The Lurid low-brow Tiki-Art of Brad (tiki-shark) Parker

Aloha,
I found the "in progress" posts of other TC'ers art really inspirational, and extremely fun. I thought I'd post some shots of the latest "Mystic Tiki" painting I'm working on. Here it is in all it's gritty, and ugly stages... and on through completion. What do you think?
Here's the rough Sketch. A glowing shark ghost guarding a mysterious hut...

Here's the color rough. The idea is a warm light source vs a cool light source.

Here's the sketch translated to the 24" x 30" canvas.

and the sunset colors...

More coming soon... What do you think?

[ Edited by: Tiki Shark Art 2015-07-23 19:29 ]

Hey, here we are on some more stages. The Jungle and the ground.

Mid ground jungle...

Now we are getting to the fun part... the big mysterious lighted tiki in the foreground!

Here's where I made a stupid mistake. I get the big tiki painted, sort of half painted, but all the paint I mixed for his colors are gone! I didn't mix enough! Of course, when I try to mix that color again I can't get any where near it...

Sooooo I gotta mix new colors and repaint the whole tiki. However, this enable me to have him be a more mysterious blue, instead of the blue/gray.

And then here's some detail put on the big tiki. Not sure if it looks like wood grain or strange ghostly water light... I figured both were interesting.

Good idea? Hmmmm...
Final coming soon.

Hope this is some what entertaining. It is kind of like actually "watching paint dry"... just in the shape of a tiki painting. Okkeedookee, here is where it's gets kinda messed up.

So, I wasn't sure how to paint the glowing shark ghost. How many glowing sharks have I seen? Not too many. There was that time at Burning Man when I saw that glowing bull turn into Jabba the Hut. Or I thought did. Of course I had eaten a lot of browines and had drank that tea. But, I'm getting off topic... I try painting the shark blue, and keeping the penciled "detail" lines intack. But, it looks funny, and not very glowing.

Soooo I made the lines glow...

Well THAT don't look right. About then, Ken sent me an e-mail asking if the shark should be shinny or dull. So, I figure, yeah, I gotta get rid of the little lines - they only really make sense on a pencil or ink drawing, not a surface reflecting, or glowing, light.

And, Little Lost Tiki (Ken) had sent me in a better direction, the shark had to have some sort of real surface to read right. The idea of a glowing out line is cool, and pretty much still there, but it reads as a shark so much better.

Hey Brad!
Man! I had seen those few shots you sent via e-mail,but to see it all laid out on the thread is BOIHEMOTH!I do like the 2nd more mysterious blue and the wood grain/"water- but actually a path" reflection looks good too! the orange-hazel with the purples in the back looook goooooood! Almost like that's where the shark just got done visiting! Classic man! KEEP POSTING!
Great stuff! How BIG IZ IT?

Tiki Centralites,
So it's done. Here's a detail that I like. The hut with the weird light coming out the door, and the tiki-like fin head on the pole.

And here's the finished painting shot in a better light. Of course, the colors are a bit off, but it's close.

Thanks so much TC for letting me have a place to let it all hang out, art wise! It was scary and therapeutic to do this, I guess.
Mahalo!

Hey LLT,
Thanks for the good words man. I don't know if you know how much all your e-mail really got me through the parts where it was looking funky, but they did. Thanks! Its a 24" x 30" canvas. I almost thought I would go in and put light over the top of the shark's body - you know how light looks coming throught the surface of water... but it might creat a whole confusing "is he under water or what" thing. Or it might be over working the thing, and I had to get a few other deadlines at work caught up!
Mahalo for the inspiration!

That is really awesome! I could sit and stare into the colors forever.... No, LLT I didn't hit the cheeba! Is this painting bought?? Maholla Back! FBalls

FBalls,

Thanks! Nope, no one own it yet. I'm looking to see if I can talk Christian to letting me squeeze it into the art show that's moving from Tikis and Terrors II to the Spooky Luau.
~Tiki Shark

Thats awesome man! The colours are great, the idea is great! :)

Great step by step too!

Looking forward to seeing more, welcome to TC

You nailed it man!
"It wasn't the tiki that helped you surf,Bobby. it was you all along!" Remember that Brady Bunch episode?You nailed that shark! Did you make the foreground glow more or did the glow of the ghostshark just brighten it up! I kinda think you wanted him to glow all along-as you had prepared the big tiki for that long before sharkey was colorized! great piece? Final story and title on this? Grand pieces such as this always deserve a fitting narrative and dignified title! Sooooo, Freddie's on it already! Man, that guy can smell great art from 300 yards! (I heard he owns a Ruzic original and has a bunch of Squid stuff too!) He definetely needs a Brad Peter Parker original to make his collection complete! How did you get the Peter Parker thing? By chance or was your dad reading one of those old John Romita illustrated Spidermans from back in the day and.....just wondering! Glad you got over your lurking! Now gets cracking on the next! Mush!

Where the hell have you been hiding all this time?! This painting is off the hook! I've been into sharks even longer than tikis, growing up in Great White country as a kid. I've done a few stylised shark pieces, I even have a tiger shark jaw hanging in my carving studio, but never thought of combining it with tiki. Great idea! It's amazing how many things work within the tiki genre. I'd love a print of this if you produce any.
Kudos to Ken for helping you through the tough bits, and I really enjoyed your thorough explanation of the whole creative process on this piece.

Dude, you don't know how much GROG hate you. Everytime GROG feel like GROG has some smidgeon of talent, some motherf***er like you comes along and knocks GROG's dick-in-the-dirt.
Holy crap you do some awesome stuff.

Congratulations on the article in the last Tiki Magazine.

GROG already pissed about how good you are, now if you don't share more pics of your art, you're going to piss GROG off even more.

If anybody wants art supplies, just swing by GROG's house and check GROG's trash cans because GROG is throwing away all of GROG's art supplies.The bonfire in the backyard is all of GROG's artwork, so please don't call the fire department until it has sufficiently burned.

Great stuff! ( You bastard!)

This is some cool mojo going down right here !!! Tiki shark you are bedazzlin and hypnotyzin' us with your "ghost shark technique" Your Kung Fu is most humbling.

Chongolio

thats ripping style

Shark, your art rocks!!! I thought the shark looked cool with just the luminant electric lines going through him/her. Awesome entry! Keep em coming. Welcome to TC!!!

Mahalo

McTiki

Awesome work and great step by step pix! I was camping in Olympic natl. park on the WA coast one time and whenever we went near the site of an old Makah Indian longhouse that had been found buried under an ancient mudslide an albino deer would appear and stay around the site as long as we were there. My friend and I thought it was the spirit gaurdian. Although not a ghost shark, your painting reminds me of that deer.

Dude - I'm with grog - it's time for this tiki to rethink all that I thought I am. If that makes any sense. Really Great Work! So here are my questions - What size is the piece? What are you painting on?, What kind of paint?, Brushes or airbrush or both? As you block in each region of the sketch(line drawing) with paint how the hell do you keep it from looking like paint by number. I can see color gradients in the sky but can't see the steps between solid color and the gradient - is it a wetblend or transparent overlays of color. Just ignore me if I talk to much! Awesome painting!
signed, "lost in my art world"

Thanks every one for the kind words. Hewey, Paipo, Sleestak, Mctiki, Really really nice!
Grog, that is best and funniest complement I've ever received. Especially after I spent several minutes staring at the chrome Franken Maoi at Tikis and Terrors II - that's a fantastic piece!

Jpmartdog - it's 24" x 30", acrylic on canvas. Brushes ruined after I forgot to wash em out right. and, well, the pics may actually make it seem a bit more blended due to their low res. If you see it in person you'll get a better sense of the brush work, and color separation. I don't try for complete photorealism - I don't have the Patience. (or spare time).

Chongolio - Thanks! Hey Ken and I were talking about Hawaiian ghost stories, and the meaning of the ghost shark. I understand that an amakua is a family guardian nature spirit in Hawaiian culture. I suppose that's what the shark is. My friend Sam lives in Kaaawa on Oahu, and has lots of ghost stories! Like the time when he was younger, and he and a friend were pursued down an old dirt road one night, by a 7 foot tall pig-man with glowing red eyes!

Sneaky Tiki, that's a cool story! It reminds me of another Hawaiian ghost story. About 7 years ago, one full moon night, me and two friends jumped the chain ( it's closed at night) and walked up to the light house that's on that prominent point north of Honolulu, you know, past Diamond head? Anyways we get all the way up to the observation area at the top. It's a spectacular view. The night sky and the ocean blend together in an amazing breath taking view. Then, some THING flies past us. We all jumped out of our skins. We thought, hey was that a owl? A bat? None of us had had a good look, and couldn't tell what it was. It seemed so big. Really big. Man sized. No, it could not have been THAT big. Then, it flew past, much closer. To my eyes, it looked like an amorphous dragon like thing - writhing wildly, about the size of a horse! We yelled and made back down the path double quick. Each of us were saying things like "What the hell was that?" "Just a bat, right? A bat the size of a dodge!" "Do you see it back there? Is it following us?" "Was that as big as I thought it was?" We were all laughing by the time we got back to the car, but there was no way any of us were going up there again!

Anyways, I'm gittin' back to work. I'll post the next painting too, as I do it.
Thanks!
Mahalo!

[ Edited by: Tiki Shark Art 2006-09-28 18:20 ]

[ Edited by: Tiki Shark Art 2006-09-28 18:21 ]

I almost forgot to mention, that the ghost shark painting will be up for sale at my art show on Nov 19th in Toluca Lake California. I have a posting on the California events forum. Here's da address to dat thread...

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=20878&forum=17&0

Thanks~
Tiki Shark

That's a beauty- Nice work!!

man that shark is awsome man. i liked it through every one of your steps. great job with the glowing ghostly look

great stuff

Hey Brad!
Love the other work as well!
Especially this one!

It looks like a gift from Pele-a molten Pineapple! You can feel the cold air and the breeze,but you're not cold 'cause that hot-blooded pineapple is acting like a space heater! Great colors too!
That story you mentioned sounds like it could have been a few things.Do you know about Cryptozoology? It's the study of strange/rare/extinct/legendary animals from the point of view of speculation tempered with what we know from animal science. I've noticed that ,if you look at a globe and break it into horizontal bands-latitudes,I think,you'll find out that within those are certain climates(farther and closer to the equator).
Well I noticed that, for instance-Nessie, Ogopogo,Champy,are located around the same temperate band. Thunderlizards,Pteradons-sightings of those have been in our lower Southwest all the way down to South America...Hawaii, I believe is around that zone! Africa and South America has some weird stuff still hiding in the wild. Maybe you saw that! Check World Explorer Club-they put out a great mag (they have a compilation of a bunch of issues and a BIG article on Thunderbird-Lizards-Pteradons Vol1 No7 I can let you borrow mine!)
Here's the link to their site!
http://wexclub.com
the site's okay-the magazine is RAD!They have an HQ in Illinois, so I'd love to see that next I visit the Homeland... You may also want to check into the Julsrud/Acambaro figurines that were unearthed (about 50,000)
that show all the races plus bigfoots and pleisaurs(sp?) and human-dinosaur interaction...Strange stuff!. I could go on for hours! Researching stuff is another side-effect of my "condition."
And lastly, you may have seen a dragon. Here's a photo taken in 2004 by a gentleman flying over the Himalayans....

WTF,man,WTF? Wow! Glad there's still areas of mystery in this world! Why don't you paint or draw that thing you saw? Would like to see that! Mahalo TikiShark!

LLT,
Wow, neat photo! Dragons? You never know! Not sure what I saw. Glad you like the magic pineapple! I'll be sketching tomorrow, I'm almost caught up with my other work.
Tiki Shark

hey man

Just checking out your website - very nice man :)

LOVE the flaming skeleton tiki playing the spades on the drum!

I also realise you're the person responsilbe for the awesome black and white add I spied in Tiki Magazine with the lovely (but unimpressed looking) wahine being carried by a tiki - LOVED that very first time I saw it :)

Looking forward to seeing some more paintings :)

Brad,

Looking forward to seeing your show in November in Toluca Lake.

I'm Glad you like the Frankenmoai.I've still got to post some more photos of that baby all polished up.

Hey Ken,I'm willing to bet money that Bigfoot will be the first Cryptid proven real. http://www.bfro.net Too much evidence and too many sightings.

Ernie

WOW..now that's something nobody can copy..EXCELLENT !!

Thanks -
Here's that drummer. One of these days I'm going to finish the whole card deck.

What's funny is I was sketching for the next painting , and I found this older sketch for the ghost shark painting.

Guess the original idea was he's "swimming" through a bunch of Tikis.

Here's the sketch for the next painting.

Here it is transfered to a 24 x 30 canvas.

I made some changes as I transfered it. I added the lizard, cause Ken was talking about dragons - and I figured it'd be neat to add that kind of mojo into this somehow. Yeah, I know. It's looking alot like the last painting. Well, actually it sort of looks alot like the last several works. I had in mind that this would be a series called "mystic tikis", and that there would be 13 paintings in it. I'm trying not to over think it, but let it flow. Right now they are all about that dramatic under lighting on a tiki.

beautiful work, your use of shadowing and light is amazing, beautiful!

Amy

Thanks Queen Kamehameha!

Here's the color sketch.
I was going to have a brighter yellow orange lanky could in the sky again. But my friend the Puzzle Master (http://www.fools-errand.com/) rightly pointed out that in the last painting the yellow cloud fought for attention with the glowing shark. So, in this one the sky will be mostly purples, with some orange but no yellows. For the skull to really seem like it's glowing, it has to be the brightest object in the scene, or so the color theory goes.

Tiki Shark~

Hey Brad!
The colors look waaaaay cool! I'm a sucker for greens! This colorup looks pretty swell! How do you do those, they look computerized,or do you just layer the colors on top of one another on paper with paint? The yellow in the last piece didn't really distract from the shark, it almost continues the pathway's vibe.The sky on the first one had that drama of a sunset going down for the evening,and the white of the shark and him being in the foreground captured your attention right away! It's little details like that one never notices during, but after.Your artist instincts just take care of it! Can't wait to see how you progress on this one!

[ Edited by: little lost tiki 2006-10-01 20:51 ]

Those cards need to be finished pronto...you would sell a ton of them here. I'd buy 2 sets - one for the wall and one for play. Looking forward to progress on the new guy.

I just heard from Christian - Mystic tiki painting #4 (the Ghost Shark Painting) is going to be in the Spooky Luau art show this Oct 7th! It's first public showing and up for sale! I'll also put in some of my original production drawings of "The Creeper" from the film "Jeepers Creepers".
Tiki Shark ~

Yo, Shark...It sucks balls im not gonna be at the spooky luau, so I will probably miss out on the painting, but how bout hookin a daigo up with a original drawing of that skeleton 4 of clubs?? Keep the goodies rollin', Bro.. Its ALL lookin Good.

Freddi, sure, let me see whats in the old sketch book. I think that might be on tracing paper though. I'll let u know.
Slow start. Here's the sky started...

Hmmm those colors look not even close to the color sketch.
Oh well, more later alligators.
Tiki Shark~

Keen to see this one progress in "real time" :)

Hey Brad!
Faster! Faster! Don't worry about deviating from the colors,that's why painting's so fun! You make the rules! How boring is it to do a study and then do a painting EXACTLY like it? So now you can surprise us whilst surprising yourself! Can't wait to see your Ghost Shark Painting in the flesh!

Hey Brad.....Lil' Lost Tiki turned me on to your painting. I am in AWE. See you at the SpLuau!

Squid, thanks! I'm in awe of your sculpts!
Here's the sky, mostly filled in.

I'm going for that sunset that I saw last Friday. I was driving home, and the sky was all purple and orange.

The secret to Tiki Shark's paintings:

Detail:

Hey, I had a reeeally busy day at the Tiki Shark office, and then get on line and read this? Just what I needed - A good laugh! Thanks Grog. But, take a gander at this 1950's paint by number...

Not bad! More later 2 nite...
Tiki Shark~

Okay, I softened the BG clouds, and roughly filled in the "Snaky yellow/orange clouds (that I swore I wouldn't be putting in this painting. Sheesh!) It's a really really garish purple-orange-tropical-eye-bender of a sunset. It's overpowering the canvas, but, I think, when the dark blue/green foreground elements come it they will be strong enough to fight against it. (fingers crossed). (Nothing too subtle about this one, that's fer sure.)
~And It was all done while listening to coconut wired! I got so into them I listened to podcast #2 five times in a row! Thanks Chongolio ~ Uh Oh, sorry about the miss spelled name Chongolio!

[ Edited by: Tiki Shark Art 2006-10-06 12:00 ]

Bright is good :)

Here it is after I finished the clouds. I wanted to blur the sunset to help push it back. Then I roughed in the far palm trees.

Looks just like the sunsets we get here. Taken from our deck:

Looking real nice as usual Tikishark, hope you guys have a blast at the Spooky Luau!

[ Edited by: Paipo 2006-10-06 00:03 ]

Rad Sunset to both of you!
Brad! Looking Smart! Your canvas will balance with the darker foreground.Also placing colors opposite on the color wheel makes thing all shakey to your eyes(like when you're looking at water or fire) Make sure to carry some of the top colors into the dark foregrounds here and there(hi-lights kinda stuff) Maybe you could incorporate that lighting into the skull glow! It's looking soooo Rad! I'm stoked enough being able to see your work in person finally at the Spooky Luau! Rock on!

Dats all 2 nite. Hope to see some of you at the Spooky Luau tomorrow...

Hey TSA, really nice work. This is the first chance I've had to peruse the board for a while and what a pleasant surprise. You've got it down.