Wendy Cevola - New colors of the Frank mug by Frankoma now available.

Don't forget that I'm on that list!!! If no one has claimed it, I'd love to get unlucky #13. I can't wait to see your Ren Clark Head.

I love the glaze on the mug for the swap. I don't know anything about glazes, and so how it turned out is NOTHING like I thought it would based on looking at the glaze.

I dig it. Looks great. There's gotta be some kind of tiki mug you can do that one. Tiki in shape, that is. Maybe a Rarotongan, since that's the fishing god.

Anyway, hope Dan is recovering well! If I don't get a chance before Tuesday, I'll say Mele Kalikimaka now!

Hale Tiki you won the contest. I passed the 300,000 mark for views on my thread and you were closest to that number. I'll find something and put it into the mail soon. Congratulations, Wendy

PS if I bump Dan off the list that makes your Severed Head mug number Sweet 16, sorry 13 is taken unless I have withdrawls. Check page one of this thread for the list._____________

Also I will be painting on the mug, thank you for the tiki idea.

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2012-12-20 13:29 ]

Fishing poles, classic
This is gona be good

Eek!
That's amazing. Wow. 300,000!?!
Just think, 300,000, someone has come to this thread, and been delighted, or smiled, and enjoyed your work.
That's quite an accomplishment!
It has to be the most viewed thread here on TC.

Thank you so much! I love surprises!!!

I can't wait to get it, and to give my wahini her Christmas present made by you in a few days!

No worries on the number then, just thought I'd ask.

I better get working on my swap piece. I've got a lot of carving to do!

How's Dan's knee?

Well I was adding the 2nd coat of stain to my STACKED UP BOBS
when the wife came outside and said that the mailman delivered
something from WENDY.......

AWESOME, it looks great
thankssssssssssss sooooooooooo much
better than expected

jon

CLOSE UP

THE OFFICIAL WENDY AND DAN AREA

Hale Tiki and hang10tiki thank you for keeping my thread alive.
I stole all the hang10tiki photos, thank you. I hope we visit you one day to see "my area."

Hale Tiki your Prize has shipped by parcel post so lots of days from now it will arrive. Don't look now or you'll see what you won.
This is the moai I sculpted for Roge's chunk lamps. I molded it for bowls and to hang on walls. I've sent you a pewter version. I hope you will enjoy it.

Progress Report

This cold still has me down and Dan isn't allowed to drive until next Thursday so progress is slow. But I finally finished the Temple of the Jaguar Bowl and after the third time in the kiln there are no glaze skips, yippee!
Bottom shelf.

Top shelf of the kiln had two bowls. The glaze did glue the puffer fish to the bowl. Both bowls came out fine without any glaze skips, a miracle for the black rock glaze.

Next up I've been working on the Sea Creature Swap mug. I've had help from Hale Tiki. He mentioned that I should use the Fisherman Tiki so I did.
I got out my glossy paints and I printed a bunch of photos from Google images.

First I cleaned the ceramic with alcohol to help the paint stick.

More fish.

This is not done but I have a good start.

My after Christmas goal is to work hard and to finish everything on Wish List #3 and to start pouring the severed head mugs. The mold is not yet dry but it is getting closer.

Cheers and happy holidays, Wendy and Dan

I love the puffer fish at the bottom of the bowl
Gives you something to look at just as your drink ends...

Art swap mug looking good too

Wendy, that glaze fusing technique works real well and I have used it several times. The nice thing is that you can detail paint on the piece while you have it OUTSIDE of the mug where you can get to it. Then you drop it down inside when you fire it and it becomes permanent

Great work as usual Wendy. The bowls came out fantastic and i'm looking forward to seeing the outcome of your swap piece. However i just wanted to point out, without being a downer, that the red and blue striped fish you have painted near the bottom is a freshwater fish called a 'Cardinal Tetra' that is found throughout the Amazon in South America. (Sorry, fish nerd is showing. I worked in the aquarium industry for too long.)

Swizz, shouldn't you be celebrating Christmas Eve instead of heckling Wendy :lol:

I just woke up not along ago MDM, i've got plenty of time to celebrate. :D

:lol:

Hahahahahahaha.....

hang10tiki exactly my thought. I'm having a lot of fun with the swap mug.

MadDogMike this was my first time Mike and your note has given me more ideas.

swizzle the 'Cardinal Tetra' according to Google where I found it under South Pacific fish says the fish was on vacation and that salt is good for its scales.

MadDogMike Swizzles heckling is good for making my skin thick. Why are fish musical? Because they have scales.

Tiki Ano hahahahahahah and hahahhahahahahah!

We have just been having fun getting ready for family. We love seeing the young ones delight in presents. I'll see if they liked their bowls with their names on them or if they think its weird that I made them.

I worked on the swap mug today and added more fish. No photos yet but I did one more step besides the painting.

I cut out some paper fish photographs including the fish on vacation.

I now have all the parts completed. When they are photographed I'll tell the story.

Merry Christmas Eve tomorrow and Merry Christmas for the next day too.

Hugs from Dan and Wendy

DONE DONE DONE WITH THE SWAP MUG!

Here's the Christmas Swap story.

Once upon a time a tiki collector practiced with his/her tiny Deep Sea Fishing poles to catch some South Seas Fish.

When he got really good he went to the ocean to find a good fishing spot.
He found one full of fish. So he lowered his line.

Over and over he cast his line until finally he caught something.

He gently pulled it out.

By the end of the day he had caught a Honu, Bumatay and a puffer. All his practice paid off.


Every goofy thing in this story will be sent to my swap person.

Merry Christmas Everyone, Wendy and Dan

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2012-12-25 10:46 ]

Love the story, the pieces, and hope to be the lucky recipient of this- and all of the other pieces created in the art swap! :) Happy Holidays!

Yay for Wendy as the newest posting of a finished swap piece. It looks fantastic!
Everything on this thread looks so great!
I really am working on mine, but it's all sketches & measurements at this point
so nothing interesting to show yet... but soon, I hope to.
~kele

Wendy,

LOVE your swap piece! Wish I were done. But I'll need to wait until I get back to school Jan 2nd to start glazing.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you & Dan!

:)
Lori

Freekin awesome..............

Beautiful mug!

:)

Absolutely wonderful! and so damn creative...

Hope you two have a happy and HEALTHY holiday!

Merry Xmas you 2

TikiAno I feel the same way, there's nothing like a swap to being us closer together. Making friends and keeping old ones makes TC the happiest place on earth. Did I steal that?

WaikikianMoeKele good to hear from you as always. Thank you for your support. The clock's ticking one month to go.

LoriLovesTiki isn't it fun for you to have a job where you still get the school holidays? I sure missed them when I went to work and that included Christmas day and all the other holidays where I had to go in. Just like Kele one month to go for the swap.

hang10tiki we both did Honu's. I often look at yours. I love how you did the background and tikis on the shell.

tikilongbeach thank you. Have we met? We've been to four of the Don the Beachcomber's sales.

swizzle (=:

dartharnie we wish the same for you. Thursday we begin clay work. You are number 1 on the list. I see a Mummy in your future. I wish you good health too.

hang10tiki Merry Christmas 2 U

and 2 U and 2 U and to all our good friends here on Tiki Central.

I finally found a place for the photographic studio where I can just leave it up. In the 17 years we have been in this home we have used this tub twice. We could never fill it fast enough to keep the water hot. So now with a pillow in the tub to kneel on I can photograph every day.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve. Our great niece and nephew liked their bowls. Not only did they want to eat their ice cream from them they insisted on washing them afterwards. They are so sweet and goofy.

One surprise I had for Dan was a severed head. I did this sculpt years ago and sent it to Gecko. He has made two so far and the second one was for Dan. He got it this morning.

I'm very glad you all like the mug and it's goofy story with the practice rods. Did anyone notice how I used the sea snake to keep the tiki G rated?

Happy Holidays, Wendy and Dan

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2012-12-25 09:10 ]

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2012-12-25 11:00 ]

Merry Christmas, Wendy! Looks like you're having a fun one. Dan is a lucky one. :)

Thanks for keeping your swap mug kid-friendly. Ha!

So would that tub be the Mad Dog Mike room, lol

Sweet mug ya got there Dan-O

Hi Friends, I searched my cupboards for some breakfast food and this is what I came up with. Now that I'm fed its time to work some clay. I hope you all have a fun day. I'm looking forward to mine. Wendy

PS a secret...Dove chocolate is what is used for Ethel M chocolates that sell for $30 a pound in Las Vegas so why do that just grab a Dove bar with Almonds and have a breakfast as good as mine and cheap

MMMMMMM

Is that cheese puffs and chocolate? :o

Yes MadDog Cheese puffs and the extra healthy dark chocolate with almonds.

I put the fan on the mold for 24 hours. The pieces are so cold I couldn't tell if they are dry.

This is a test run. Dan put on the straps.

This is the very first pour so we had no idea if it would leak. So to start we poured in a half cup of glaze. Then Dan turned the mold on different sides running the glaze into all the seam lines. This is a way to plug holes.

Then he poured in the slip while I pounded the sides to remove air bubbles. NO LEAKS!

Clear to the top. Since this is the first pour I left the slip sit inside for 1 1/2 hours.

Then we slowly poured out the remaining liquid slip.

It was turned upside down to dry out over night.

Dan's not just good at mopping he scoops a wonderful cookie. We like them crunchy so half way through I flip them and continue baking. Super crunchy.

Tomorrow we'll see if the mold works and the Ren Clark severed heads are a go. Cheers, Wendy

I think Dan-o has been watching you work to much,
Those cookies look like puffer fish...

Aloha Wendy... Here's a pic of my wife Tanya with our cat Grandpa and her new Tiki Bob with the Grandpa lid. It came out awesome and Tanya loved it.

Mahalo and Happy Holidays!
Woody

Hi Woody thank you so much for the photo. You did a great job. I know my cat always looks away when she sees the camera. I added your name to the severed head list.

Progress Report for the Severed Head:

I opened the mold. Success!

The cast came out of the mold easily and had all the detail.

I removed the sides first.

Using my favorite label remover I cut off the excess clay from the top.

I ran the mold lines through areas that were without detail.

I used the label scrapper and a wet paper towel to remove the mold lines.

To prevent an air pocket at the chin I had kept it open now I added clay to build it back.

Now the head looks like the original from the top. That small piece of clay on the bottom will have to be removed.

I lifted it from the mold and looked at the bottom. It needs to be cleaned but for now its fine.

I didn't yet clean up the bottom edge. It needs to firm up over night.

This first sculpt after 1 1/2 hours was not as thick as I would like it to be. That means the mold was still not dry enough. I've put a fan on it 24 hours a day to help.

I'm still taking orders for these heads. $125 each plus shipping. The list is on page one of this thread.

Cheers, Wendy

Awesome

Looks great Wendy ~ congrats on a beautiful sculpt and another successful mold.

The severed head was a roaring success! congratulations!!! How many of these will Dan claim ;P

I've stayed away from the thread for a few days so that I didn't see what I won. Didn't want to ruin the surprise. I haven't gone through the pages yet, but I figured it was safe to look at the last page.

Holy carp! I love the Ren Clark mug. I'm super excited! It looks awesome. AWE-some.

To Wendy, Dan, and all my fellow TC'ers that read this thread: May 2013 be even greater for you than 2012. See you in the New Year.

Thanks for your hard work - looks like it'll be a fun one

You are showing some aptitude for this kind of work, Wendy! :lol: :lol: :lol:

EVERYTHING that Wendy & Dan produce is GREAT! even if it is a severed head (ooh, yuck, argh, rech, etc.)
~kele :)

hang10tiki thank you very much.

MadDogMike thank you from one mold maker to another.

dartharnie Dan wants two and I want one but what I want most is to get started on your next mug, I'm so close.

Hale Tiki has your prize arrived yet? Did you give your lady the puffer necklace. I would love some photos posted here. That would get 2013 off to a good start.

Holler Waller I'll do my best, thank you.

Atomic Tiki Punk I'll keep trying!

WaikikianMoeKele (ooh, yuck, argh, rech, etc.) and historic.

Hi Friends, yesterday we had a super fun visit from Loki Tiki (Jeffery) and his wife Lori and kids Jackie and London. We took them on our very organized home tour.

In the Buzzy Bedroom.

In Dan's man cave in the garage.

I thought I had this problem fixed but here we go again. In the tiki jungle room.

Jackie in the jungle room.

Loki Tiki examining mugs.

I did clean up the bottom of the first severed head but the rest of the day was just having fun with this beautiful family.

Happy New Years Eve. Please be safe.

It's going to be so fun to have 2013 on my art from tomorrow on. Cheers, Wendy and Dan

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2012-12-31 12:11 ]

On 2012-12-29 10:48, danlovestikis wrote:

Then he poured in the slip while I pounded the sides to remove air bubbles. NO LEAKS!

It wouldn't be too hard to make a vibratory table / tray / platform to shake the bubbles out.
Just a board, something with a motor screwed to the board, and optionally an offset cam (like in a pager vibrator) on the motor shaft.
Get your minds out of the gutter, you know who I'm talking to.

[ Edited by: Philot 2012-12-31 08:58 ]

Great pics Wendy

Do u have the new and unimproved windows 8?
If so, then that's why some of your pictures are sideways.
I had that problem too.
Windows 8 saves them on your computer in the right direction for viewing.
Nice touch.
But if u try to upload them it turns the ones taken (up and down) sideways.
You have to turn them and resave them in another program like PAINT.

Me no like windows 8

Keep up the good work
I've made room for the severed head mug.

[ Edited by: Hang10tiki 2012-12-31 14:08 ]

Philot thank you for the suggestion. I have hearing loss so all extra noise is not good for me. The mallet is very quiet. But other ceramicists who read this thread may follow up on your suggestion. I know it would work. Thank you for sharing.

hang10tiki yes I have Windows 8. One time I did something and all my rotated photos stayed put when I loaded them here. So far I haven't been able to reproduce it. I'm doing the MadDogMike trick of always taking my photos without rotating the camera.

Progress Report Wish List #3 and the Severed Head

We went in the super cold garage to pour molds. Really at 50 degrees it's no where near as cold as the rest of the country and we are grateful.

After 1 1/2 hours we poured out the Bob's.

The Bob's all went upside down to finish draining.

At two hours we poured out the hat, a tube mug and Severed Head #2.

Today I open the molds. Preparation takes a lot of time. Soon I'll have better photos.

Happy New Year Everyone. 1/1/2013 how fun that was to type that. Cheers, Wendy

You make your molds much thicker than GROG. But GROG lazy. GROG not want carry such heavy molds. GROG not young and spry like you kids.

Philot here's my version of a vibrating table; put a tennis shoe in the washer and set it for a spin cycle. Then put the mold on the washer. Works well, I have used it a few times. I must admit that when my kids were little and didn't want to sleep we would put them in the car seat and do the same thing :lol:

Wendy, I dreamt about your severed head mug last night :D

Wendy- cool pics

Mike- that's strange, please do not elaborate on the dream
:)

Wendy, thanks for the step by steps, very cool to watch the process!
MDM, I'm staying away from all of this talk. At least until I start casting molds and will come back to these pages to see how to use my dryer and tennis shoes.
Wendy (again), while I didn't dream about the severed head mug, I did have a nice visit and talk with your Bob, going over some ideas for 2013. Is that strange?

Happy New Year and all the best for a wonderful year!