Puttiki poster

Long time no posting, I've been busy being a teacher here in Thailand but over our extensive school holidays I completed the poster for the "Return of Puttiki" art-show and cocktail bender.

I started with a vague idea about mixing actual props and models with vintage photography in a mens adventure magazine/exploitation film poster style. Sam from Puttiki had mentioned he would like a Moai on the poster somewhere so I started to build a cardboard Maoi head.

Rough outlines...

....nose and mouth..

..and ears..

..and almost a perfect fit, but no eye holes so not suitable for wearing while operating a motorbike. Not that would stop anyone here in Thailand where ten on a moped and the raffia bike helmet rule.

Adding more shape with newspaper..

..face completed and hat stone hat added. I tried to get a stone effect with wads of glue soaked toilet paper, but it failed to dry in a pleasing style, so I just went with a normal coat of newspaper.

Coat of house hold emulsion as a base coat for painting..

..undercoat of faux wood grain..

..then the details in bold black paint.

Now that the head was finished I had to work out the final composition, I found a picture of Betty Page in distress and planned to have the Moai man added to the picture in a suitably menacing pose.

I dressed my self and had the missus take some scary pictures of me...

..the pictures worked out well but the Betty Page picture was not of a high enough resolution for the project. So I searched through my exploitation poster folders and decided to try a single figure design.

Then with a days worth of photoshop jiggery pokery and I ended up with this..

I used design elements (aka nicked bits) from this vintage tiki menu, it was challenging to replicate on the computer the old hand drawn screen print.

Then I sent of the image to Sam who added some final fantastic touches to make the finished flyer. I think it worked out rather well.

TIKOT - The Hung Tiki

When I was asked to take part in the TIKOT group show I was given this information on the Hanged Man card...

The Hanged Man - Atomic Tony Tiki

Serenely dangling upside-down, the Hanged Man has let go of worldly attachments. He has sacrificed a desire for control over his circumstances in order to gain an understanding of, and communion with, creative energies far greater than his individual self. In letting go, the hero gains a profound perspective accessible only to someone free from everyday conceptual, dualistic reality.

Modern versions of the tarot deck depict a man hanging upside-down by one foot. The figure is most often suspended from a wooden beam (as in a cross or gallows) or a tree. Ambiguity results from the fact that the card itself may be viewed inverted. Is the man or the world upside-down?

...so I set my brain to thinking, a tiki hanging from a tree obviously, and there is really only one famous tree in the Tiki world...

...The Tangaroa tree from outside the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Since the card has duality I figured the tiki's face should be readable in two directions like a Victorian novelty image a grinning face reversed and face of agony while in the correct position.

The artwork in the show was size specific all 2D art had to be 20" x 10", so I had to build and stretch my own frame. Luckily I found a frame 20" x 30" so I had to crack out my multi tool and use the worlds bluntest saw on a hot day to cut it down.

Some super glue and sticky tape to hold the wood together, then I stretched a thick cotton re-usable carrier bag for the canvas. Then several coats of PVA glue/white acrylic to dope it and it was all ready to start.

The initial outline and the first of the red coats for the background.

On with some yellow ochre for the body.

The brown added to the tree.

The brown added for the wood-grain on the tiki body, its really time consuming, but it really works.
More colour added to the tree and some black outlines.

The darker shading added to the figure.

Highlights and mid-tones added and outlines in white for the flowers.

Mostly finished the flowers in, the rope defined and blood added to the empty socket. This is because in Norse myths Odin hung over the abyss he sacrificed his eye, so that he'd gain wisdom.

The tarot is all about cultural symbols and myths, so mixing a little Norse into the mix won't hurt.

Finally finished I toned down the yellow on the tree, added a few more lashings to the tree, added black wood-grain to the tree and went over all the highlights with more brown wood-grain, just to pull back the white.

You can read an great thread about the show on Tiki Central..

TIKOT! - Visions from the Tiki Tarot @ FBG in October

Puttiki Piece finished

This is how the painting was as I left it, sitting in the kitchen.

The white still to bright so quite a heavy wash of brown goes on and that sorts out a fair chunk of the problem. Then I go arund and hunt down all the tiny bits that need fixed and go over the black lines to pull it together. Then a make the nostrils red and it getting there.

I still need to sort out the wrong white under the armpit so I repaint the brown grain and that finally fixes the problem, so I repaint all the grain on the problem areas.

Then I paint in all the bones, the little skull and the golf tee and all bar some tiny little touches the painting is ready for the Puttiki show.

So if you want to see the picture in the flesh come along to The Puttiki Art Show held in Honey Lu Lu's, Robertson Street Hastings, I'll be there all weekend.

Puttiki Piece part 3

Instead of fixing I continue and paint the Shrunken Human Head, typically they are brown or occasionally white but in Lowbrow circles they can also be green. I've added a neat bone hair clasp and distinctive extended lobes on the ears to the head.

Then on with the tapa background, its the one I've used on the other paintings I'll be showing in Hastings so they should be stylistically themed.

Only as I was finished the purple did I realise that the backgound colours are the same as the in the Two Headed Maori Monster pictures...oops!

I've added some brown washes on the tiki body to pull down the white and added some white to the head, plus some silver to the golf club and the picture is approaching finished.

Just a few more bits to go....

Puttiki Piece part 2

Now we start the body of the tiki, laying down the brown undercoat.

Then slapping on thicker coats of yellow ocher and more brown.

Then laying down neat brown woodgrain of the tiki.

Then its one with the black outlines to replace the yellow.

Then more brown to add the shadows on the body..

Then finally I start to add the white...

...and I screw the puppy and get all the highlites in the wrong places. Hmm thats going to take some fixing.

Puttiki Piece part 1

Its been a while since I last posted up some art but I thought I should post up a sneak behind the scenes of the piece I am doing for the Puttiki Art Show down in Hastings.

When I first started this I had planned to do portrait of Alistair Crowley who famously died in Hastings, I found this cool early picture of him and I swear he's wearing a Lei...

..but the picture is tiny and lacks enough details to work on, so after four hours of pencil work and trying to get the sketch to work I had to abandon my original plan.

So with a heavy heart I rubbed of all the pencil and got my nephew to pose and knocked out a golfing tiki poised to take an almighty swing at a golf ball. Not quite right I thought perhaps he should be using a coconut as a ball or a pineapple, no not quite right. Instead of a golf ball a shrunken human head.

Early pencil lines, lots of grubby lines from the early Crowley design.

Yellow outlines started..


..outlines finished...
...and background red added.

More pictures to come tomorrow.

Cannibal & Zombie - part 2

Finally I found an Artstore in Glasgow that sells big tubs of plaster, I got tired of buying tiny expensive packets of plaster and my favorite type of plaster "Stonecast" is no longer produced.



First cast from the mold, notice how dirty it gets from clay residue on the mold.

The cast trimmed down to fit the plate frames I found.



First coat of ochre paint, I'm trying to steal the colour theme from the cover art of Les Baxters "Ritual of the Savage".



Darker colours added.

Blues and further greens, then I took a wee break from finishing the piece, and then rattled through finishing it, I forgot to take pictures of it until I added all the final painting and given it a final coat of gloss varnish.

This finished cast will be winging its way to Australia for the "Gasoline & Garterbelt" Artshow in March.