Art Swap 2024 Witco - Drawing Done!

Great inspiration Hamo!

Brushed a bit of black underglaze on my fountain, wiped some of it off, and a bit of light sanding. Could go in the kiln as early as this evening.

GROG give thumbs up, if GROG had opposable thumbs.

LOL GROG!

Out of the kiln without incident! I have a few finish options that I've come up with. What do you think?

#1 Unglazed on the outside. I like the look of old, aged wood. Then just glaze the inside to make it food safe.

#2 Glazed on the outside. This is wet with water, actual glaze would be glossier.

#3 Glazed only in the bowls to look like they are wet. Again, real glaze will be more glossy.

#4 Bowls glazed blue to represent water

GROG vote for #3 Glazed only in the bowls to look like they are wet. BUt, GROG not opposed to glazing the whole thing to make it darker and bring out the contrast. You could thin out your glaze so it's not TOTALLY glossy, but I'd do test samples first to determine how thin to make your glaze.

MadDogMike too impatient to do test tiles LOL

I have not tried that watering down technique. I may need to actually do some test tiles. I had a clear satin glaze but wasn't too happy with it. It tended to fire milky in places. Thanks GROG

Is that low or high fire Mike?

hang10tiki 7/21/24 is 20 days away!!! MadDogMike that's beautiful as is. Hamo and Swizzle love seeing your names pop up.

Time to reveal some more step by steps on my Witco Fountain painting. I did four layers and then highlighted the curve. While painting a show on Pompeii was on. They uncovered a painting.

The Pompeii had a piece that reminded me of parts of the Witco I was painting.

The first painting of Pizza ever found in antiquity.

Swizzle it's a high fire clay fire at ^04.
danlovestikis coming along quite swimmingly!
David Ray contacted me through Facebook. He had swapped with us while TC was dark and is interested in this year's Swap. Hopefully we'll see something from him soon

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2024-07-01 08:15:33 ]

It's July 1st, 21 more days! Here's our lineup as of now
Will carve - Done?
anthonymaye - Done
MadDogMike - Almost done
Or Got Rum? - Started
danlovestikis - Started
hang10tiki - Started
Hamo - Started
Slacks Ferret - Interested
David Ray - Interested

So we have 9 potentials, that's a decent start

Joshua Bell will not be joining us this year and I hear rumors that Cy will not either, both have other things going on in their lives. I have reached out to some of the others via FaceBook, we'll see if I hear from them

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2024-07-01 08:30:53 ]

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2024-07-01 08:48:28 ]

Mad Dog #3 Wendy- go go go

I’ll update soon. I hope

Not quite sure what you mean by highfire ^04 (earthenware or stoneware?), but the reason why i asked is because there's a particular glaze that is designed to pool in the bottom of bowls which from memory cracks but looks like water and would be perfect for your design. I just can't remember who makes it or what cone it fires to.

Hmmmm.. I know there are crackle glazes, I wonder if that's it? It's a high fire clay but it's low fired (I haven't had any problems with that technique) I wanted to use brown clay for this project but couldn't find any lowfire brown.

Well, I'm done!

MadDogMike that's a wonderful work of tiki art. Super cool.

I have finished my piece. Title: Witco on Edge. The stars actually sparkle as you walk across the room looking at the painting. I put more steps on my "other crafts" page but this is enough for here.

Taken with a flash.

Excellent Work Mike and Wendy...Bravo. I'm on the home stretch of my version of what an early 60's Witco ad could have looked like.

Wow

Great minds think alike

Good job you two

Or Got Rum? An early 60's Witco ad sounds really intriguing.

hang10tiki thank you for thinking we have great minds!

I tweaked the painting. I noticed I was missing the design on the bottom left when looking at MadDogMike's mug.

[ Edited by danlovestikis on 2024-07-04 21:53:49 ]

Alohaaaaa. Okay I'm late- after Mad Dog and Wendy reaching out but would love to join in.

Years ago I had found an almost instructional brochure re: Witco chainsaw carving and thought I had saved it on a computer. It was probably three or four computers ago and looks like i'm up a certain creek without a paddle. Anthony, I love the bat sculpt, Mad Dog & Wendy, fantastic work as always!

I'm torn a few different ways but work is slow this week so I may do some test work to see which direction I will go. Unfortunately no more kiln access- or time- to work in clay.

It might be time to get a chainsaw to approach this correctly- or it might just help me learn how to juggle. (Original Calvin & Hobbes cartoon below to "get" this reference).

Look forward to seeing all of the other entries (and mine as well)!

[ Edited by TikiAno on 2024-07-05 17:25:05 ]

danlovestikis I am so glad you fixed that error, it was bugging me but I didn't know how to tell you. Just kidding LOL I hadn't noticed :D

Go TikiAno, Go!

Yes, It's in my mind what an ad would have looked like.

OK, finally got my carving station set up, my wife said it looks like one of Dexter’s rooms

lol

Time to get rolling on the carving

I like it! A clean room so that the dust from the rest of the house does not get on your carvings!!!

Mike- I like the way u think

Was deciding on three, going with this one

:D

Looking good hang10tiki. Pretty soon the countdown in days will start.

hang10tiki you carve like I paint. Great minds think alike.

:-)

Great work, Mike and Wendy. Go H10 and Or Got Rum?! And glad to see you make an appearance, TikiAno!

I forgot that this year's deadline is July 21, so I'd better get going.

I won't have enough time to carve that unfinished frame I mentioned earlier, but I went digging through my collection of other thrifted frames and found this one that works really well.

Traced my inspiration piece so I could transfer it to the linoleum. On to carving next.

Looking good Hang10Tiki and Hamo
I think we're down to 10 days!

Go Hamo go

Lil more

Man it’s hot out

Hang10, looking great- and so clean!

Hamo, killer idea and moving forward.

My brain has been going six ways at once- I still haven't started with my hands.

Initially I was going to make a smaller Witco World map, perhaps with some TC influence in there... but then I started looking for this book

And then, by some divine providence and a very generous person in a FB Witco group, I received a pdf of this out of print gem. So, as I flip through it (more research to be done), I'm thinking I might just follow the (original) directions to see what I can make. For fun and not so much profit.

I'm excited TikiAno!

That resource is super cool.

Did some carving this evening. Added some red printing ink (would have been a bit better if it was India ink) and a black Sharpie to add contrast so I could see what I was removing.

A preview of the final product

Hamo looks great!

From looking through the original Witco "How To" book, I decided to follow the directions and try to chainsaw up something as per instructions. (Spoiler, I'm not that great with a chainsaw (though I read that they suggested counterweighting a chainsaw as a way to handle it more easily in the book which sounds like something Mad Dog would certainly do- and do very well. Though I worked as a rigger in film production for many years in the past, I had no block & falls/ pulleys around, and it seemed like way too much work in the middle of the day when I should have actually been working. But, I digress....

This was the "Primitive Mask" I was trying to replicate...

The initial design was to use a 36" long piece of 2x10, but I figured that would be a bear to mail, so I used a piece of 2x6 I had. First I tried to freehand the design but then for accuracy I printed out a copy to size and traced it on (somehow my carbon sheets are missing, which would have been a whole lot faster and more accurate....)

The book has pretty specific details. Here are some pages that I printed out to work from....

Is this cheating for Art Swap? I'm not sure but I was/ am going for authenticity direct from the Westenhaver's mouth and am intrigued by the process...

I sharpied the lines out, and did a few test chainsaw drops. I knew control was going to be an issue....

(this is a huge understatement)

I dropped in a few lines, but finer detail was tough (I admit to being used to a small router bit) and it was pretty frustrating, even after practicing a bit. I tried to dig out the mouth area (shown in above pic) but found it tough to get it as even as I had wanted- though it was "primitive" I didn't want anyone to bleed while handling...

So, I grabbed the router, went deeper than I would normally go to simulate the chainsaw cut.

I re-routed a bit in the mouth area but decided to leave it 'rough.' Wire brushed it afterwards, need to wire brush some more, then will burn and stain. Just noticed that I need to remove some other sections of wood and will do this tomorrow. Thanks for looking.

[ Edited by TikiAno on 2024-07-12 15:47:47 ]

Fine, Fine Work All....

Hamo, hang10tiki, Tiki Ano the old timers are whipping these out. Great work men. 7/21/24 is almost here.

Carved more, burned it- then noticed some bad cuts so "edited" a bit then wire brushed the heck out of it. Need to do some sanding to repair some poor marksmanship, then locate my stains, but that should be next up. Thanks for looking.

[ Edited by TikiAno on 2024-07-13 17:52:19 ]

Looking good everyone

Tiki Ano- ya made me cringe when I saw toes and a chainsaw in the same photo!!!

Hamo, looking good!
TikiAno, I like where this is going. Looks very authentic. I have a chainsaw product for one of these days, I'll remember about that counterweight.
A little late for inspiration but I saw this video.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/774685738181733?s=yWDuG2&fs=e&mibextid=Nif5oz.
You can't see it without a FB account but here's a couple screen captures.

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2024-07-13 22:06:40 ]

Great video 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

About 5 days left, here's where we are -

Will carve - Done
anthonymaye - Done
MadDogMike - Done
Or Got Rum? - Done
danlovestikis - Done
hang10tiki - Done
Hamo - Done
TikiAno - So close to done he can taste it!
David Ray - Done
Slacks Ferret - Interested but haven't heard anything

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2024-07-19 21:49:21 ]

Mad Dog, that video is very impressive. I shouldn't have watched, now I feel terrible about my hack chainsaw work.

Hang10, I have ten toes, so no worries there. Well, I HAD ten toes. Now you can call me Hang8.4 or so....

My stains are hiding out from me, so it looks like I have to buy some more tomorrow after work....

I'm done.

I carved those a few years ago as I was preparing for the carve class.

I've been done for a few days..after @37 hours...hard grabbing a good scan as it's 12x17. It is a little sharper than this. It will be in a new plain Black frame...My interpretation of what an illustrated WITCO advertisement may have looked like in the early 60's...Thanks to Ken's website for the masks and logo design. This was fun, thanks.

[ Edited by Or Got Rum? on 2024-07-17 16:44:38 ]

[ Edited by Or Got Rum? on 2024-07-18 09:58:07 ]

TikiAno I think we all look like hacks next to that video sculptor!
Or Got Rum? that's amazing! I think you need to send an image of that to Ken and Heather!
I updated the list.

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2024-07-17 16:42:29 ]