I have been indulging in some "craft painting," that is, hobby-ish painting that is not part of my main output, is not done for money, and does not pass the Seriousness Test. I have been painting on gourds. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine, who manages one of the Starbucks I frequent, gave me two gourds from her garden, all dried up and ready to use as craft items. The fruits sat in my studio for years until I figured out what to paint on them. I have plenty of "craft paint," acrylics made for hobbyists in many pre-mixed colors. So when I had enough of the right colors to use, I finally decided to paint the gourds. I rarely paint on a 3-D item; once or twice I have decorated boxes or glassware. But this time I did it devotedly. I sealed the porous gourds with acrylic sealer, and painted a base coat in an appropriate color. Then I added the decoration.

I had intended to paint the smaller gourd in leaf-shaped areas of blue, but when I started, I realized that these areas lent themselves perfectly to "paisley" designs. I copied paisley designs from Persia and India from my many reference books and did them all in different shades of blue. Then I added accents of red, yellow, and white to the patterns, and finished it off with a bit of metallic blue paint. Here is one view of the Blue Paisley Gourd, which is about 9 inches long.

And here is another.

Searching on the Web, I found to my astonishment that there is a whole industry of people who do artistic things with gourds, and that there are even supply houses where you can buy gourds and all sorts of supplies to work with them. There are annual gourd shows all around the USA. And some artists make really beautiful things with them, such as Gita Landwehr who also paints pictures of koi fish and Tibetan mandalas. See, you can find nice things on the wicked Internet if you look for them. The virtual world isn't all bad.

The other gourd my friend gave me was one of the funny-shaped ones known, for obvious reasons when you see it, as a "duck head gourd." I've seen these carved into all sorts of fowl shapes. But I decided to do something different, so I present here, the "Universe Gourd." It has stars, nebulae, galaxies, and even a comet. The Universe is about 10 inches long.

These are not for sale. I will be giving them back to the friend who gave them to me, and they will be treasured keepsakes in her family.

I was tempted to call the "Universe Gourd" "Stephen Jay Gourd," after the late, well-known biologist and writer but thought better of it. But I definitely had a gourd time making these, and as you see the fruits of my labor I hope you have a gourd day.

Posted at 2:15 am | link