Tonga Hut BOWL-O-RAMA 2 Art Show & Parking Lot Sale Sunday, June 30! The Zip Guns! Tiki Bowls! Fun!

Thanks Hang10. GROG thirsty, too. Going to make a banana smoothy for breakfast. :D

GROG consider this current bowl practice for making The Virgin Sacrifice Bowl ,and the Pele Bowl. GROG have ideas for these bowls YEARS ago, but they never got past the initial rough drawing. Hiphipahula and Trader Tom even came up with drink recipes for these bowls which GROG will include with the bowls.

GROG has done some bowls in the past as practice for making these bowls, which is where GROG came up with the technique for adding clay rocks to make the Volcano. GROG had never tried adding slip to make the Lava flows until this current bowl GROG is making. (The bowls below are already long gone to new homes years ago. They are not for this show).

Maybe GROG will make the VIRGIN SACRIFICE BOWL and the PELE BOWL for the next Bowlarama show if Tobunga does another one next year.

Those two bowls are great Ernie.

Keep makin, we need to leave our creations behind and be the next, "Crypto-Mugs. Do these legends exist and who has them?"

This could be and will be you one day.

"There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, were not here anymore."

I like what you're doing!

Thanks guys. You're too kind.

GROG it's so much fun to watch you work. Wendy

Thanks Wendy. GROG enjoy watching your process too, even if GROG doesn't always comment when GROG check in..

GROG did bisque fire yesterday and for some reason the bowl didn't blow up. It's been a LONG time since GROG fire the kiln, and it wasn't working right at first. GROG was going to "candle" the bowls----you fire them for a number of hours at a real low temperature to drive out all the moisture before you begin the firing cycle. But, for some reason, the upper section (where the "Volcano" bowl was) went up to red hot even though it was set on low. GROG turn it off and turn it back on, then it started firing correctly. So GROG got cracks in the Volcano bowl, either because it went up in temp too quick, or it was going to crack anyway. GROG could cover them with glaze and they'd be OK, but GROG going to go ahead and fill the cracks with paperclay and refire. That's only going to give GROG a few weekends to do glaze, and glaze fix fires. I't going to be close.
GROG didn't want to just fire three bowls in the kiln, so GROG had some Disney figures that were greenware that had been cleaned that GROG fire, too.

Small cracks in the bowl.

Cracks in the lava to be fixed.

Looking forward to the finished bowl.

Me too. :)

So, GROG take the paperclay and water it down a bit and brush it into the cracks.

Timothy the mouse had a crack too, so he got the paperclay treatment.

And GROG use paperclay to attach all the Moais together. When it's pretty dry and handleable, then GROG will attach the bowl on top.

Wow this has been a fun thread to read and great seeing progress picks!
been busy with shop set up and organization but managed to snap some pics of my progress so far on elements for my piece for the show.
Kampai!

Woohoo! GROG was hoping more artists would post. That's some awesome stuff there, Mr. Otica.

Wowie wow wow

Attached the Moais, and then the bowl with paperclay.

[ Edited by: GROG 2019-06-06 00:03 ]

I see you assembled it directly onto the kiln shelf. Obviously that will come apart in your hands if you try to lift it as is. Caveman smarter than he looks.

Thanks Swiz. GROG want the part where the bowl attach to the top of the Moais to be small, so GROG knew that part would be fragile until fired. Glaze will help reinforce it.

Nice job Swizzers. Is that your bowl for the event? I wish mine was done. This is how things went this weekend.

Put black underglaze on the rocky parts. (fires at cone 04 which is a bisque fire)

And put yellow underglaze on the lava parts. The plan is to put a black crackle glaze at the bottom of the lava to make it look like the lava is cooling down at the bottom.

Put a blue underglaze on the Wangaroan bowl.

Wiped it off to bring out the wood grain. Going to put a semitransparent blue glaze over the whole thing for the glaze fire next round.

The bottom shelf in the kiln. Cleaned some S&P Moais that were greenware I had sitting around to help fill the kiln, and some more Disney figurines.

These two bowls took up the top shelf, and did another Cone04 bisque fire. The kiln turned off about 8 PM, so GROG open kiln in the morning when it has cooled.

Out of the kiln.

Wangaroan Bowl came out fine.

Bowl attached fine to Moais.

On the Volcano Bowl ---Yellow underglaze is chipping off. Black underglaze is fine. Going to have to chip off all the yellow underglaze GROG can, and then glaze over it.

Great bowl, Swiz.

Love how yours are shaping up, GROG, especially the Wangaroan.

Eric, any Zombie Village bowl update?

This is one the best current threads here.

Tired of looking at GROG' crap.

Recap of the bowls we've seen so far:

MadDogMike:

three shrunken explorer heads (without pony tails) form the base for a bowl made from one of their pith helmets.


Baldwin, one of the three intrepid explorers.

GROG love the concept.

Wendy--Danlovestikis:

This is when I saw a very long crack.

The bowl is a total loss.

GROG say--- Hey, if it's not cracked inside, and it doesn't leak---it's fine. You can't see the bottom when it's full of a nice tiki drink.

Eric October--Tobunga

It's based on the menu for Zombie Village in Oakland.

Another great idea!

OceaOtica:

The Master Casster!!

Swizzle:

When he's not arguing with Tikiskip, Swizz knocks out some really nice tiki art.

Great stuff!
And great overview Grog.

These will be the bowls people look for long after we are dead.

And when Tikiskip went to the Kahiki we would never fight, well there was that one fight between the bartenders but he was a new guy who just did not get it.
But anyway, at the Kahiki where Tikiskip drank often it was always a good time surrounded by friends.

The kahiki also had tiki drink bowls.

Ripping on ol Tikiskip can get you a seat at the cool table it is the in thing to do right now, but then in the end the cool table kicks you out because they never did really like you.

It's so much fun to see the show coming together. I just wish my bowl hadn't cracked. Next year I will be prepared and will have more to offer for the show.

Great work men. GROG. I found that if I paint on the under-glaze while the bisque is very wet it sticks better. Best Wishes for a good outcome.

Wendy

I'm working on mine slowly, but I'm running out of time. Seems to be too many projects and not enough time :lol:

I got my second intrepid explorer done, his name is Toothsome (he's been cleaned up since this picture).

Now I need to work on Curly next. Baldwin, Toothsome, and Curly all signed up for the 6 week Sepik River Cruise sponsored by the London Explorer's Club. They wanted to meet the headhunter tribes, they just didn't know how badly the headhunters wanted to meet them! :o

I've got a plan for the pith helmet, need to get crackin'. I'm also a bit concerned that this bowl is going to be too big for my 9x11 kiln. We will see.

Excellent

Nice job Swizzers.

Whoops! One less bowl for the Bowl show. GROG was dremelling some rough areas between the Moais and wasn't being careful enough when handling the bowl. Luckily, the bowl and none of the Moais broke, so GROG can eventually clean them up with the dremel and reattach them with paperclay. But, GROG probably not have enough time to do that before the Bowlarama show.

Got all the flaky yellow underglaze GROG could off the bowl. A little dremelling to smooth out what underglaze wouldn't come off. Then did a different yellow underglaze, and a different black that's hopefully a little darker. The lighter areas are drier.Hopefully GROG can get some more greenware cleaned and some S&P Moais underglazed to do another cone 04 bisque fire Sunday eve.

GROG miss Tiki-Kate

[ Edited by: GROG 2019-06-16 00:39 ]

So after being so careful and assembling the bowl directly on the shelf in order to not damage it, you screw it up afterwards. :lol: Sorry to see that GROG. At least all the pieces are salvageable so it's not a complete loss.

The other bowl is looking great.

Thanks Swiz. The bowl is in kiln burning right now along with some S&P Moais GROG underglazed.

Bowl is out along with S&P Moais. Yellow still cracked on the lava. Seems like the yellow underglaze works best when you put it on greenware. I'll be putting yellow and red glazes over the top for the glaze fire, so hopefully it'll turn out OK in the end. Three coats for each color and you get glaze skips, cracks, and runs----this why GROG hate glazing.

Oh No! GROG you are showing horror stories. My bowl cracks and now it's become contagious. I'm so sorry. Wendy

I feel your pain GROG. I hate glazing too for those very reasons. You spend so much time glazing only to open the kiln to disappointment.

I'll be firing my kiln a little later today. Three of the pieces in there are ones i had to touch up because i wasn't happy with them but who knows if they'll come out looking better or not or will have to go in again. Then there's the other pieces in there with them being glaze fired for the first time. How many of those will have to go back in again?

The bowl looks great otherwise. The cracks actually suit it although obviously because they are flaking and not flat to the surface that's not ideal. I personally would try filling the cracks with actual glaze (red or orange) and see if that 'pulls' it together. Good luck.

Aloha Everbody! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been so freakin' busy for weeks and weeks!

Some amazing developments happening on this thread. GROG, great to follow the ceramic journey of your pieces for the show!

I've finally had a chance to undergalze the Zombie Village bowl, and I've also underglazed my second bowl for the show - a Giant Squid, complete with doomed ship (that doubles as a fire chamber)!

Fingers crossed the survive they first firing, and then on to glazing!

See everybody at the Hut on the 30th!

http://ericoctober.com

[ Edited by: tobunga 2019-06-20 00:50 ]

Can't wait to see these two bowls, awesome!

You know it takes so much time to learn how to do anything and then when you learn you need to keep doing it and we find we get better and better.

I know you know all what you are doing by the way, but it kinda kills me when people want to have you tell them in 10 mins how to do what took you YEARS to learn and figure out.
Would love to do this but looks like a huge learning curve.

But the glaze thing seams to be one of those more tricky things, some people really can knock it out of the park.

Frankoma, Crazy Al Those are just two that come to mind there are many others on here.

Good luck on your firing's.

MuchO AwesomeO TOBUNGA dude! GROG hope the fire goes well and everything comes out great. Fun stuff.

Yep Skipper, all art has it's challenges and learning curves, but it's also experimental, so you try new things and see if they work, or do something by accident and get an unexpected result--good or bad. That's half the fun.The problem with the yellow underglaze flaking was because GROG put it on bisque. It says on the bottle you can apply to greenware or bisque, but it usually adheres better to greenware. Hopefully GROG can fix it all in the glazing stage.

Wendy, no need to apologize. Your bowl cracking had nothing to do with GROG being an idiot. Everything would have gone much smoother if GROG had started from scratch instead of using an old bowl that had been sitting around for so long. Even though GROG had used lots of water, the different clays and slip used on the bowl had different amounts of water in them and dried at different speeds causing the bowl to crack, so GROG started off on the wrong foot by being lazy and trying to take a shortcut.

Thanks for the encouragement Swiz. We'll see how things look after glazing and firing this weekend.

[ Edited by: GROG 2019-06-20 10:15 ]

Love both bowls, Eric! I hope everyone's pieces make it through the final firings. Wish I could make it to the Hut on the 30th, but this thread is the next best thing.

GROG been there done that and had the same thing happen.

Eric October those are both exquisite!

Wendy

awesome seeing all the progress! sad to see some breakage, but hopefully they can all be made into planters or some other useable art.
my piece is finished for the show, will get packed up and shipped out the beginning of next week. will post a pic of the bowl on its stand next week.
Kampai!

bowl base has an about a 2ft x 2ft footprint, is constructed of pine, with lava constructed from Famowood Glaze Coat Bartop resin, base has cork waterproofed with eco friendly Rain Guard waterproofer, the Moai are cone 5 ceramic so the base itself can be cleaned with any bartop approved cleaners or soap and water.

Good luck to the rest of the artists working on getting their pieces done for the show!! I am hoping this becomes a yearly group show. its been some crazy long hours the last couple of weeks getting the base finished but so enjoyable!

http://www.junkhaulerarts.com

[ Edited by: OceaOtica 2019-06-22 11:19 ]

GO BIG or GO HOME!!! Damn Cass, that's muy awesome!

Stuff goes in the kiln on Sunday.

Wangaroan bowl got semitransparent blue glaze.

Yellow and red glaze on the lava.

Semitransparent red glaze on the lava.

Black crackle glaze at the base of the lava to make it look like the lava is cooling.

Looking great men. Wendy

Thanks Wendy.

GROG' crap went into kiln this morning. Sitting on table, waiting to go in.

Bottom level was Ape Mug AP's. Some that need glaze fixes and some that were in progress and had been sitting around until GROG had enough pieces to fill the kiln.

They are part of the final LAST two batches of Ape mugs left, and they will FINALLY be out of GROG' hair.

2nd shelf was short stuff. The Wangaroan bowl, some Bob shots and the Moai S&Ps.

The Bob shots have been sitting around in the garage.over a year covered in plastic with the Ape mugs waiting to be fired.

The top level.

Candled the kiln a couple of hours to dry out the glazes before starting the fire. The kiln shut off about 7:30 this evening, so the ceramics should be cooled by Monday morning and ready to come out.

Out of the kiln.

Hated the the white glaze with a pink face on this BOB, so I sprayed "Royal Ruby" semitransparent
glaze on him and it's better now. Calling it "Ruby Bob" or maybe "Royal Bob".
Could call it "Blushing Bob" since his face is pink.

The Wangaroan Bowl is really blue! GROG put the semitransparent blue glaze on with a brush,
so it's inconsistent, but not bad. May spray another coat on it and refire to make the glaze a bit more consistent.

The Volcano Bowl is getting close. The black area needs some touch ups in some light areas,
and the lava needs a coat of clear glaze, but it's not looking too bad.

GROG thought the crackle would break up into bigger pieces, but it works as is.

Hopefully, one more round of glaze fixes and one more fire and it will be ready to go.

[ Edited by: GROG 2019-06-25 07:07 ]

Ernie, I love that volcano bowl, very nice.

Thanks Hilda. :D

That Volcano Bowl is so original!

Good to see the volcano bowl survived and the cracks were fixed with the glaze GROG. Are you going to add more yellow? The red ended up covering a lot of it but it still looks great.

So far i've only posted a couple of teaser pics. Here's one of the entire piece. Enjoy the show everyone who is going. I wish i could be there.

Great updates, gents.