Poupou

Our next project involves us looking at poupou distinctive to Te Tai Tokereau. A body form typical of Ngāpuhi has a serpentine body with a Ngāpuhi style head. I will try and duplicate the wheku in our last project and look at other features such as fingers and feet.

This is the piece I will be working on: It will be a self portrait telling the story of my first encounter with a kaitiaki when my whānau moved back to the birthplace of my Dad, Tangiteroria way back in 1990. The manaia sitting on my shoulder is Tirarau. I'll be trying to recreate the wheku I just finished carving (project 2)


Ko te mea tuatahi - Dropping the levels using a router.

    
I used a router to drop down the levels of the manaia, back arm and also the tail. I learnt that it was best to router back from the outside so you always had a flat surface to keep the router flat. There were a couple of parts where the router dropped slightly and I just used a flat chisel to smooth it out.

Ko te mea tuatoru - Shaping

I started shaping the head in the same fashion as my wheku. I tried to figure out the grain and made a few mistakes on the left side of the waha so I had to take out some of the right side so it looked symmetrical. The gouge chisel became my best friend.

Planning/sketches

 

Tauira Brief: Pou

 

My Wheku: Mātau

 

Wheku - Mātau

 After working on the practise wheku I felt confident to tackle the larger MDF wheku.  I sketched up the final design and went for it:

My first mistake, was not drawing the waha properly.  A regret that I had to work on fixing later on in the process.  A good lesson for future project.  I think because I knew I was going to have to redraw the pencil lines over and over, I assumed it wouldn't really matter not getting the waha perfect... boy was I wrong.

I kept referring back to my notes that I had written for the practise wheku and grateful for them.  It meant I didn't have to hōhā Tom much.  I appreciated his 'pop ins' to see how I was doing and he gave me great tips along the way.  I often referred back to my practise wheku AND sketches throughout this process.

I slowly worked through the whakangao stage and onto the Āomarama stage of the wheku.  It took quite some time and effort during each of the night classes to try and complete the wheku.  I thoroughly enjoyed the challenges and decided 'yep' I def like carving native rākau as opposed to the MDF.  I notices my chisels were getting pretty blunt also.  I have made it a goal to spend some time learning how to sharpen my whao.  I believe it is the make or break difference to your mahi whakairo.

I am happy with the progress on my wheku.  I hope to have it completed by the end of semester 1.

Practise Wheku - tuatahi

 After talking with Tom and him sketching out and explaining 'levels' we found a piece of scrap wood in the box to start on.  It was small and I'm guessing it's a piece of totara.  

I started with the whakangao stage which is to shape and take out larger areas of the block of wood after drawing the wheku design.

I sketched and took notes as I went along so it could help me when I started on the large wheku.

I needed alot of guidance from Tom while making this and I noticed how different it was carving wood with a grain.  I learned some good tips on how to tackle the grain too which I am really grateful for.  My greatest 'aha' moment was when Tom showed me how to work the chisel in removing rākau with the grain in mind.

I chipped away at creating the wheku tuatahi and loved the wero. 

I was pleased with the ārero even though it looked really messy underneath.  I used Toms piece 'Maui and tunaroa' to figure out how to shape it.  I found it really helpful to keep referring back to it.

I was pleased with my first attempt at a little wheku and enjoyed the process.  I really liked carving totara.  The whao marks is what I really love.  I will gift this first piece to Rāhana - my sonshine.

Wheku - Sketching ideas

 My first task was to come up with some sketches for my wheku.  I decided to base them on the mahi whakairo on Rau Aroha whare at WGHS.  I had the pleasure of seeing those taonga daily for 3 years while teaching there.  The carvings are done by our own local tohunga whakairo Te Warihi Hetaraka.  Once you've studied his figures, they are pretty easy to identify.  His large foreheads, 4 scale unaunahi and a lot of subtle little signature marks.  I developed two ideas and then decided to combine the two and took some features from both to try and carve.

I like the shape of the head and waha.  I thought to change the paua eyes.  I like the bowl shape tongue because of the representation of a kaiako.  Ngāpuhi features are:  Shape of head, 4 niho/teeth, and unaunahi (4 scales).

Again I like the shape of the head and waha.  I like the tognue shape also but want to use the bowl shape tongue because I want it to be a self portrait.  I like these eyes better as they remind me of the eyes one of my art mentors taught me about - Juliana Hoogeveen.  She was one of my first mentors when I started teaching Art @ Whangārei Intermediate School.

The niho and tīwhana are similar to those on Reitu and Reipae on Rau Aroha.

I've decided to do a practice wheku before tackling my MDF wheku to get me head around the process.