🎬 See all available Tlingit masks & drums: https://youtube.com/shorts/JWy0A8GkXsA

Browse all painted drums currently in the gallery by Fred and Ivy Fulmer.

There are many mediums of Art in every Culture. Tlingit Tribe included. Up to this point I have focused on everything from the perspective of a Tlingit carver. Carving masks, Totem poles, and other Formline items over the years.

^Me holding Eagle Drum # I- Tlingit Eagle Formline Drum

A Little Bit About My YouTube Channel

Currently I have 1,177 YouTube videos on my YouTube channel Fred Fulmer Tlingit Artist I like to tell a story through my art work as well as through creating videos. Basically I have a passion being behaind the lense taking still photos and videos I also have a website fredfulmernativeart.com that I have to help showcase what I call my "One Of A Kind Art".

^Contemporary Butterfly Drum by Ivy Fulmer

A Men's Healing & Drum Making Workshop in Lynnwood Inspired Me to Start Making My Own Drum

When 2025 started to come to a close. The Tlingit Tribal Council organization Tlingit and Haida was hosting a Mens workshop in their Lynnwood Washington office. I put in a request to attend and was selected along with 28 other men from the Alaskan community.

The workshop included making a deer hide hoop drum, followed up by a Healing circle. All that attended participated in the healing circle and also got to make a 14 inch hoop drum.

Now I had this drum that I brought home which I could put with the other non painted drums at our home, or create a Tlingit Formline design and paint it onto the drum.

I want to share that. over the last 35+ years of creating art. One of the things I would say as the Winter time of the year approached. I would say to myself '" This Winter I am going to do some formline work". Well the winter would come and go and I hadn't done any formline work. So this was going to be the year that I sit down and focus on formline designing.

Fulfilling My Formline Journey

That is exactly what I did. I took an 18 inch drum and decided to take a Raven drum design I did 10 years ago and update it and turn it into a Eagle design. As I was working on the design, I would talk to my nephew Neeka and we would talk about the different options that this design can go. My nephew made a couplle of suggestions and I took them to heart and made some changes. As the design progressed I would share the progress with him. Finally I came up with a completed design which ended up being the one I used. One of the things that happens when I'm creating a design is when it gets to the time to lay down the paint. As I check out the primary forms and then the secondary areas. I follow how each will flow. I usually find with no exception that I have a road block that I didn't see and then correct it. Once painted it all looks awesome..

So this Eagle drum got me started onto the path of designing and painting formline drums of various sizes: 13in, 14in, 15in, 17in. and 18in hide drums. I painted an old style Tlingit formline Killerwhale design on the drum i made at the workshop. I made a Hummingbird drum and that one sold and got a commsiiion to do another one. I just finished that one and mailed it off today. I also did a Seahawk drum. Ivy has been doing drums as well. Hers are totally contemporary style, no tribal affilliation, just pure art passion of what she like doing. She made her type of hummiongbird and that one sold. She has a butterfly drum on our Gallery wall right now.

More Painted Hand Drum Designs to Come...

So I have some other Tlingit Formline drum designs I have been working on and will still be refining them and get them ready to put on a drum. I think I'll have about 7-9 designs for sure. Just like Hummiingbird design I did. 2 in total and both sold. That mean I don't have another one to put oin the gallery wall, until I make another one.

The colors I use for the drum are pretty much the Tlingit style paint pallet. Tlingit Green/blue, Black, Red, White, Blue. I like using more of a pastel palete. I personally don't like bright shiny colors.

Primary colors are usually Black, secondary colors are red, tertiary colors are green/tiel and fine line colors can be black,red.

The Formline principles followed are complex and pretty much a language of it's own. I know artists who have been creating art for many dedcades each and they don't follow the exact same formline principles, but their formline fits the principles/rules.. Most people won't even notice, but to artist with a trained eye will notice the various styles.

^Contemporary Hummingbird Drum by Ivy Fulmer

Tlingit Eagle Drum I & II by Fred Fulmer

I made a secondC'ha'ak/ Eagle hand drum. I call them Cha'ak/Eagle Drum I & II. The Cha'ak/Eagle Drum II is my personal drum that I use everywhere I go for presentations when I am in Siteeyi Gheeyi/Glacier Bay Alaska for example. I drum Tlingit songs as part of my powerpoint presentations program I do on cruise ships that enter Siteeyi Gheeyi/Glacier Bay while representing Xunaa/Hoonah Tlingits working for ANV Alaska Native Voices Educational Institute as a tlingit Cultural Interpreter - Cultural Bearer and Elder.

17"  Glacier Bay Mountain Goat Formline Drum In Progress

I started this Siteeyi Gheeyi/Glacier Bay Janwu/Mountain Goat Gaaw/Drum this 2026  season in Gustavus. I started drawing the formline design at home before flying to Alaska. I began the painting in Gustavus.  I plan on finishing the drum here at home and put it up for sale along with all my other products. The design came from when I was working for Goldbelt Security at the Kensington Gold mine as a security guard in Berners Bay Kensington Gold mine. There were these Janwu/Mountain Goats that you could see way up on top of the mountain ranges there. It reminded me of the Janwu/Mountain Goats of Siteeyi Gheeyi/Glacier Bay at Gloomy Nob or Janwu Aani/Mountain Goat Land there. I created this design and put it on a skate board design and sold it at the Stonington Gallery in Seattle Pioneer Square. You can look at pieces including the skate board in the Stoningtons Archives for Fred Fulmer Artist and see pieces I sold there. I'll post the finished Gaaw/drum whrn it's completed here in this Blog as well.

My 2015 Yeil/Raven Tlingit Formline Gaaw/Drum In Private Collection Now

I remember when I got this deer hide drum back in 2015 and decided to try my hand at creating a Yeil/Raven design. When you look at it you are seeing a side profile view of a Tlingit style formline Yeil/Raven on a Shalas'a'aw/Deer hide Gaaw/Drum. This is my very first painted Gaaw/Drum. So with that being said, any time I have put my effort into creating a new medium of art. This is no different. I remember working my way through the design, meaning all the pencil lines laid down next to each other, can be confusing because you don't see the different paint colors and how they would look when it is a finished product. Also staying within the parameters of the Formline rules of this type of Art. So here is what the painted formline is: Black is the Primary, Red is the Secondary and Green is the Tertiary. I used the same green color to paint the border of the Gaaw/Drum. I also have the Ear of the Yeil/Raven overlap the top of the drum border. This is all of the sum of being in that creative designing stages. I Ixsixa'n/Love the process.

Shop Available Tlingit Formline Drums

Each drum is a one-of-a-kind original, hand painted by Fred Fulmer or Ivy Fulmer. Browse the current collection available in the gallery:

18in Tlingit Eagle Drum | 17in Tlingit Killerwhale Formline Hide Drum | 14.5" Tlingit Hummingbird Formline Painted Drum | 17in Tlingit Formline Frog Hand Drum | 17in Tlingit Salmon Hide Drum | 17in Tlingit Wolf Hand Drum | 13in Tlingit Dragonfly Hand Drum Collaboration | 17in Tlingit Hummingbird Drum With For-Get-Me-Not Flowers | 14" Killer Whale Painted Formline Hand Drum | Seahawks 12s Tlingit Hand Drum

Explore my older Blogs from 2009 at fredfulmer.blogspot.com ▶️

Follow along with my journey as a Tlingit artist, carver, and Cultural Bearer — I have documented over 1,177 videos of my experiences, carvings, and cultural presentations. Watch them on my YouTube channel: Fred Fulmer Tlingit Artist ▶️.

I also did a Lecture about "How the Chookaneidí Clan Earned the Rights to Use the Devilfish/Octopus as a Crest" at Sealaska Heritage Institute for their Lecture Series September 13th 2022.

"Fred Fulmer has served twice as a Resident Artist at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington."