New. Headhunter Trophy Skull and More.

Hi, I've been a pretty hardcore lurker here for some time. I'm constantly impressed with the quality and volume of work some of you guys crank out. So to start with here are two paintings I have done over the past year. I have more started but I spend way too much time at work and commuting to work. I also have some carvings but it looks like they should go in a separate post.

And for the Don Knotts fans.

I have another painting which may be done in a week or two.

"Primitive man's work has become modern man's leisure."

[ Edited by: Tabu 2007-10-06 22:31 ]

[ Edited by: Tabu 2007-10-18 18:09 ]

[ Edited by: Tabu 2007-11-17 08:55 ]

[ Edited by: Tabu 2007-11-25 15:50 ]

[ Edited by: Tabu 2008-07-14 08:18 ]

[ Edited by: Tabu 2012-08-14 21:19 ]

[ Edited by: Tabu 2012-10-30 07:42 ]

[ Edited by: Tabu 2013-02-03 12:48 ]

Cool Pieces!
Love the colors and style of that first one!
And who doesn't love the Knottster?
Thanks for sharing your work and lurking less!

I agree! Less lurking and more sharing. I see the tikis on the frame in the second one. Are those yours? Great paintings! :drink:

Thanks for the positive feed back. I did not carve the tikis on the Don Knotts frame. They are cast in resin from a mould I took of a Coco Joe's keychain. I will post a couple of my carvings and progress shots in a separate thread later today.
I tried to enlarge the photo of that painting so you could see the detail better, however photobucket isn't cooperating.

[ Edited by: Tabu 2007-03-25 07:31 ]

The Don Knotts painting is incredible! I love it! I love art with a sense of humor! Nice! Really cool to look at. The lighting on the tiki is cool too...great ambience

[ Edited by: suburbanpagan 2007-03-22 13:44 ]

Hey folks, here is a new painting that is 99.9% finished. I've decided to go back and tweak it a bit but I may not have a chance to get at it for a few days. So here it is for now. I will repost it when it has been coated with varnish and I've made a frame for it.
This one was totally inspired by reading Thor Heyerdahl's Aku Aku. The theme may not be that obvious it's more about a feeling I got. All that talk about secret books and secret caves full of stone sculptures. I may do another one on this theme in the near future.
Thanks for having a look.

Nice Mythic Feel to this one! And the scroll with the Rongo=Rongo script is classic! the water turned out quite swell as well! Water's hard,but you nailed it here! Nice painting!

Nice! You really got a great sense of distance over the water to the island. I love the lighinting on the floating tiki dude! Beautiful...

Welcome, welcome, welcome,

Wow! I love your paintings. Really top notch work. Beauty ey?

Aloha!

S
T

Hey, thanks for the response.
L.L.T- That's cool what you said about the mythic feel. I was going for a religious overtone with this one but taken in a goofy direction. Thank's for the compliment on the rendering of the water-that was a bit of a struggle.
Tiki Shark- Glad you like the lighting as you are no slouch in that department yourself. The island in the distance reminds me of a snorkelling trip we took in the fall in Maui, cruising around with Kahoolawe, Lanai and Molokai in the background.
Sneakytiki- Thanks for the kind words.

I started a new painting yesterday but I also started a new job today, so it may take awhile.

really cool and dramatic lighting! love it!

The Incredible Mr. Limpit!!!!!! :D Oh don knotts you silly goose!

Hey Tabu. Luvin your work. its got a great feel. The Don Knotts one rocks as does the floating tiki. which is quite NZ in style eh. che.

TABU,

The levitating Hei-tiki is my personal favorite, the other two are really excellent too. I'm glad you decided to start posting pix of these! Keep sharing here.
My tiki fan--not tiki fanatic GF said that she loved the levitating tiki but wouldn't mind seeing you do a painting of just those beautiful Japanese looking waves. So there's another opinion from an accomplished graphic designer/artist/architect named Nicole. :drink:

To drown sorrow, where should one jump first and best? "Certainly not water. Water rusts you." -Frank Sinatra

[ Edited by: Sneakytiki 2007-05-01 14:48 ]

Some really nice work there. More posting art! :D

Thanks again to everyone for having a look at this thread and all the positive feedback. It is really motivating. I'm working on some new things (painting and carving) but in the meantime here are a couple of pieces from earlier last year.

The first is a mounted resin cast in a handmade frame. It is the same character I use in some of my paintings and this little resin one predates those. There is also a full body version which I have given all away as fridge magnets. I will post him when I make some more. He started as my own personal version of a Coco Joe's type souvenir.

This one is not Tiki but it may appeal to some of you. The devil head is cast resin painted with acrylic and the background is acrylic on masonite. The box is stained maple. I call it" Behave Yourself". I think I might add a little banner that says behave yourself to the top or bottom. The devil head I sculpted with Chavant plastecine clay. The theme is tongue in cheek. I didn't become born again overnight or anything.

And another angle.

Thanks again, more on the way. I'm working really long hours right now so no promises when.

Jeepers! That looks like one of the things that used to pop up & scare the hell outa people in the old carnival fun houses.

The whole effect is muy carnivalesque. I love it.

Kctiki- Yeah it does have an old timey carnival feel to it. I think by adding the banner it will look like an old midway poster or something. Glad you find it scary.

That devil one is sweet :D

3-Delicious!

Aloha, it's been a while but here is the latest offering hot off the easel. Size is 8x10 and I call it "Wrong turn at La Paz."
It was influenced by a couple of books I was reading on the Amazon as well as W. Burroughs "Yage Letter's."
Plus, I just like shrunken heads. Too many trips to Ripley's museum as a kid I guess.

It looks really washed out so I will try later under better light. Thanks for poppin' in.

I was looking at your previous work too, and that devil one is really awesome, I like that no matter what angle it's still givin that sinister look!

The latest one "wrong turn at La Paz" I love this one too!
Keep postin more! :D

mahalo!

Thanks Ravenne. I will keep postin' and I've started another one already. Don't hold your breath though it's alot bigger.

VERY cool stuff, Tabu! That Don Knotts is so cool... That devil head is a favorite of mine too. Welcome, and keep posting!

I'm always a fan of the tsantsa art, so of course i dig the last painting, but that mixed media piece,"behave yourself" is slammin'. Great stuff.

i think the shrunken head is the head of don knotts!! look at those lips.....great stuff!! love the devil one....

Hey Tabu, great suff man.
I really dig that devil piece.

Sam, Freddie, Tipsy and Swampfire-thanks so much for your kind words.
Tipsy- yes I think subconsciously that shrunken head did take a Don Knotts like form.
That might have something to do with having watched "The Love God" about 20 times in the last 3 years. Don Knott's is my
muse. I'll admit it.

I started working on a new piece over the last week. Here are some progress shots.
Some favourite mugs scattered about for reference. The girl is based on a porceline wahine bust from my collection.
See her in the picture above.

and finally tonights labours.

Still along way to go but it's only an 8x10 canvas. Thanks for looking, I will post more as I make progress.

I love the vintage look and style to this lovely lady painting!

Sam- Thanks. I'm definitely going for a 30's-40's movie poster style on this one.
I made some progress this past week such as refining the girl and blocking out the background. Also started on the border a bit.

There are a few things that are bugging me about the girl so I hope to tweak those as well as fine tuning the waterfall and mountains in the next week-time permitting.
Once again thanks for having a look.

Finally got a few chances in the evenings this week to spend some time on this painting as things have cooled down at work a bit. Fine tuned her face a bit as well as the background and made some changes to the border.
The red really pops in this picture-she doesn't look so sun burnt in person-honest.
Mahalo.

Freaking Gorgeous! You are definitely capturing the Tarzan/Kong/vintage vibe.. DIG the border too.

Awesome Work! What else can be said? Mahalo Gogo

Very nice....especially love the shrunken head...very realistic. Keep up the great work. :)

Yeah really nice, the girl looks cool and the frame have nice details.

Hey folks.
SneakyTiki- thanks so much. King Kong is easily my favorite movie of all time. I have the making of book with all those great pencil sketches and as of late it has been educational in thinking about light and shade.
GoTiki, Vampiress and ramba-zamba, thank you for your encouraging words. This painting has been a challenge and pushed me outside the box a little. Since pretty much all the paintings I've ever done are on this thread I'm still figuring things out as I go along. Human faces are very hard. Especially pretty girls. Having a background in sculpture helps allot with proportion but there is a big difference in working 3D with clay and painting in 2D.
I took a break from all that and finished this mock-up for a screen print I've been working on. I did it old school punk flyer style(cut and paste). The New Guinea pieces are from my rec-room collection.
Take care and thanks again.

Ok, I finished this one a while back. Finally after countless distractions.
Anyway here she is.

A closeup of those eyes.

The tikis.

And some new stuff on the slab. The black and white ones are T-shirt graphics for Tiki grindcore/electronoise band WADGE. Think the Ventures meet Napalm Death.
The Don Knotts painting way back at the start of the thread will be on the new album cover. In fact that painting was the inspiration for the album in the first place. "Don Knotts goes to Hawaii". I gave it to Paul who is behind WADGE as a gift last year and things went from there. "The Love God Meets the Tiki God" is one of the song titles.
Check out the last WADGE album "The Road To Hana" on the RSR label from Germany.
The above painting is going to be on a WADGE 7" coming out of the Czech Republic later this year.

Aloha for now.

Great border on the newly finished one...Definetely a sweet vintage/pulp cover feel!
Nice! And you got a Spirit Hook slowly coming to life i see!
:)
Tabu-that screenprint is very cool! You nailed the vibe with the textures
and the early punk aesthetic!
Right On!

Thanks LLT. The spirit hook is coming along and I've got a few more paintings in mind. Watch for more photocopy collage stuff coming up as a friend and I are getting nostalgic and talking about doing a zine or two. It's been over 10 years since we last did one. Should be fun. Who doesn't love zines? Take care.

Thanks for showing your painting steps. She has a very "life-like" feel. Interesting you used a non living model (the bust).
Do you use the technique of using the color green in the shadows on the skin?

Tiki Shark- Thanks, glad you feel she looks life like. I started with the intent to just do a still life of the ceramic bust with a background but I got carried away and went for a "real" girl. I used the bust for the pose but referenced some old movie starlet photos for the details. Shes a bit Lauren Bacall and a bit Judy Garland.
As for using green-yes I did use some light olive tones in the shading at one stage. That's a technique I learned working in prosthetic makeup when painting silicone or foam latex. Green undertones are subtle but magically bring things to life.
I would like to try and experiment with some crazy color schemes and strange colored lighting like Basil Gogos uses. It takes a bit of courage to start painting someone purple though.

I have always liked that Don Knotts painting! That's a lucky guy who ended up with that!

I have not posted any artwork updates in a very long time. However I have dusted off this spirit hook painting and found the time to bash away at it over the last couple of weeks. I have spent a few hours on it since this picture was taken and will post an update soon.
I intended for this to be sort of an artifact portrait. This spirit hook is a piece from my collection and I wanted to give it a place to exist other than my rec room wall. By placing the time of the painting in the very late afternoon or pre dusk hour I hoped to lend a sense of mystery about what is to come. After a long fast will the spirits of the ancestors speak through the oracle tonight?
I have owned this hook for a number of years and the woman I bought it from obtained it from a friend in the 60's who had gathered it during a Sepik River adventure. It well worn even then and still smells strongly of camp fire. It is very much the real deal and is actually pretty spooky in person.
Anyhow thanks for looking.

Tabu, welcome back! Glad you finally finished that spirit hook, hope to see more from you

Stunning Spirit Hook Tabu!
your detail and colors just hypnotize.....

I did some more work on the clouds, and added a tribal pattern across the sky. I wanted the pattern to blend into the sky so I masked the hook and clouds and sprayed over the tribal bits. Peel the mask off and do some clean up. I need to spend a few more hours fine tuning and I will call this one done.It would be nice to make a custom frame for it as well.