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MadDog Mike's Platterful of Pupule-Reef Fish Hanging |
TikiAno
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 07, 2012
Posts: 971
From: San Diego, CA
|  Posted: 2013-05-12 10:26 pm Permalink
Mike, were you by chance in San Diego this weekend? I saw posted (somewhere online) photos from "Gator by the Bay," the local Louisiana festival this weekend, and I saw a few ceramic crocodile pieces that looked suspiciously like your handiwork.... (in brown).
Hope all is well!
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MadDogMike
Grand Member (7 years) 
Joined: Mar 30, 2008
Posts: 7553
From: The Anvil of the Sun
| Posted: 2013-05-13 09:46 am Permalink
Wendy - thank you for your kind table compliments, see ya real soon!
TikiAno - I was on the road this weekend but went North to Palm Springs, not West to SD. I'm afraid I can't take credit for the brown gator by the bay. That was an e-bay mold so they could be anywhere. But most people are using it as a concrete mold, not for ceramic. TA I still have your green gator lurking on my deck. Any chance you are going to Tiki Caliente? If not, I'll track you down sometime in San Diego 
_________________
When you hurry through life, you just get to the end faster.
Pirate Ship Tree House
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LoriLovesTiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 03, 2011
Posts: 1038
From: NJ
| Posted: 2013-05-13 11:14 am Permalink
That table looks great! You are amazingly clever.
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hang10tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 18, 2010
Posts: 4468
From: Las Vegas
| Posted: 2013-05-13 12:20 pm Permalink
MadDogRocks...
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MadDogMike
Grand Member (7 years)
Joined: Mar 30, 2008
Posts: 7553
From: The Anvil of the Sun
| Posted: 2013-05-20 9:42 pm Permalink
Thank you Lori
Jon, it was great to see you again, even for a brief moment.
Took a quick trip to Tiki Caliente Saturday afternoon for kind of a drive-by visit, didn't want to expose Teresa to too much craziness on her first tiki event  Stayed for about 4 hour and got to say hello to some great people. I passed a couple of mugs on to Dan & Wendy (because they don't have NEAR enough mugs at home  )
Surrounded by beautiful women, Wendy on the left and Teresa on the right.
I tried a new underglaze technique on this one and was happy with the way it turned out. I don't have much formal training in this art stuff and just make it up as I go. I always just assumed that underglaze was designed to go under the glaze. You can put a dark underglaze down first then a lighter transparent color over it and the underglaze will show through but the color will be muted by the glaze over it. This time I decided to try the opaque underglaze over the lighter transparent color. I glazed the mug first with a Butter Toffee brown and fired it then did black accents with underglaze and fired again. The underglaze didn't move or run, it was solid black instead of muted, and it is usually matte finish but picked up shine from the gloss glaze. I like it
_________________
When you hurry through life, you just get to the end faster.
Pirate Ship Tree House
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TikiAno
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 07, 2012
Posts: 971
From: San Diego, CA
| Posted: 2013-05-20 11:12 pm Permalink
Mike, the glaze combo looks great. Sorry I missed on heading out to TC, but look forward to meeting you at some point soon.
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Atomic Tiki Punk
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 19, 2009
Posts: 6476
From: Costa Misery
| Posted: 2013-05-20 11:51 pm Permalink
Great to see you Mike & meet the lovely Teresa
we really don't see enough of you, man!
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Hale Tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Oct 19, 2004
Posts: 1798
From: Pittsburgh
| Posted: 2013-05-21 04:03 am Permalink
I'm blind, I can't see!!! Mike, stop smiling! Hahaha
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Professor G
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 03, 2011
Posts: 341
From: the Tiki Wastelands
| Posted: 2013-05-21 05:06 am Permalink
You didn't unveil to her the splendor that is MadDog Mike in his Cannibal Kufi and Tiki Dashiki? Perhaps you were wise . . . Yes. I feel you were wise.
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little lost tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 12, 2006
Posts: 7604
From: Orange,CA-right near the Circle!
| Posted: 2013-05-21 3:59 pm Permalink
Now that is one awesome mosaic table,Mike!
looks like y'alls had a BLAST at Caliente!
and some Wendy Hugs!
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MadDogMike
Grand Member (7 years)
Joined: Mar 30, 2008
Posts: 7553
From: The Anvil of the Sun
| Posted: 2013-05-22 09:20 am Permalink
Thank you for all the love folks. I am smiling because I'm happy and that is a good thing
As I have said before, I really believe that anything worth doing is worth doing to wretched excess. In keeping with that philosophy I am making a shrunken head cat food dish for the Headhunter Harbor.
Blank cut from 1 1/2 inch Styrofoam and edges rounded with foam shaper. About 8x10 inches
Styrofoam covered with damp tissue. It is sitting on my kiln template to be sure it will fit in the kiln.
Covered with a clay slab, trimmed and smoothed.
Flipside
Partially dried and foam removed, inside smoothed.
It is important to remove it from the mold before it gets too dry or the shrinkage will cause it to crack. I probably should have made my clay slab thicker, the walls of the container are a bit thin for being kicked around the floor of the deck.
Next a bisque firing and some glaze
_________________
When you hurry through life, you just get to the end faster.
Pirate Ship Tree House
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Gene S Morgan
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 18, 2011
Posts: 342
From: Midwest the navel of the USA
| Posted: 2013-05-22 7:32 pm Permalink
Very cool Mike ... I thought at first you were going to fire it with the foam still inside ... Dumb me ... Must have been hard getting it seperated ... Great idea ....
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LoriLovesTiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 03, 2011
Posts: 1038
From: NJ
| Posted: 2013-05-22 7:48 pm Permalink
Mike,
The mug you made for Dan looks great! Post a pic of the front if you get the chance.
Theresa is very lovely and you always look happy.
_________________
:-)
Lori
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TikiAno
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 07, 2012
Posts: 971
From: San Diego, CA
| Posted: 2013-05-22 8:12 pm Permalink
Mike, looks great- can't wait to see the next steps. I've used plaster slump and hump molds, which absorb moisture from the clay, I assume the styrofoam doesn't- or does it? If not, does the clay pull away from the foam as it dries (as it would with another material)?
Thanks for posting, the latest piece to dock at Headhunter Harbor is killer.
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danlovestikis
Grand Member (8 years) 
Joined: Jun 17, 2002
Posts: 5237 | Posted: 2013-05-22 10:01 pm Permalink
Tiki Ano before I write to MadDogMike I'll jump in and answer your question. As the clay dries it becomes smaller. So in a mold it pulls away from the sides. However if you have something inside the clay like his styrophome (I need to look this up) it will shrink and trap it or crack the work.
Mike you can add clay to the sides of your bowl when it firms up. I do that to the tops of my mugs. I'll be posting photos of that in the morning.
We love Teresa and you MDM. We had such a great visit. One day you should bring her to our home. Meanwhile Oasis is just around the corner. The mugs have been placed. Soon I'll get a photo to show where he put them. We are so happy to have your work and we show it off when we have guests.
Lots of hugs, Wendy
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