Keeping velvet tiki art alive...? TWO PIECES ARE WRAPPED! YEAH!

Here's the finished piece. It's been done for a while, but life has made it impossible to post it till now. I think it turned out pretty well.

At last weekend's Festiki event, it got a very good response.

Thanks for looking.

"Tiki Vignette 4" - 36"x18" - black velvet on a wooden stretcher frame.

Very Nice Robb...
The shades of red and the lighting are...
Spooktacular!!!

ROBB!!! LOVE THIS!! WELCOME to the tribe!!! I wsh I hadnt sold the velvet one I did and I miss it. Will do more as well soon. I love your style here and can't express enough how much I live through you here until I get back to velvet. I was hoping you would be at Tiki Oasis!! Hoping we can do that multi artist velvet show this season!! Stay in touch!! Keep up this magic bruddah!!

OH I have been making VERY authentic Amazon blow pipes and darts when I have a few hours on a Sunday. I have put my Persimon tree in the back yard to good use FINALLY..I hate persimons but they are an EXCELLENT targets to hone my native skills in "blow dartchery"!! OK..I am babbling like a lip plated Suya! Great job!!!

[ Edited by: THOR's 2009-08-20 14:53 ]

Usually neighbors have to worry about the way ward Lawn Dart... but Blow Darts?!?! Yikes!

Robb - Moody, and beautifully rendered! Your velvet pieces are like black holes through which we see a tropical parallel universe.

Really nice !! As always ! Great job Robb

Rob,this latest peice is fantastic,cant get enough of the old shrunk'n head!
Cheers Watango.

TO MY ARTIST FRIENDS: I'm sorry I haven't been able to post much on your threads recently, but tragedy has struck and I'm having trouble keeping up. I promise to do better as soon as I can. Thanks, buds.

Meheadhunter - I'm glad you thought the were spooky. I heard a woman at last week's Festiki event tell her boyfriend that she was too creeped out to go near it!

Thor - DAMN, I guess you kinda liked it! I hope that in the near future THE SHOW IS A GO!!

Tiki Shark - I don't know how Tiki art could be actual Self Expression or a window into my soul, but it is... that must be the parallel universe.

Virani - mucho mahalos. I hope you're still enjoying that Nuku Hiva piece. I heard a rumor about an album of yours at Festiki... I've gotta find out more about that. Very interesting.

Watango - I'm glad you liked it - wait till you see what I did to the design in my next commision!

Hope all is well Robb.

Got to see this one in person at Festiki in Ohio.
It is a great piece Robb!
As were the other paintings you had there.
Need to get one of your paintings for our
house as well.
Great Job!!!

Love how it turned out Robb.

More shrunken heads please!

WOOOOOW. lovin' the magenta light!!!!!!

spooky spooky!!!

t

Tikiskip - Your lamp is terrific in my gazebo (see pics below).

Swamp Fire - More shrunken heads on the way.

BigToe - Thanks for calling it magenta, not pink!

Here is the wonderful lamp I bought from Tikiskip last week:

Nice work on the village Robb! We need to get together
for a brainstorming session and sketch out some ideas
for the bar & lanes. I'll mix up a batch of Crazyassbrainfish
to get the ideas flowing.

Here's a new commission from Bill Winger, owner of DaddyKatz, Dayton's only Tiki/hotrod/midcentury store.

This one has an epic scale, bigger than anything I've done. It is 2x3 feet, but the image is bigger than that!

The previous shrunken head painting was the first step to doing this one, which was the plan from the beginning.

I've got a specific source for the red light this time.

The village is also familiar and comfortable to do. The hint of a huts in the distance will soon be erased.

The next step will show main subject for this painting, which is something I'd never even thought about doing on velvet before.

Robb, hope all is well with you and yours. You are painting, I hope that's a good sign :)

This latest piece looks like it will be, well...EPIC!!! But why limit yourself to 2x3? As I remember, velvet comes 54 inches wide and yards & yards long - VELVET MURAL!!! VELVET MURAL!!! VELVET MURAL!!! :lol:

On 2009-08-28 17:36, Robb Hamel wrote:
The next step will show main subject for this painting, which is something I'd never even thought about doing on velvet before.

Very intriguing! Can't wait!

Mike - I have long-range plans in the mural direction!

4WDtiki - see below...

Here's the very beginning. Handheld "making of" digi-pics taken in flourescent light don't look so hot.

It's this hotrod, which I showed in this pic from the progress shots of the shrunken head painting.

It's taking form. At this stage I have no idea how I'm going to do the headlights.

Very cool Robb! I love seeing the pieces in progress, fascinating.

That car looks awesome so far Robb.

Maybe I can commission you to paint my sweet 2005 Ford Focus hatchback in the same style :wink:

wentiki - big thanks.

leleliz - sounds like a good idea to me!

Hey Robb-

I'm digging the shrunken heads and the rod paintings! "Two great subjects, that go great together..." Can't wait to see these when they are done!

What Sam said!

deeeeeeeeeeeeng Robb!
Go Big!
You're charting uncharted territory very well!
Truly you are a seasoned velvet explorer!
ZA-ZING!
hot rods and shrunken heads...
:)

What Kinny said!

hot rods and shrunken heads...
hot rods and shrunken heads...
hot rods and shrunken heads...
:)

Robb, Awesome work here, these shrunken heads put me in the darkest
corners of Adventureland. I cant wait to see more progress.

Your first shrunken head velvet piece is so creepy cool.
I would have never guessed a hot rod would be coming out of the darkness
in your latest!

I love you guys. Your comments are keeping me amped.

The village layout works well in horizontal format I think. I don't know what happened to this pic, musta over compressed it.

I was completely lost about how to do the headlights, so I turned the real car's on and studied them. I'd paint them a little, and go back and turn them on again.

I'm showing the "back yard" of the village because this is the area that had more huts in the distance. They threw the perspective off once I got started painting and had to be taken out.

After several coats the heads are looking pretty good... And what's that falling from the sky?

The things going on in my life are becoming more stable. I'm staying creative, somewhat, and appreciate the surprising support folks have given me through PMs. Thanks again all, you've proven to me that this really is a community!

The heads look non-traditional for shrunken heads, are the faces portraits of specific people? (of course, a hot rod in the village is a little non-traditional too :) )

The headlights are very realistic, the meteor shower is cool, stability and creativity are GOOD!!!

Man, so are sooo on the cutting edge of tiki! GO ROBB GO!!!

those headlights look awesome...can't wait to see the completed piece Robb!

The shrunken heads are the stuff nightmares are made of...
...Oh, I love it!!

Nice touch with the sky falling.

Bowie

Mike - I tried to make my shrunken heads look more Anglo or Polynesian and less African than the tradtional ones. I haven't used anybody as a model for them, but what I've noticed is the main heads in both paintings look kinda like me!

Babalu - Cutting edge? ALRIGHT! That is a great thing to hear. Thanks.

Leleliz - Thanks, I'm happy with them and hope to figure out how to do better windows on future architectural velvets.

Bowano - Bill Winger likes things big, so this one is apocolyptic in scale!

Here is the nearly-completed village "backyard".

This is the '30 Ford fully finished.

Here is in finished area that I did as a Tiki Vignette series painting.

This is what the village has in the backyard.

Almost there, comrades! I hope you'll like the final piece.

Your work is soooo kool
Were can I purchase it. Do you have a retail location ???

Ohmyjibbahjabbah!
You are close to the finish line,Robb!
Beautious!
:)

makes my heart race.....

Hot rod and shrunken heads ... love it!

Robb love that volcano effect .

Have you ever taped yourself while painting?

VanTiki tapes how he sculpts his pieces and then edits the video all together to show a sped up version of the piece from start to finish.

I would really love to see something like this come from you just so I can watch how you get from a blank velvet to one so beautifully done.

Just a thought !

Way cool art!

On 2009-09-09 06:43, HulaZombie wrote:
Your work is soooo kool
Were can I purchase it. Do you have a retail location ???

Whatta butthole! This is Bill Winger, the owner of the piece, and DaddyKatz, where it is hanging. We decided to do maybe one or two more of these, if I can take it, so it is a limited series painting.

LLT: my Main Man - thanks for hangin' in there with me.

Swamp Fire: It's sure different for me. Sometimes I'd like to just relax and repeat myself and enjoy doing refinements on my technique... BUT I CAN'T!

Liz: I've never done that. It's a cool idea, since I forget some of the things I do that work out.

MooneyTiki - Big Thanks. I'm surprised how epic the piece looks on this 'site - thank you Hanford and team!!

http://www.robbhamel.com

Sold velvets have been cleared
out to make room for new stuff.

[ Edited by: Robb Hamel 2009-09-11 18:18 ]

Here's the finished piece:

"Escape from the not-so-quiet village" - 2x3' - black velvet.

To get an impression of the scale of this painting, look at the pics in my previous post, they're all closeups of the finished thing. Notice the volcano dust trailing the hotrod and how you can follow the side of the volcano from the last hut on the left (movie reference), rock by rock most of the way up the summit. The reason the right hut has light in its windows is that really ugly cannibal stuff is going on in there while the rest of the village is abandoned.

The idea in my head is that the last remaining villagers are completely insane. They captured some of the party that brought the car here and sewed their eyes and mouth while they were still alive, then removed their heads and stuck them on poles without bothering to shrink them.

Thanks everyone for hanging in there will I took a couple of weeks to post this and for the excellent comments. The disaster my life has suffered seems to be slowly turning into a good thing in the long term. You guys really are the best!

http://www.robbhamel.com

Sold velvets have been cleared
out to make room for new stuff.

[ Edited by: Robb Hamel 2009-09-11 18:16 ]

that detail on the volcano is subtle but really ties it all together. AMAZING as always Robb!

Quite cool!

Robb,

You are STILL my hero!

Looks like both of our "life's disasters" are finally coming to an end and we can get back to the good stuff!

EXCELLENT piece Robb! I'm SUCH a sucker for hotrods and shrunken heads. This brings it all home!

Liz, Slacks, Lee, Sam - thanks guys. This is a big piece for me, a real break away from any routine I might have been about to get into.

The big question is: what next?

Hi Robb -

What next?!!

After the volcano image of the last piece you know your options are blown wide open :)

You know the thing about volcano images - they represent both repression and release. Then a reprieve.

I find myself incorporating that glorious tension in my work quite a lot too.

Thanks for sharing your work. I look forward -always look forward, to the inspiring repercussions your paintings deliver to me.

once again amazingly executed. I would love to see it in person

Robb, some of my favorite things in this painting.
Amazing work again. I want to paint velvets like you someday!
Serious skills my friend.

is good....
:)

On 2009-09-17 12:55, little lost tiki wrote:
is good....
:)

Si! Es bueno!

Thanks, all. Very, very kind. I'm glad so many of you have looked at this piece.

And now for something completely different...

A few months ago I posted pics of the color scheme for the DaddyKatz store that I'd done in Photopaint. Now the store is painted and ready for some before and after comparisons:

Here's the original store color.

This is the chosen color scheme.

And here is the real thing. It's surprisingly close.

I don't know what to call this kind of work, maybe "Exterior Design"?

The roof appears to "pop" more in real life..
thas' good!
Exterior Design?
Exterior Architectural Embellishment?
Retail Improvement project?
Groundskeeper?
Color Picker?
Czar of Exterior Beautification?

ANY of those would look GREAT on a resume!
Nice Choice!
Now the building doesn't blend in with the sky
and it actually looks classier!
and YOU,my friend...
look SASSIER!

only a true artist could make such aspot-on call for the KATZ!
:)