BeezleBug Mugs (Pg. 14: Paintings)

all I have to say is: WOW!

that lava sipper is looking incredible... cannot wait to see it finished...

impressive lab work on the ol' trash can kiln... have you used it yet? curious as to how it works for you...

peace,
Jason

Looks great. I love that texture near the hut, it would make good coral.

Thanks for the kind words.

Still building the kiln. Right now, I'm chiseling all the channels for the resistance wire. Hopefully, I'll have the first test fire by the end of June.

The little blob by the hut is supposed to be a bunch of trees or bushes. It does look like coral though. I might spend some more time making them plant-like.

I'm not saying you should change it! It looks cool, very interesting texture - could very well look like vegetation if it were green.

hahah .....another fournier convert....... you'll be forging in no time

Start of sipper mold make (top only)...

You and your 40 piece molds! :lol: Hope it all turns out good :) How's the new kiln?

Still finishing up the kiln... I had inadvertently coiled the resistance wire with incorrect coil lengths, so I had to make some design adjustments - d'oh! Ah well, I should be able to reinstall all the kiln bricks and wire next week.

More sipper top mold steps...

All the final mold pieces for the top (I know, too many!)...

The assembled mold. I had a hard time reassembling it while keeping all the pieces tight, so I had to add some Klean Klay to the edge seams...

The cast top sitting on top of the sculpted base. He lost some detail, but he's alive and well...

CRAZY!!!!!!! :D

Inspiration for future mugs. First the Pacific Arts show at LACMA...

Then the Tiki Ti bar...

Cast Sipper top, ready for firing...

Looking good, Beez.

Goodness - there goes another year... Been busy with my non-Tiki hobbies and career work...

Finally got back to the Volcano Sipper mug. Here's the first cast, ready for firing. It's about 10 inches tall and comes in three pieces. I'm not even going to mention how many mold pieces I wound up with - I lost count...

Likin the Volcano Sipper...
Conveys his HUGE stature....
like some big Tropical Legend ...
Can't wait to see how he ends up after a good glazin!
Nice Work!

Beezlebug's back!!! Let's see some glaze on that bad boy before life calls you away from TC again! :lol:

Wow your Mug is incredible! Can't wait to see it live in living color! How did your Kiln work out, I showed it to Craig, thought maybe he would make one for me. "No #^@$'+ way!" :lol: Never hurts to ask!

Ha-ha, yeah, I'd better be careful or I'll get distracted by something else...

Here's the guy who inspired the mug, out of my "Oceanic Mythology" book:

Need to do some glaze tests to work out the colors.

As for the kiln - woo - that was an interesting exercise. Some parts were easy, like cutting and channeling the brick. Some parts were horrible, like working out all the electrical math and winding the wire itself. I got hung up on the final assembly and never quite finished it. If I were to start over, I'd know what to do differently, but I'm not sure I want to put the time into it. So, back to firing at Aardvark Clay in Las Vegas for now.

Hi, I can't believe I've missed your thread. I sure could have used it when I began making molds. Your art is terrific. What kind of clay to do use to do your sculpts? I'm using low fire potters clay to hand build and Romo Clay to sculpt and mold. Nice to meet your thread, Wendy

Hi Wendy. Sorry for the late reply. I have a bad habit of disappearing from the forum as I deal with non-Tiki pursuits. In any case, I sculpt with cheap oil clay (plasticine). I often build the clay up over some type of non-clay base, like a can. I use the same clay to make the walls of my molds. I did try microcrystaline wax for one mug (Tiki Parade I"), which was great for small details.

I've decided to release a couple of my older "Tiki Parade I" mugs to the public. These were in my private collection, but I'm running out of shelf space! I'll add a post to the For Sale thread.

Volcano Sipper #1 painted, awaiting glaze fire...

Volcano Sipper 1:

Solomon 6:

These guys need a good home. See the Marketplace thread for details.

Will Do, excellent. Wendy

Those both turned out really well Bug That Sipper was far more complicated than anything I have the nerve to try :o

New mug design. I call him "Fish God." He'll be based on the Maori guy on the right.

Not Tiki, but slip-cast nonetheless...

Here are some awards I'm making for the Dam Short Film Festival, which I run as executive director. Our regular awards guy was unable to make the resin versions this year, so I thought - what the heck - I'll cast them. Here are the first three out of the 2-part mold. They're about 8-inches tall...

I'll be firing them in my new Paragon kiln (yay!), which will be arriving on Friday.

Here are the finished awards...bit of a rush, so they are all slightly different (which is kinda' cool)...they are cold-painted with metallic bronze acrylic and intentionally aged...

They were fired in my new kiln. It's a manual Paragon Firefly. It may be small, but it's just big enough to do the type of pieces I'm into. The infinite control switch and pyrometer were surprisingly easy to use. And, it only draws 13 amps, plugs into a standard outlet, and gets plenty hot enough for low-fire cone 06.

Nice looking awards Beezle, just make sure the presenters don't drop them on stage! Congrats on the new kiln, small kilns are great.

The awards will definitely not bounce.

New "Fish God" mug sculpt:

That would make a good mug for serving some fish-head soup! :D Nice looking sculpt!

Cool lookin mugs..

Thanks!

Yeah, fish head soup. That reminds me of the worst soup I ever had in northern Thailand. Snakehead fish soup. No heads, but it was greasy with a tomato base with green cauliflower - truly awful (although the locals liked it).

Once again, I'm veering off the Tiki reservation... Here's an early sculpt for some silicon rubber puppets for a feature film trailer I'm directing (https://www.facebook.com/BedbugsTheMovie). It's somewhat related because I'm using the casting techniques I've used for my mugs. Klean Klay sculpt and plaster mold. The eyes and teeth will eventually be added to the puppet as separate materials.

Those are CREEPY!

^ WhAT HE SAID.

Okay, back to Tiki...

The Mrs. gave me a set of little plastic kane and wahine figures for my birthday. Here's the result:

I call it a "Desktop Tropical Paradise."

It's made from a beachcombed mussel shell (fresh off the Pacific), sand, small rocks, plastic palm tress, and the figures. This one stands a mighty 4 inches tall. I made a few other variations, which I going to post on Etsy sometime soon.

Hi BB, this has a very vintage look, good job, Wendy

Love the trophies (got a little trophy project going on myself) thanks fer the inspiration, and that Maori is lookin to be beautiful!

Thanks everyone.

Once July hits, I'll be back to living in NV full-time (right now, it's L.A. and NV back-and-forth), so I'll have a chance to produce a lot more work with my new kiln. Can't wait!

Fish God #1...

Great glaze, I didn't realize it was unglazed red clay earlier. I see the teeth are back, what material and how did you decide to add them after the sculpt?

Fish God is slip cast. The original model was done in Klean Klay.

The original design had teeth at the top. They were too hard to cast, so I figured I would add another material. Luckily, I had a whole bag of beach glass leftover from another project.

Easier to see here:

[ Edited by: BeezleBug 2012-04-12 14:53 ]

Another slip-cast spin-off product: paperweight!

OK Bug, you're gonna have to explain that one to me

Little pile of seashells with Oceanic designs? Heavy enough to be a paperweight. Dunno. Just messing around with different casting techniques.

:lol: OK, works for me :)