Gourd Workshop....with a bag lunch.

Yesterday I spent all day at a gourd workshop. This was done for our gourd group by a woman named Miriam Joy Sagen from Prescott, Arizona. She is a gourd artist that has perfected a technique using melted Crayola crayons and Ouikwood, an epoxy putty that comes in a stick.
I should have taken more photos but this is the best I could do considering I only had two hands...and they were busy learnin' and workin'.

We worked on a gourd, or (some of us) the bottom of one. We learned how to sponge color on a surface properly and transfer a pattern to the gourd surface. Then I learned, for the first time, how to pull color with a paint brush. I would guess it's a watercolor technique.

I have NEVER learned to paint with acrylics. I just throw the paint on my art work and hope for the best...or use little tiny dots to outline and decorate my work. Yesterday I learned that there are ways, using water, to spread and soften your colors with a slanted, flat tip brush. Who knew?
I had many an awkward moment with this brush. But I did it and I learned something,
Then we started using the Quikwood. I love this stuff. I had used it before on my gourd puppet faces. Doing the tree with this wood putty was really fun.
The pattern was just a guide. We were able to "branch out" any way we wanted to.

Quikwood is this fast-curing wood epoxy putty that you can use for a million things like rebuilding stripped screw holes and repairing furniture and molding.etc. It comes in a tube. You have to cut pieces of it and blend the two parts of it so it will harden. After you knead it, you have about 15 to 25 minutes to use it. Within an hour it is hard as a rock. Then you can sand and paint it.

We learned how to make leaves with melted Crayolas. This was a learning curve for me too. You have to melt the crayons in a small low temperature melting pot and use a special wax tool to drip the wax onto the gourd. The trick is how you do this and how you spread the wax. This took time. I found that I improved as I got the knack. I had to pick off many of the little "leaves" because I messed up. That was one nice thing about the crayons. If you made a mistake you just used a utility knife and pop off the crayon. It dries fast. The crayon comes right off,  so you can redo it. The flowers near the trunk are just longer versions of the leaf.

The flowers are just dots of colored crayon too. You just don't spread the dot.

I love the face. One of the ladies in our club brought this face mold, so I used the Quikwood and made a face in the trunk of the tree. We continued to make rocks and paint them with acrylics and used that sponging technique to make them look like rocks. I erased the lines from the pattern transfer and then did some refining on the rocks and leaves.

This is the finished gourd. I need to spray it with a clear protective coat of varnish and put a hanger on the back. What do you think? It was very satisfying to learn all of this and complete a piece of art.

Here are some other versions of  "the tree".

Miriam showed us some other techniques,

We ate cheesecake and Chocolate, pecan, orange cake. After all, we had to keep our energy level up.

A good time was had by all. Mariam Joy's class was $40. It was worth it. She is an excellent artist and a very good teacher.

She showed us some of her work, and some :"Easter eggs" in a basket.

These are little gourds that she decorated, all done with the crayon technique. Pretty aren't they?

We had a great time and this has inspired me to work with Quikwood again. It's amazing stuff.

Tomorrow I will show you how NOT to do Nuno felting, It will be about making a lemon into lemonade and blowing a whole afternoon of felting.

Pyromaniacs Down on the Farm

Every year, in the summer, our gourd group is invited to have one of their meetings at Sylvia's Farm. We have a workshop and a potluck lunch and a whole lot of fun. We have a short business meeting on the porch and drool over Sylvia's house with all the antiques, wall to ceiling bookcases and the beautiful built in buffet filled with gourd art and old dishes.
Her garden is always so lovely and the weather perfect. It has never been too hot to be outside whether we're having a meeting, eating or working on the gourds. So far we have been lucky. Sacramento valley can be extremely hot in the summer. Yesterday was perfect.

We all shared our skills with a propane torch, a smaller (creme brulee) torch, and a heat gun. Some of us had learned this technique a couple of years ago and either showed others how to do it or perfected our own skills. We all had a good time lighting the gourds on fire, burning them and putting the burning embers out with our spray bottles of water. Later the gourds will be stained, embellish, and turned into a piece of art. The burning is a great effect and makes the gourd look very old. Usually this is done on a gourd that is broken or one that a critter got to when it was drying...and if a rat didn't help make the holes, you can make them yourself.
At our next meeting, I will take some pictures of the finished gourd art and post them on the blog.You'll be surprised how these burnt gourds transform into beautiful vases, bowls and containers of all kinds...even jewelry.  We had so much fun with the torches, but were very careful not to get anywhere near the dry grass around the farm. This project could turn into a disaster if you weren't careful. Sylvia and her husband have a perfect covered, concrete area in front of their workshop, with metal tables and running water. It's always a great place for us to "play with fire".

Then we ate...
Everyone brought the most delicious food and we feasted like kings and queens. I brought a dessert with...what else... ZUCCHINI. It was a lemon zucchini cake with pecans and a cream cheese, lemon zest frosting. Everyone like it and I used up two more of my prolific zucchini.
I love going down into the valley to Sylvia's place. It's so nice to know that ,not far from the booming metropolis of Sacramento, there is still a small farming community with people who grow their own food, raise animals, and have dogs that greet you like you're the most wonderful person they know. She and her husband have lived there for 35 years... raised their kids there and have no intention of moving and selling their farm. It's a place with too many memories to sell for a profit.... Two much love in the walls.
Thanks Sylvia. Again, we didn't burn down the barn and , again, we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Tonight is the Amador City Wine, Art and Music Summer Social.I love this venue. It's only from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. and very low keyed. (Could be all the wine.) Everyone seems to have a great time and if we sell something...all the better. Christie (a fellow gourd artist) and I will have a table set up with some of our gourds. If you're anywhere close to us , come by and visit.
This is an event sponsored by the Goldpan Merchants Assoc. and the Amador Whitney Museum. Wine tasting is $15. which includes a commemorative Amador City glass to take home and entitles guests to taste all the participating wineries. There's live music and lots of local artists. Should be a nice evening.