Good Gourd..... my experiments.

 I have finished.....or have I?.. my experiments on working with gourds.

When I question if I have really finished or not, I think the answer would be a resounding 'no', as there are so many more things I can try, that I have discovered as I have worked up to now, but I needed a stopping point for my assignment, and this seemed to be a good point  (especially as time is running out!)

I chose this project as I like working with natural materials as much as I can.  These gourds gave me that opportunity.   I think they would be great to offer to people who think the same, who like having more natural materials around them as opposed to a lot of plastics or many made products.

The soft way that the lamp gourds light up would look great in a yoga studios perhaps, or a therapy room.  They might be really attractive to people that practise a plant based life style  (like myself) as, originally, they were actually a vegetable  :)

In detail then....

This was gourd number 1. As the initial plan was to make a lamp, of sorts, I was going to drill lots of holes in a gourd to create a lovely pattern for the light to seep through.

This was a learning curve.  The first thing I learned was that I needed some small holes to position my drill in, a pen mark wasn't enough as the drill would bounce all over the place and drill a hole in the wrong spot.   So I had to pin prick the pattern out with a sharp awl first.

Following on from that I quickly learned that the sawdust from the drill holes would fill the pin prick holes making them hard to see, so I had to only pin prick a small part of the pattern at a time.

I also learned that you have to go on with the drill in a really confident manner with a bit of pressure.  Any hesitation and the drill bounces, making your holes all uneven and messy.

But all in all, I was pretty pleased with the outcome of this one, and it looks great with a light source in it.   (The light source is a battery powered cupboard light).

 

Gourd number 2 was experimenting with pyrography. I wasn't so keen on this technique, I felt it didn't allow me to be as free as I wanted to be... and also it was a drawn out procedure, having to wait for the iron to cool down between changing tips.  It wasn't a technique I necessarily wanted to repeat - although I now have the knowledge that I can use that if a design requires it.

Gourd number 3 might be my favourite... and was created purely by accident.

I wanted to colour my gourds, but I am not good at art and painting, so I needed it to be very fluid and freeform.  I researched some paint techniques that are good for this kind of art and Alcohol inks - along with pure alcohol - came up, so I ordered some of those.

As I had never worked with this medium before, I took two rather scruffy and discoloured gourds from my box as I thought they would probably be going in the bin afterwards.

First I did a little gourd, and just splashed little bits of ink at it - it was a little underwhelming and I was a bit disappointed with the effect, so I knew I needed to go a bit bolder.  As for this little gourd... I hadn't bothered cutting into it and cleaning it out, so I have now discovered that it makes a fabulous rattle with all the seeds inside.

Grabbing a dishwashing sponge, I sponged the ink on the next one, in rows of colour.  Then I dripped the pure alcohol from the top using a pipette. This effect pleased me no end, this was the kind of colour I wanted.  Unfortunately the gourd was a broken one with a large crack and hole in one side.

As I liked the colour so much I really didn't want to discard this piece, so I jigsawed down the middle to cut out the damage, then drilled holes along the cuts so I could lace it up, almost like a corset. 

It's often the mistakes that come out the best  :)

Gourd number 4 was basically a repeat of gourd number 3, except there was no damage so I just cut off the top to make it into a rather nicely shaped vessel, and added a threaded ribbon trim for a bit of detail.

Gourd number 5 came about after I sat thinking how I could add some texture to my gourds.

So I grabbed a bottle of Mod Podge glue (strong PVA) and a load of different fabrics - calico, faux suede, ribbon, trimmings, wooden pieces, scrunched up toilet roll and garden string - and just stuck it all randomly to the gourd.

On reflection, it actually looks ok like this, with the different fabrics being different shades and textures in themselves.   But I decided to spray paint it.

So, now it was time to stop playing and put some techniques together for my main piece - Gourd number 6.  I decided to make a fusion of both alcohol inks and drilling to create a lamp.

I wanted this piece to look pretty as a stand alone piece when not lit up, but also give a different look once the lights were down, so the owner could choose whether to have it as a lamp, or just as an ornament.

I drilled the holes I wanted first as I thought the inks would then dribble into the holes and make them look less 'fresh'.  I was correct.

I was a bit more precise with where I placed my colour on this one, and I added extra bits of colour where I thought they were needed as I went along.

I love the way the light works with this, as the ink that dribbled into the holes give the light a different hue.

And a photo of it shown in daylight with no inside lights, daylight with lights and dark with lights.

And finally.... I had 5 mini gourds that I ordered in error without checking the size.  While I have the inks out I coloured all of these with the view to making a necklace perhaps.....  that might be my next project!

Playing with Gourds

 Recently I have been messing about with Gourds.

One of my uni projects was to embark on something I had not done before, and although I had fancied working with gourds, I had never actually got round to doing anything with the ones that I had ordered on a whim.  So now it was time.

I did a little research and found painted gourds, drilled gourds, carved gourds.  gourd lamps, gourd instruments, gourd bowls.... so many gourd ideas!    So I thought I would try out a few before choosing which technique I liked best to use on my final uni project.

Before starting the gourds have to be cleaned, if you want to have a go at this yourself, do do some research into how to clean your gourds.

The first gourd I carved a hole in the bottom for a light source, then drilled, with many different sized holes.   I learnt a lot drilling this gourd.  I learnt that you needed to have a little hole for the drill to grip into to start otherwise it would bounce all over the place drilling random gorges in the gourds surface.  I also learnt that if you do not apply enough pressure to the drill it will move about and make a bigger, messier hole!  Another lesson was not to apply too much pressure as once the hole was done, the drill would slip forward and mark the surface of the gourd.   So many learning curves   :)

But I was quite pleased with the final outcome, I can position some of the messier holes at the back and no one would ever know   :)  

For a light source I bought these little push-lamps, they work really well with the gourd just sitting on top of one.   But you can also heighten it by placing it on top of an upside down glass, or bean tin, inside the gourd to make the light hit more holes.

The next technique I tried was pyrography.  I researched some more traditional gourd carving designs and tried to apply them to a small practise gourd.

For this project I decided to make a small bowl, so I sawed the top of a gourd and cleaned it out, ready to start,

After sectioning areas off to work in, I started applying some heat via the pyrography iron - it has some patterned tips which I used to create the designs.

This was fun, but quite smelly and smoky, and I had to wait a long time inbetween patterns for the iron to cool down enough to enable me to change the tip.

I think maybe to finish this off it needs a coat of some wood oil or something, it looks a little raw.

When I explored painting these gourds I considered acrylics, which I think would work really well, but I am not an artist and I prefer just to move colour about in a random way, so after a little research I decided to order some alcohol inks and a bottle of 99% alcohol to help spread the ink about.

I could just blob this ink onto the gourd, then add the alcohol to move it about and make pretty patterns.  The one above was a small gourd, but I liked the effect so much that I decided to have a go on a larger gourd.

I was really pleased with how this turned out... but this is the back of the gourd, the front had a crack right in the centre. I was keeping it just to do some practise on, but now I really liked it and wanted to make it into something beautiful.

So  I sawed off the top, and sawed around the crack.

I then cut some holes up the sides of the hole to create eyelets.   After sanding the opening and the top, I painted them gold, along with the drilled holes.  

Then I laced it up with some gold ribbon.    No idea, how useful this piece could be, but it certainly looks pretty now   :)

Now I have to decide which of these techniques I am going to use for my final piece.... any suggestions?