Plywood cutout before the paint.

projects

Faux Tapa Paint Effect.

I painted a border around the Tiki lounge. I used a faux tapa paint effect. Tapa cloth (mahute), as found on Easter Island, was made of Mullberry bark. The cloth was painted in designs similar to tattoo patterns. Tapa cloth was used for many items including clothing and folk crafts. My border was painted to resemble tapa. I painted an undercoat for the border. I made stamps to put the designs on the border. For the stamps I cut the designs out of styrofoam. I cut blocks from old plywood and then glued the styrofoam to the blocks.

Plain wall without the border. My print "Balinese Girl" by Jan Hoowij and some reproduction Balinese masks.

Another picture of the undercoat. Some prints by Sam Gambino.

This page is devoted to little projects for the Tiki Bar and Lounge.

The undercoat for the faux tapa paint effect.

The Shark jaws.

Shark Jaws.

My first little project to share is my shark jaws. I picked up 2 sets of shark jaws while vacationing on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I wanted to display them in the Tiki lounge. I decided to wire them to a board and then hang them from the wall like a painting. What I did was to cut out two shapes from plywood. One is just an oval but the other I cut in the shape of a shark. I painted them black so the shark outline is like a silhouette. I wired the jaws to the cutouts. I put up fishing nets and floats, the shark jaws, and a metal "danger no swimming sharks" sign. I added some glass floats hanging from the ceiling to make it a little more 3 dimensional.

A couple of before pictures.