It's hard to believe I haven't posted since the beginning of August. Summer is now behind us and the crisp and colorful days of Autumn now greet us. This is my favorite time of the year! I love to take long drives or walks with my husband just to gaze at the rich colors of the leaves against the contrasting skies of varying shades of blue. Soon it will be time to start planting for the spring that will follow yet another unpredictable winter.
One of the most fun adventures I've had recently was attending classes at the Michigan Festival of Gourds. Those that know me well are never surprised at the arts and crafts I pursue. I've been decorating gourds in different ways for over 12 years (maybe longer), but I've been needing to be challenged so I could take my gourd art to a new level.
Not only did I get to meet one of the best teachers and unbelievably gifted artist, Bonnie Gibson, I took four of her classes during the festival. Before leaving for the festival, I took three gourds, two of which I drew out my designs based on the skills I was about to learn. In the first class, Bonnie taught us how to carve 3-D feathers into our gourds using our rotary tools and a variety of burs. Since I've carved Eagle feathers into antlers many times, I had a feeling there wasn't going to be much of a difference carving on a gourd. There are some differences; first is that gourds have a rounded shape, whereas many antlers have simpler curves. Another is that antler is made from bone and gourds are "woody". No matter, this experience is going to lead to buying lots more gourds!
Below is a picture of the gourd I've started with overlapping Eagle feathers. I've drawn out other elements I'm planning around the gourd, but for now, I want to show you the "before" picture of the feathers.
Hopefully you can see the defined, but not completed, feather on the right and the uncarved feather on the left. There's a lot of work yet to do before this will satisfy me!
The next class was all about carving faux basketry into our gourds. I love basketry, especially those coiled with pine needles from South Carolina. The first gourd I saw of Bonnie's on which she had carved this technique was something I knew I had to learn to do. While trying to adjust to a Dremel for this technique wasn't easy, I'm learning to adapt. I've used a Dremel for roughing in carvings on antler, but have always preferred my high speed air carving tools for the majority of the carvings!
Below is my gourd that has the center carved out with the "coils" visible. Of course, this needs further sanding and then the burning technique will give the coils the look of basketry. If I achieve what I'm after, the basketry will look real. There's a second circle on the backside for the same technique and then two other circles which will have another carved treatment on the opposite sides.
If you look closely at the top border area, you'll see that has also been carved out. There's a matching border beneath the basketry area that needs to be carved and made ready for another technique, Inlace Inlay. My third class was learning how to carve recessed areas for inlays. The Inlace is a pigmented resin product that gives the same illusion as stone inlay that jewelers produce.
My 4th class was all about learning to do 3-D carvings with cutouts. I didn't take a picture of that gourd as it still needs quite a bit of work. Plus, I need to finish drawing in the designs that will go around the rest of the gourd. With this technique, you actually cut through the gourd to create voids within the design. I chose a design with cardinals, birch trees and leaves as I love birch trees and our oak trees here are home to several "families" of cardinals. Hopefully I'll find some time very soon to continue working on this wonderful technique!
I hope the balance of September will be good for you and that you'll find something that can inspire you to learn new techniques.
