MadDog Mike's Platterful of Pupule - El Tiki/Ben Wilson Wall Finished

Very nice bruddah...

Love the braided grass band around the hair. They are all great, Wendy

Hey Mike!

Just took a gander at your recent pieces... The Barrel mug and Sea Snake mug are fantastic! Both great ideas with impeccable execution! (and I'm a sucker for tentacles)

The El Tiki mugs are great too! I like all of the different glazes.

The Li'l Losers (love that name!) are so cool! an you can do endless variations too!

Thanks for posting and keeping us inspired!

Mike, they look great! (and love the names, too). :)

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Dale, Tiger, Jon, Wendy, Eric, Dave & Lance - thank you very much :)

After a long, slow drying period John Frum survived firing :D He has some cracks on the inside where the bottom joins the sides but they are not structural and the glaze will help cover them. One of the dogtag chain beads got lost during drying, I replaced it with some paperclay and Magic Mender. Next to start glazing.

I need one more Lil Loser to complete my set ~ I think I'll do Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. With flowers in her hair and maybe big red lips.

Working on a couple more projects for the Headhunter Harbor. First is going to be a mosaic table. He's a cute little guy I nabbed from the internet.



It will dry weighted between 2 pieces of plasterboard so that hopefully it dries without warping.

The second project is something new for me. I bought some decal sheets that are fired on to glazed ceramic. You print them in laser printer, the toner contains iron oxide which fuses with the glaze and makes a sepia colored image. The plan is to put them on some dollar store plates. $30 for 10 sheets is $3 per sheet, but I was able to print 15 decals on a sheet so that's not bad.

I will keep you posted on results

Yay John Frum!

I'm so glad to hear Mr. Frum made it through the first firing. :)

I can't wait to see what the plates look like. Exciting new project. WOOHOO!!

Dale

Hey Mikey, I like it....

Jon

Love your thread, Wendy

See? I knew you could save Frum's bum. :wink:

I really like your tile pieces like you did on the benches previously. I am excited to see what you do with the shrunken head.

Friends, thank you so much for your support ~ you always make me smile.

The decal experiment worked out great, very nice product called Fired-On Images MS. I got mine from New Mexico Clay (their website is having a problem this morning so I can't post a link, I'll fix that later) More info at http://www.fired-on.com Nice iron oxide coloring, picks up every detail. Seems to be permanent, it would not scratch off with my fingernail. Foodsafe, easy to use, etc. Says it works on glass too but would have to be fired, not sure how that would work out?

The decals have limited use for a sculptor but they would be great for adding your logo to the bottom of your pieces. A bowl, a dinner plate, and a salad plate from the dollar store along with about 25 cents worth of decal paper makes a cool custom place setting for $3.25 I suppose you could add a graphic to some fancy Pottery Barn plates or even your grandmother's Noritake china, but you might want to test fire one first :D

Before firing

After firing

(the part missing from the left of the first "H" was not a product flaw, I cut that off when cutting out the decal)

That's awesome, Mike!

Mike, very cool. I've looked at those decal sheets before, thanks for testing them out for me. :wink: Looks perfect, and I can't wait to see the mosaic table come together... literally. Thanks for posting.

WOOHOO! Another successful experiment from Mike. Love those decals and the finished product looks wonderful.

Looking forward to the mosaic table. You have done some in the past and it turned out great. This one should be a lot of fun.

Dale

Your creativity never ceases to amaze me! I love your headhunter dinnerware. Way cool. Now I need to think of an application for this. I'd love it on glasses but I guess those melt in the kiln since you can make slumped glass in the kiln..... I guess it depends how low of a temp you can fire the decals at.

I'm sure someone who knows WAY more about kilns/glass than I would know.

Very cool experiment!

MadDogDecals

Awesome

Wow MDM! You really are a Jack of all Trades. Nice work!

Is that a lightbulb on your Headhunter logo? Looks light a bulb with a face :)

I guess it must be a severed head? It looks cool either way.

[ Edited by: lunavideogames 2013-04-30 15:58 ]

Ceramics and decals and tiles . . . We may have to get you a beDazzler, just to see what happens.

On 2013-04-30 17:25, Professor G wrote:
Ceramics and decals and tiles . . . We may have to get you a beDazzler, just to see what happens.

BWAH HA HA HA HA

Scary thing is though, you know he'll figure out something to do with it!

I second every comment from above. That was just super. Wendy

Hale, Dale, Jon, & Wendy - Thank you so much for your kind words :)
TikiAno - Those decals worked real well, I fired 32 of them and they all turned out perfect. But I know you are using hi-fire, I'll have to look at the literature for maximum cone temp.
Lori - let me check the literature for you to see what the lower firing temp is. I figure for glass you would just start at the lowest temp and see what your results are. I would also put the glass in an unglazed ceramic bowl, then if it DOES melt, the bowl will contain it.
Greg & Heath - I'm afraid a BeDazzler might get me banned from TC like the gal with the glitter painted Tikis :D
LVG - Yes, that is a lightbulb in my logo to represent all the brilliant ideas I have. NOT REALLY!!! :lol: In my sign, it is more clearly identifiable as a skull but on the plates it does look a lot like a lightbulb.

Here's some Headhunter Harbor updates;

Finished the dinnerware

Finished John Frum

Still working on the mosaic table

The headhunter is all glazed and glued to the tabletop. Next is the tedious job of lining up all the glass tiles, cutting the partial tiles to size, and gluing them down. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the glass tiles are muted blues and greens with copper specks and streaks.

Fun.

Go Mike Go

Mike, looking awesome!

Big old smiley face!

Your plates are SO beautiful, Mike. I haven't seen Tiki plates before, but it seems like they should be all over the place after seeing yours.

GROG, Jon, ATP - thank you very much
Robb - good to have you drop by. Such an easy process, anyone with access to a kiln should have personalized dinnerware!

TikiAno & Lori - I re-read the literature and those decals will fire anywhere from Cone 018 to 1 but 1 don't see any high fire Cone 5-10. It says you can fire your piece to Cone 10, apply the decal and refire to Cone 1. Basically, if the image can be wiped off after firing it needs to be fired hotter. If the image fades with firing it needs to be fired cooler.

Next on the table mosaic. I figured out spacing on the glass tiles (Home Depot) so I can use whole tiles without a row of cut tiles along the sides. 17 or 18 tiles would fit, but 18 didn't leave much room for grout. I measured and marked lines, adjusted the spacing, and glued 4 lines of tiles directly to the table top tempered glass with E600 adhesive.

Next step will be to glue in all the whole tiles, lining them up straight in the grid. That part will go pretty quickly, then the more time consuming task of nipping all the incomplete tiles

It's time to break out the tile nippers, but not today :D

That table looks great MDM.

And i think i might see if i can get my hands on some of those decals. I found a place here that will make them for me but it's very expensive.

Mike, love the table. I looked up the decals and found the same news re: firing twice. I ended up carving (not so well) a logo onto a piece I originally was thinking about using a decal- especially after seeing your work, would have been a better choice! (That piece will hopefully get fired in a week or so).

Love the creativity of the tablescape, the glass tiles look great w/ Senor Headhunter!

U make the coolest stuff. That table is super cute. Wendy

Mike, everything you do is so fun and I love the dishware. The table came out great.

Mike ... Thanks for the decal demo, I always wondered how well that worked. Nice work and a good design. The table is super cool ... I did a couple of those years past and if you haven't grouted yet one idea I had was since it is a glass top with an edge you could pour clear resin over it instead. It works pretty good with a lamp under it. Mine did not last because I left it in a cabin in the winter and it cracked in the cold. Your clay work is so clever and you just let your imagination go wild. I like that .... Gene

Always love your work Mike, but I am especially fond of your tiles. I thought you were going to leave it as it was and just fill in the bits missing from the square "frame" around the head. It looked kind of like a bamboo frame with the head hair tied to the top and hanging from it to me. Just my imagination filling in the details I guess. :wink:

So is Headhunter harbor going to have a bunch of heads/skulls on bamboo poles all over the grounds? :lol:

Once again Mike you are really turning out a quality item. Love the mosaic and the soft blues in the tiles really makes the head in the middle pop.

Excellent!

Dale

Swizz - Those decals are pretty light, just paper. Maybe shipping from the US would not be too unreasonable? Let me know if you need some help shipping from this end.
TikiAno - Thanks. You can get a lot more fine detail with the decals than you can a carved in logo. But carving somehow seems more "artistic"
Wendy - See you soon! Started working on Dan's other mug :)
Hilda - Good to hear from you, love the way your hut is turning out!
Gene - Thank you. The table doesn't have a lip so resin wouldn't work as well. But grout will do fine. I live in the desert so cold isn't so much of a problem.
Tiger - I like your design idea of the frame. But the tabletop would be very uneven, guess I could glue all the tiles to the bottom of the glass? EDIT - probably no real shrunken heads on stakes. One, local law enforcement frowns on beheading the natives. And I bet they stink while curing :lol:
Dale - Thanks, I like those colors. I almost wish I had used something besides red for the hair tie, seems to me like it clashes a bit. A nice dark green or dark blue would have still provided contrast but fit in better.

Just about ready to grout it after the glue dries, maybe tomorrow.

These glass tiles were a bit of a pain in the butt ~ for some reason they didn't cut well. I would end up shattering 3 or 4 for every one I got cut. Fortunately they were reasonably priced and I got lots

Clay, the oldest and most divine art media;
"And now, from the clay of the ground, the Lord God formed man" Genesis 2:7
Pirate Ship Tree House

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2013-05-04 12:20 ]

Me's mad!!! MAD I TELL YOU!!!!

GROG, that's been often alleged but never proven :D

All done with the mosaic table. After a week or so I will seal the grout which will make the dark grey grout a bit closer to black. I'm having fun with this motif, expect more soon. "Anything worth doing, is worth doing to the point of wretched excess"

Wow your table is beautiful. What a great work of art.
Dan will be so excited about his mug on the way.
We are looking forward to the visit. Wendy

Wow your table is beautiful. What a great work of art.
Dan will be so excited about his mug on the way.
We are looking forward to the visit. Wendy

Oh No GROG it is contagious!

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2013-05-12 22:42 ]

Heh heh. Wendy double-post. GROG not only one with that affliction. Damned Tiki Central.

Nice job, MadDoggy.

Mike, were you by chance in San Diego this weekend? I saw posted (somewhere online) photos from "Gator by the Bay," the local Louisiana festival this weekend, and I saw a few ceramic crocodile pieces that looked suspiciously like your handiwork.... (in brown).

Hope all is well!

Wendy - thank you for your kind table compliments, see ya real soon!
TikiAno - I was on the road this weekend but went North to Palm Springs, not West to SD. I'm afraid I can't take credit for the brown gator by the bay. That was an e-bay mold so they could be anywhere. But most people are using it as a concrete mold, not for ceramic. TA I still have your green gator lurking on my deck. Any chance you are going to Tiki Caliente? If not, I'll track you down sometime in San Diego :)

That table looks great! You are amazingly clever.

MadDogRocks...

Thank you Lori
Jon, it was great to see you again, even for a brief moment.

Took a quick trip to Tiki Caliente Saturday afternoon for kind of a drive-by visit, didn't want to expose Teresa to too much craziness on her first tiki event :lol: Stayed for about 4 hour and got to say hello to some great people. I passed a couple of mugs on to Dan & Wendy (because they don't have NEAR enough mugs at home :D )

Surrounded by beautiful women, Wendy on the left and Teresa on the right.

I tried a new underglaze technique on this one and was happy with the way it turned out. I don't have much formal training in this art stuff and just make it up as I go. I always just assumed that underglaze was designed to go under the glaze. You can put a dark underglaze down first then a lighter transparent color over it and the underglaze will show through but the color will be muted by the glaze over it. This time I decided to try the opaque underglaze over the lighter transparent color. I glazed the mug first with a Butter Toffee brown and fired it then did black accents with underglaze and fired again. The underglaze didn't move or run, it was solid black instead of muted, and it is usually matte finish but picked up shine from the gloss glaze. I like it :)

Mike, the glaze combo looks great. Sorry I missed on heading out to TC, but look forward to meeting you at some point soon.