FlaxDigital | Maori Inspired Design and Art

Ok, found a wheku drawing lying around so i thought i would bring it to digital life. My youngest daughter added some nice funky scribbles to it too, but its all good as i can remove them in photoshop.

Thickened up the outlines more with a ball point pen just so it would standout more when i scan the image.

Here i added some rough highlights giving the wheku some of depth. Hopefully the design software picks it up good.

All scanned into the PC and ready for some digi treatment. Once its at this stage i can clean up any stray lines etc. I didn’t need to do too much as i was going for a grungy messy look with this image anyway.

I opened the wheku image in adobe illustrator and applied the cartoon filter with the trace tool. Doing this will vectorise the image. This basically means that the lines become sharper so the image can be resized without losing image quality. Im going to print this on a t shirt so i need the image sharp as possible.

Heres the image after it has been traced, still with my daughters signature running through the mouth Much more sharper.

Now i joined the 2 halfs together to make a full wheku face, added a colourful background.

Wahlaa, Whunky Wheku on a t-shirt template. Will post when i get it on a real t-shirt, stay tuned….

Heres some images of a Purerehua or bullroarer that my brother and i have been working on. This one is for our mums birthday, the patterns are contemporary Maori patterns that enjoy drawing, then they were carved in using a haehae or V chisel.

I had the opportunity to do an art piece on the front doors of a very big house in Maungaraki hills, Lower Hutt.

The windows measured around 1 metre wide and 4 metres tall. The process started by finding out what the client wanted to represent on the windows. We talked about maybe designing something around the house owners family heritage, and the flora and fauna around the hills.

Looking through the house which was only framework at the time, there was a massive view of the wellington harbour, with the 3 islands, Matiu, Mokopuna and Makaro, the view was spectacular, being a keen surfer i could see the heads breaking which gives you an idea of the size of the waves on the southern coast. I thought it would be awesome to represent the harbour, islands and the taniwha Ngaki and Whataitai who in legend created the harbour.

The two taniwha sit on the sides of the doorway with the 3 islands represented as peaks in the centre, the koru swirls represent the sea with the half round notches in some of them representing Te Wheke a Muturangi.

Window frosting was used on the windows to give privacy and to showcase the design. The design was sketched up on paper at a smaller scale then traced into adobe illustrator, the file was sent to a printer who cut and applied the frosing to the windows, This was an awesome project to be part of…

I dig the grungy rustic look with koru patterns, so i went for it in the background on this painting which was a gift for a newly wedded couple. I asked my sister in law who is studying for a diploma in Raranga (Maori weaving) to weave me some mini harakeke (nz flax) baskets to hold the three elements, flax (earth), paua (sea) and feathers (sky).

The smell of freshly woven harakeke is amazing. I put rivits in the back so the baskets can be rotated if they wanted to show the painting vertically or horizontally. Now i gotta find a way to pay my sister back for doing those awesome baskets…. enjoy..

This piece is titled, Te Whanganui a tara which is based on the Maori legend of how the wellington harbour of New Zealand was created.

The two taniwha from left to right are Ngaki and Whataitai, the three peaks in the middle represent the three islands in the harbour, Mokopuna Makaaro and Matiu (somes). My inspiration for this art piece came from where i used to live in petone and woke everyday to see the beautiful harbour.

The blues and greens are translucent with the Taniwha and islands glowing lightly from the background. The story of how the wellington harbour was created can be found clicking here.

The legend of how the three islands were later named by Kupe can be found by clicking here.

Media – stretched canvas x 3 panels, 400mm x 500mm – 1.5mm, acrylics, heavy texture, protective gloss *sold*