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

I thought that chicken had a portobella mushroom bra.
I thought that was brilliant.
Do mushrooms go with chicken?
What do I know?

Wishing you a Merry Christmas!
Cast:
Parents - Jenna & Ryan, daughter and son-in-law
Photographer - Teresa, wife
Gifts - Rachel & Natalie, step-daughters
"Mrs" Claus - Jeff, son
Kids - Tyler & Tanner, grandkids
Santa - Maddog Mike

That's a beautiful family. Wendy

Great card

Awesome (just saw this, a bit late)...

Matching lamp and mosaic for the Hawaiian Shirt Art Swap

Mike, love these.

The lamp is out standing.
Well thought out,unique &
one of a kind to say the least.

Awesome bro

Over the top great ideas and beautifully executed. Bravo, Wendy and Dan

Inspired by our reef trips off Oahu (and Catalina Island) last summer, a 3x5 foot ceramic fish hanging. The fishes and turtle were paper clay slabbed over a styrofoam form which burned up when fired. The "driftwood" is actually the opposite of driftwood - tumbleweed branch. This was a joint project with my wife and I, she sculpted and glazed the sea turtle and the sea horse. She is as talented as she is beautiful

Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

Garibaldi (Catalina)

Sea Amemome and Clown Fish

Moorish Idol

Nudibranch or Sea Slug

Green Sea Turtle

Threadfin Butterflyfish

Awesome you two

Mike,
Are you inspiring or contagious?

Maddog - Very creative. I really like the idea.

A cool combination piece guys, nice!

On 2015-02-18 05:20, Will carve wrote:
Mike,
Are you inspiring or contagious?

Ha ha ha!!!!

Loving The Fish Hanging Mike!! My mom in law makes something very similar using drift wood she finds and shells and always adds a nice netted float to the bottom too.. :)
Once I get some time I gotta look back and see all the great posts I've missed.. :wink:
Aloha

Thanks for the comments friends. Yes Will, I'm probably contagious! :lol:

I have been wanting to carve a Hei matau (fish hook) so I picked up some cow bone at PetCo and went to town with the Dremel. About 3 inches tall with Kumihimo braid lashing made from jute thread. I had some bone left over so I made a tiny hook (about ¾ inch) for catching anchovies :wink:

You are wonderful with precision twine roping. I liked your ship in a bottle on fb too! Wendy

Nice Mike!

Nice, you are so talented in every thing you do.

Not really! LOL The quarter is a jumbo 3 inch coin, the little hook is just a quick ceramic throw-away about 2 1/2 inches tall. The big hook is ceramic about 10 inches tall, it holds a macrame plant basket :wink: That was the first time I have done any macrame in 40 years but it was just like riding a bike :lol: Bought an inexpensive Kumihimo disk which makes a cool round 8 strand braid. The macrame incorporates cowrie shells and the piece at the bottom is a ceramic sea urchin shell.

I made a new type of volcano bowl, more low and flat than the traditional volcano bowl. It is actually a water dish for our new iguana enclosure :wink:

Tried something new for the "lava", Amaco black Arroyo glaze over Mayco Wildfire Jungle Gems glaze. Looks like the lava has partialy cooled and formed a crust over the top but you can still see the glowing orange in the cracks. Also has a cool texture.

CLAY OVER STYROFOAM TUTORIAL
This is a technique I use frequently, might as well share it. It works well for one-off items that are odd shaped. Much easier than building the object hollow or building it solid then splitting it and hollowing it out. I use the white Styrofoam from Lowes or Home Depot, about $12 for a 4x8 foot sheet of 1 inch thick. Take a sharp knife to the store with you, score and break the sheet into managable sized pieces in the parking lot to fit it into your car. You can cut the foam with a saw or knife or use a handheld heated wire tool available at Michael's or JoAnns. Stack the pieces of foam as needed to make the desired size blank. Dampen the pieces with water, glue with a small amount of Gorilla Glue and secure with a bamboo BBQ skewer (the water causes the Gorilla Glue to harden). After the glue is cured, remove the skewer and sculpt with a Sur-Form rasp. Sculpting will make a HUGE mess, I usually do it outside over the dumpster.

I aways use paperclay for this technique, it shrinks less than regular clay as it dries and is less likely to crack against the foam core. Roll the paperclay into a slab the desired thickness and cover the foam core. Trim excess and add pieces to cover foam as needed. Press the clay against the foam but be careful not to press too much as it will thin the clay.

After the clay has dried and firmed up a bit, texture the clay as desired. I tried something new for a rock texture this time. I usually take a piece of lava rock and "pounce" it into the clay. But you have to keep turning the rock or the texture starts to look too much the same. This time I took a roundish lava rock and rolled it around on the clay in several different directions, made a more believeable rock texture.

OPTIONAL STEP -
In theory, there is no reason to remove the Styrofoam core. Paperclay doesn't shrink much as it dries and the paper fibers help make it stronger. I have done several that I left the foam core in with no problem but I did have one crack while drying. I think it may be because I used the more dense blue Styrofoam and it didn't "give" as much when the clay dried. So now I dissolve the foam core with acetone, it provides a little safety and make me feel like a mad scientist :lol:
Once the clay had dried enough to be self-supporting, you can start by pouring a little acetone fingernail polish remover on the foam. The acetone doesn't seem to harm the clay but dissolves the foam. Keep pouring the acetone on the foam a little at a time until the foam is mostly dissolved. You don't have to get rid of ALL the foam, just enough to weaken the structural integrity so it flexes if the clay shrinks.

With or witout dissolving the foam, it is ready to fire once the clay is completely. Hopefully your kiln is outside because it is going to stink and release some possibly toxic fumes. The foam will burn up leaving nothing but ashes. One caveat is that the inside of the piece (that was against the foam) will have a rough texture. Depending on your design, you might be able to smooth the inside some if you disolve the foam out?

Now the piece is bisque fired and can be treated in the normal fashion. Have fun! Here are some other pieces I have made using this technique.

MadDog - The planter is the coolest. Your totally have a hit with that brother. Great job!

Wow so much fun projects to look at I'm in awe. I would never have thought you would use the hook that way. How perfect for you yard. The turtle is perfect. The volcano project outstanding. You are such a creative man. Thank you for sharing.

I have a glaze that does that but so far it hasn't worked as well as yours. I think I need to do more than 3 layers.

Keep up the great work. Wendy

Your creativity is amazing! That volcano bowl is great!!!

Thank you Robert and Lori
Wendy, I have used that glaze three times and always got the same result. It has always been over that same Mayco Jungle Gem glaze. I always put 2 or 3 coats of the Arroyo glaze over the dried (but not fired) Jungle Gem. The Arroyo will start to crack as it dries.

Enchanted Tiki Room Art Swap piece, a ceramic bottle inspired by the TamTam slit gong outside the ETR.

In return I get this awesome piece from Cy. Headed up to Tiki Oasis today to exchange :D

I have gotten fairly proficient at ceramic sculpture but have always struggled with any type of drawing or painting so I decided to take an oil painted class offered at the community college. Our first assignment is a still life so I'm working on "Still Life with a Tiki Mug" This is a beginning class but the instructor spent about 30 minutes talking about oil paints and color mixing then said "Get your canvases and start painting". I had anxiety standing in front of that blank canvas :lol:

Photo of my still life scene. El Tiki mug and menu, pineapple and 2 limes.

Progress after the first night

Last night's progress

I like the shadows and shading, not so happy with the pineapple yet.
Oil paint dries very slowly so shading work nicely but clean-up is a huge mess.
With wood carving, you have to stop at some point or you have nothing but a pile of chips. But you can keep adding paint to a canvas forever, refining areas and covering mistakes. How do you tell when you are "done"?

Lookin good sir
I have a tough time painting a wall white :)

On 2015-08-28 06:39, MadDogMike wrote:
With wood carving, you have to stop at some point or you have nothing but a pile of chips. But you can keep adding paint to a canvas forever, refining areas and covering mistakes. How do you tell when you are "done"?

So very true Mike, but they are only 'mistakes' to YOU. As to when you are "done", only you can answer that. In general most artists are never happy with their work and you can keep trying to fix areas you don't like but then when you are finally satisfied then you will see another section that then needs 'improving' and you will just keep going and going until you convince yourself that it looks nothing like how you wanted, and then hate the piece.

It's best to call it quits when you first think to yourself that it's "done", and then put it aside and start on a new piece. At least that's the way i see it.

Nice start by the way. I could never get the hang of oil paints.

Thank you Jon :)

WOW! :o Swizzle! That is so very profound and great advice. I will take it, thank you!

The hardest thing about drawing or painting for me are the shadows. I could never get those right, I guess I see everything in two dimension. Great start Mike keep us posted.

Swizzle is right. One painting can take a lifetime if you don't just say it's done and stop. There will always be places that can be tweaked but stopping is good. Just step back and see if you can say, I'm satisfied.

=====================================

I think I've found MadDogMikes doppelganger!

Here's are dearest friend at work.

Here's your look-a-like! I found him on the show Dating Naked!

MDM what do you think? Long lost son?

================================

Wendy

He's too young to be my twin. I don't have any random children (as far as you know) but he does look a lot like me! :lol:

He has your sweet personality and charm. He's also considerate and sensitive like you with your funny streak. Are you sure he's not yours? Wendy

Thank you Hilda and Wendy :)
Wendy, I've lived a lifestyle such that I'm pretty sure I don't have any spare children floating around :lol: But he sounds like a guy I would enjoy hanging out with. As for the show, I get it confused with the other naked show. Dating and Afraid? :wink:

Another night's work on my painting. Tonight I spent two and a half hours doing nothing but black with a little brush. That sure makes palette and brush clean-up easy! I'm learning that the proportion errors that you make early come back to haunt you later. Now there are several areas I'm not happy with :lol:

When I first looked at it I thought it was the set up and not your painting. The tiki mug is outstanding. It all looks good. You are showing us another amazing talent that you possess. Keep going, I am so impressed. Wendy

Thank you Wendy. There are several places I am not happy with but overall I thinks it's not bad for a first try at real painting. We still have 4 class sessions to work on it (about 10 painting hours) - I might be able to fix some of those areas or else mess it up really bad! :lol:

Added some writing on the inside of the menu and worked on the pineapple a bit. Decided I really didn't like the mug, the proportions were all off. So I covered the center and will hit it again Thursday :lol:

I love step by step paintings. This is a real fun one. I think you are doing a wonderful job. It will be fun to see how you improve the mug, especially since we have one, thank you. Wendy

It looks good. Its starting to get some definition!

Thank you Wendy & MaukaHale
Thursday is my last class day to work on this painting. I am going to try to add some stippling to the background and I think I'll be done.

Go Mike go!

Or, shall I call you, "MadDog Mikelangelo"?

Great painting- no surprise there, ya big show off. :) :)

"MadDog Mikelangelo" :lol:

Thanks TikiAno! All in all, I'm not severely disappointed with my first painting, that's not so bad :D I guess the nice thing about a class is that it helps you determine when you're "done". I was officially done with this painting by the end of tonight's class. Plenty of things I don't really care for (the small floating lime, for instance), but I'm not sure adding any more paint would fix them

When you hurry through life, you just get to the end faster.
Pirate Ship Tree House

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2015-09-10 20:45 ]

Nice Job Mike! I think a touch of shadow underneath those limes would help ground them :D But really, nice job for a first painting!

Thanks Robert, I will try adding a bit more shadow.

Next project - we are supposed to pick a subject from nature and paint it, then do the same subject on another canvas with a color shift - complimentary colors, monochrome, etc. I wanted to do mirror images on black canvas. So that they will be close to identical in form I cheated a bit - I sketched out the flower on posterboard, cut it out, and traced it to my canvases. Hope I don't get it too much trouble with my instructor over that :lol:

I think small tricks that speed things up or make them uniform, etc. etc. are wonderful.
You first painting is so good. I didn't notice the flying fruit until I read zerostreets comment. You'll have to post again to show the change.

This is fun, Wendy