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VanTiki Mugs: ShelfTiki #1l! 12/5 |
VanTiki
Grand Member (5 years) 
Joined: Nov 25, 2005
Posts: 907
From: Hawaii
|  Posted: 2008-05-19 11:22 am Permalink
Mahalo GoTiki, Babalu, and TeaKEY! I love the set of sushi love - I hope both sets get picked up by the same person as they look great together.
And now let me switch gears....
A few weeks ago I splurged on a microscopic bottle of gold glaze. Now, this isn't just any ol' gold-colored glaze - it is a glaze made of actual gold! (you ceramic folks out there will know what I am talking about). I have always read about the stuff, and I decided to give it a go. Now, I can't begin to describe how stressful it was painting with this stuff! Imagine a thimble half-filled with vanilla extract - only this modicum of extract cost you $20! Yikes! No spills or drips!~ Anyway, you need to apply this stuff to glazed ceramics - so I bisque fired 2 spooky skulls, pained them with gloss black glaze, fired them to cone 6, then painted on the gold. The crazy thing is it does not look at all like gold when you work with it (in typical pain-in-the ass mess-with-your-brain glaze fashion). The vanilla extract analogy was fairly spot on. From what I gather, the glaze is actually made of microscopic beads of gold suspended in a shellac. Boy-oh-boy did it SMELL when I fired up the kiln for the final firing (a low-temp cone 018 - around 1300 degrees F) - I am glad my kiln is vented!
So - did it work? Here is a before and after peek at the tiles on the bottom of the kiln:
Whoo! Here you can see the freshly painted tiles covered in shellac and the fired golden goodness:
And finally the golden fun:
What will I do with these guys? Well, one is a travel bug for my crazy geocaching hobby. Much like this fellow (but I won't be releasing it into the wild):
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=659841
And that concludes this episode of "The Wonders Of Glaze"
Mahalo for peeking!
Henrik "VanTiki"
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Tiki Duddy
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 04, 2006
Posts: 759
From: Manitoba, Canada
| Posted: 2008-05-19 3:23 pm Permalink
Those are pretty sweet Van!
always got cool stuff!
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VanTiki
Grand Member (5 years)
Joined: Nov 25, 2005
Posts: 907
From: Hawaii
| Posted: 2008-05-22 1:34 pm Permalink
Mahalo Tiki Duddy!
Welp, the Kiln has been going at a near-nonstop pace over here! Wanted to show a few images of what is cooking. Glazed The Mug of The Vampire Bat - this is the first piece I've glazed made out of Laguna's sculpture red clay - and I am really happy with the results:
Why am I not treating you all to the "finished piece photo spread"? Well.... this guy isn't done yet. I actually had the coconuts to put him back into the kiln about 20min ago for a final low temp firing. A bit of a glaze highlight - and I pray to the kiln gods that it works! I also have these spiffy teeth that I am going to braid with a few goodies and hang from the back "handles":
And finally - a peek at some VERY rough (and VERY small) sculpts. These min-mugs will reside in the heart of larger creations. More shots to follow as things take shape.
Mahalo for peeking -
Henrik "VanTiki"
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Kahu
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jan 03, 2007
Posts: 267 | Posted: 2008-05-23 12:16 pm Permalink
Sick, just sick stuff bro! keep em' comin!!
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Paipo
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 22, 2006
Posts: 1886
From: Aotearoa / NZ
| Posted: 2008-05-23 4:29 pm Permalink
You're on a roll now! Man it's good to see finished (well almost in the case of the vampire lord) mugs rolling out of the kiln with no defects! The tentacles turned out beautifully.
I noticed I can buy the laguna clay online here in NZ - they seem to have a really good range for all kinds of purposes....
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Sneakytiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 31, 2003
Posts: 1795
From: Boise, Idaho
| Posted: 2008-05-24 12:36 am Permalink
Those Gold tiles look like some sick Aztec or Mayan artifact swiped by Indiana Jones yo!
Love the Vampire pieces as well.
ST
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To drown sorrow, where should one jump first and best? "Certainly not water. Water rusts you." -Frank Sinatra
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VanTiki
Grand Member (5 years)
Joined: Nov 25, 2005
Posts: 907
From: Hawaii
| Posted: 2008-05-26 1:03 pm Permalink
Aloha Folks!
Mahalo Kahu - I'll do my best!
Paipo - I'm happy to have a few non-cracked mugs as well!  As for Laguna clay - I love it. Lots of options, and very consistent. Mind you, it is just about the only thing pottery shops carry out here, so I don't have a lot of experience with anything else!
SneakyTiki - My thoughts exactly! Wait till you see the next batch of goodies....
On to studio news - the Jug of the Vampire Bat is done! I've got more photos on my site (as well as the back story) but here are a few peeks:
The mug's page:
http://www.vantiki.com/VanTiki/Jug_of_the_Bat.html
Mahalo!
Henrik "VanTiki"
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Babalu
Grand Member (5 years)
Joined: Nov 19, 2006
Posts: 2498
From: Lemon Grove
| Posted: 2008-05-27 12:40 pm Permalink
Hey Henrik,
I think your right...that red clay in combination with your glaze gives the piece a really nice warm look. Man, the gold tooth and the jade colored details are "KILLA" too...they just throw this work right over the top! Keep posting...I find I needs my VanTiki fix.
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greentikipat
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Oct 08, 2006
Posts: 324
From: st. pete fl
| Posted: 2008-05-28 09:44 am Permalink
yea, that guy came out so cool!! and the gold pieces blow me away!
hey my tiles showed up yesterday!!! woo hoo! they're awesome, man! thank you and mahalo! i'll post some pics when they're in place. rock-on man!
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MooneyTiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 28, 2005
Posts: 578
From: Jensen Beach,fla
| Posted: 2008-05-28 2:00 pm Permalink
Aloha Vantiki!!!
so much killer art goin on my head is strarting to swim,very Kool ,Aloha Mooney
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Flat Black
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Posts: 116
From: Chicagoland
| Posted: 2008-05-30 08:16 am Permalink
<jaw on floor>
The gold tooth is so perfect I can't even describe it.
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VanTiki
Grand Member (5 years)
Joined: Nov 25, 2005
Posts: 907
From: Hawaii
| Posted: 2008-05-30 1:19 pm Permalink
Aloha Folks!
Babalu - Glad you like the tooth and goodies - I was SOOO worried about the tooth, as it involved yet another firing for the luster glaze. Thank the Kiln Gods the mug pulled through it all OK! The Jade colored bits are a green tinted porcelain with clear glaze. They look wild! I originally got the green porcelain to use as gums on a planned zombie mug - but I haven't gotten around to it yet
GreenTikiPat - Stoked the tiles arrived safe-and-sound! Please please please send me a shot when you get them installed!
Mooney - Mahalo!
Flat Back - I love the tooth too - as I mentioned to Babalu above it was totally worth the extra sweat and stress!
And now the new stuff: This stone deity will hold one of the mini-mugs I showed a few posts ago. It is BIG - has an upper chamber for rum and juices, and is marked with a sun shape around its rim, a set of constellations, and a stylized stone skull. Did I mention it is BIG? A whole 25lbs of clay went into this fellow (there are a lot of scraps piled up around him on the workbench - so it isn't exactly a 25lb mug, but is is rather weighty I discovered when taking outside to photograph it). I'll be adding more detail (and possibly some sort of feet to elevate it a bit) as the clay firms up. Enough jibber-jabber, on to the photos!
   
Mahalo for peeking!
Henrik "VanTiki"
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teaKEY
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 09, 2004
Posts: 3663
From: The thumb !
| Posted: 2008-05-30 2:33 pm Permalink
Gosh Dang. Crazy thing is that I was thinking constantly about a mug like this just before you posted. The idea of the mug is the craziest part. A first of any I do believe. A mug that's inside a mug. I have been thinking back what made the stuff I owned so good as a child. It was the toys I owned in the 80s. G.I.Joe toys. The figures had "accessories" and the really good figures had vehicles.
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TikiTres
Tiki Socialite
Joined: May 28, 2008
Posts: 263
From: Forney, TX
| Posted: 2008-05-30 2:40 pm Permalink
Wow, that is truly stupendous! The mug-in-a-mug idea is awesome! I saw one of your mugs on eBay some time back and bookmarked you onto my seller's list so I could admire your new pieces from afar I just recently joined up here, it's great to see that you post here so I can read some of the stories behind your works of art. Maybe I'll work up the cajones to bid on one some day, it's like that old TV ad- "expensive, but darned well worth it" 
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VanTiki
Grand Member (5 years)
Joined: Nov 25, 2005
Posts: 907
From: Hawaii
| Posted: 2008-06-04 5:23 pm Permalink
TeaKey - ...and knowing is half the battle!
TikiTres - Mahalo and welcome to our little grass shack on the web! Glad you like my mugs, and I am even happier you joined this forum! So many talented artists post here that your head will spin!
Onto the new goodies: I've been going nuts for the past week filling all the tikicoin orders. Now that I've got the last of them shipped off I was able to return to this epic mug sculpt: The Gold Eater. Yessir - here is a peek at the finished sculpt. By far the biggest (not as tall as other mugs - but VERY hefty) I've done to date. The "Mini Mug" you see in the stone deity's mouth will be glazed with 22k gold (whoo!) and will (fingers crossed) be quite sparkly nestled in the idol's stone maw. I took a shot of the mug next to Mr. Bali Hai to give you folks a sense of scale. And now, the photos:
Mahalo for peeking!
Henrik "VanTiki"
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