Carve deeper.

Hilarious!

Ha! Good one will!

Nice cereal box Tiger!

tigertail777 put a set of the toe photos on the infirmary page under Ohana. If you suspect an infection go to a clinic and have it checked, please. I've seen too many minor toe infections move into the bone (osteomylitis)and I don't think you would want to do an amputation on your own.

You have done a wonderful painting with a technique I've never mastered. You certainly have mastered it. I think it is beautiful and interesting. You are very good.

Cheers and may your toe heal for the new year, Wendy

I am almost done with the Puffa Puffa parody, just a few more touch ups and then trying to do some screen captures of the videos of the old commercials on youtube to see if I can get a glimpse of the sides to get them painted. Plus I want to make and glue on wood cereal box "flaps" on the top of the box to give the impression of it being an open box of cereal.

I have had more time to work on this because my job I had didn't work out. I realize now after much contemplation that all the jobs I have ever had ended in much the same way; because I had great difficulty grasping concepts with a lot of steps, with numbers, or steps that vary. Leading me to look at the elephant in the room that has been staring at me for years. I am quite positive now I have some kind of learning disability. I suppose the first clue really should have been the fact I can't tell time on a regular clock, or read a ruler properly because the numbers get mixed up in my head. But all my life I have told my friends and family that I knew something was wrong, and they always would reassure me that everyone goes through this kind of thing, there is nothing wrong you will learn it. I suppose it is the stubborn mix of German and Irish in my family that we don't do anything about this kind of thing until it is quite plain we have no other recourse. Well, frankly I am tired of feeling like an idiot with each job I get because my brain does not go directly from point A to point B, but rather takes the scenic route. As an artist it is useful to jumble up unrelated objects and do out of the box sort of thinking, but when it comes to real life I am afraid that has proven to be a major stumbling block because my brain can't seem to shut off that sort of thinking and applies it to everything I see or do. In short, I seem to perceive and process things like no one else and when I need to do it in the normal way I cannot. I have lost dozens of jobs because of this despite being polite, punctual, easy to get along with, and communicative...everything from cashier to newspaper carrier. My brain is very slow in comprehending things, but once I have a routine down I can do it. In order to have and keep a job I need to know how to deal with this. I am looking into getting official testing done for learning disabilities as my first step.

I am telling you all of this because I consider many of you a sort of family, and to let you know why it takes so long for me to post things, and why it may get even longer. I need to have some kind of income I can rely on, and it is painfully obvious I am not good enough to make a living off of my art after trying to freelance as a graphic designer and illustrator for a couple years now (again the big stumbling block there has been my inability to understand a lot of computer software required for the work. In college I actually maxed out the number of tutors they would allow me to have per month, as a result I really don't think I got as much out of my degree as I should have.) If nothing else good came out of my latest job, it is the fact that I know I need to seek help to work with my brain and how it does things, the elephant in the room can no longer be ignored.

Now that I have that off my chest, on with the show...

Just a few more minor details such as the one hand, and the flower in her hair and I think (aside from the sides and above mentioned flaps) I will be done. This time I just went with straight acrylics and skipped the oils, which I think gives it that more printed graphic design look of a real cereal box. I even made a few elements slightly off register to mimic the cheap printing techniques that would have been used. Part of me wishes I could have actually shown the screen tone dots, but I suppose for a painting that would have been carrying things too far. The printed look is also why I added the white hi-lights to the wakine, normally for a painting I would not do that but it perfectly copies what would have to have been done in printing to make the product stand out on the shelf, and keep the colors separated enough to prevent trapping etc. I am not sure if the cardboard used in cereal boxes has a perfectly white printing side (maybe now they can do that, but I somehow doubt in the 50's/60's they could do it) so I am betting that if they wanted stark white in the design it would call for another plate with white ink, thus adding to the cost because it would no longer be four color printing. Plus the vivid green background would probably be a spot ink. I know they spent more than the usual often times in printing cereal boxes (and still do), so it is possible they could have done all those things and then saved some money by printing less colors on the back/sides. I don't know, but these are all things I contemplate when working on projects like this; exactly how it was done and what would be outside the bounds of what was conceivable. It makes for a more convincing final piece I think, and is naturally how my brain tends to work.

Now for a little bit of a close up on the shocked wahine..

It may or may not show, but I loosely based her pose on an old Betty Page photo I ran across in which Betty shows a playfully shocked pose when a freshly caught fish is pushed towards her. Her hair is also somewhat similar to Betty's, but also based on other time period "do's". I had to take a little artistic license with some of the coloring to darken the volcano background to make her stand out, which at first I was opposed to, because I really do not think they would have printed anything that dark for the time period, but as an overall painting it seems to work so begrudgingly I have come to like it.

Sorry for all the rambling about printing, as I said it's how my brain works: I have to understand all the steps of how something is done in order to closely examine the details and replicate them. I guess it will give you a bit of a peek into my jumbled thought processes.

Until next time, Aloha Tiki friends. :)

Dear tigertail777, as I was reading about your specific symptoms I was thinking how close they resemble what I've read of dyslexia. But then as I read your post and I see how well you describe what goes on with you and the fact you can type it out makes me think that maybe its not that either. I for one am super happy that you are seeking professional advice. The saying is that knowledge is power and having a diagnosis will set you on the right path to finding help in working around or through these problems. My heart goes out to you, never give up.

Your cereal box is wonderful and very fun to look at. You are very talented. I find a lot of joy in creating art and I see that you do too. So keep it up and best wishes for success, Wendy

VaVaVoom!!! Very nice Tiger. I like the idea of the open boxtop - I have always loved mixed media paintings with 3D elements added to them. Infinity ounces! :lol:

I'm sure that was a somewhat painful self-introspective, hang in there. The brain is a wonderfully complex marvel but they don't always work the same. Different people learn different ways, you will find the way that works for you. Like in so many things, admitting there is a problem is the first step to fixing it. Good luck in your journey.

tigertail......Piuffa Puffa is lookin SPANKIN!
Your dedication and enthusiasm are infectious!
As for your dyslexic-style thing....Hang tough!
One thing an artist is,it's resourceful!
Like Mike said,you will find YOUR way to shine and function!
If it weren't for all the "outside world" helpers in my life
nothing sold would get sent off,and i wouldn't have groceries
or clean clothes...to name just a few things...

There's a great book that may inspire and enlight you
it's called "Churchill's Black Dog and Kafka's Mice"by Anthony Storr
and it shows how,despite their shortcomings (Churchill-Depression/Kafka-existential insecurity/Newton-a self-punishing paranoid hypochondriac) these men were able to utilize these obstacles and achieve something great...
In fact,Storr argues that without these problems,they may have never contributed to History in the way that they did...

check it out-it may give you some encouragement...
there's other books out there that deal with Artists and Writers specifically
and they refer to a condition called cyclothymia,that a lot of creative types possess...

Being born this way isn't always a Pleasure Cruise,butthen again,not many folks are capable of bringing to life the things that we do...
Hang tough Art Brother,and avoid those meds!
wishing you well on the next phase of your development!
:)

Thanks guys for the encouragement and I'm sorry I have not put anything new up. Right now I have to admit my self esteem is pretty much in the toilet after what happened with my job. I had the Irlen testing done, and it seems I am a very good candidate for getting the special lens filters because I didn't realize it till now (I frankly thought it was normal) that it was abnormal when reading for letters to have glowing edges and to vibrate among other things. Trouble is those special glasses are $500.00 and there is no guarantee how much they will help. So needless to say I have been pounding the pavement for work again. I have done some non-tiki art just to scratch the art itch, and I will probably do some minor tiki stuff in a bit... but right now (and I really hate to sound so stupid about this) I am quite depressed. I know its one of those "darkest before the light" sort of things, but it is difficult dealing with it right now. So pardon the lack of poly pop/tiki whilst I try to get my shattered inner ego back in order. There will be new work soon I promise, even if it's just some small thing.