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.

Lurking in the Bathroom and other business of life.

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This is a very busy week. The Cal-Am Goat show is on Saturday at the Fairgrounds in Plymouth and I have two "Best In Show" baskets to put together. I drove down to Elk Grove, yesterday, to pick up one of the two gourds that will be part of the wining baskets for the show.

These gourds will be filled with goat related items and wrapped in cellophane with a big, pretty bow.
I want to thank Mary Jane for the beautiful gourd on the right with the faux turquoise inlay and Silvia, for the goat basket gourd. I'm overwhelmed at the generosity of my gourd group and the support  they give to our Goat show every year. Silvia is the President of the California Gourd Association, a talented and involved artist.
Mary Jane is one of the most talented members of our gourd group. She makes instruments, lamps and dolls out of gourds. She does amazing and beautiful work.
Thank you both for the donation of these lovely gourds.
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When I was down in Elk Grove yesterday I had to go to Trader Joe's.

Which happens to be (Oh, my goodness!)  right next to .... HOME GOODS.

What an amazing marketing decision for this shopping center. I didn't know what to do first. Then , I came to my senses and went into Trader Joe's. I bought wine, bread, cashews, a couple of cards, artichokes, and because it was lunchtime.... I hope my sister and my cousin Suzi are reading this.... A SALAD. Yes, without you both telling me to eat more salad, I bought one. All by myself.

I ate all of it. It was actually very good, with its chicken, papaya, cabbage, carrot and a Thai Citrus dressing.
Not bad at all. I may have to buy this salad in bulk.

I topped the salad off with, of course, English Toffee.
After I sat in the shade of a tree in my car, and filled my body with SALAD, I spent a wonderful hour and a half of pure indulgence, in Home Goods. I bought some pillows, a big tin with a lid for the front porch and three planters for the  front yard. I will take some photos next week when I have the time to arrange everything.
I picked up some meds at Kaiser and drove back up to the hills.
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This morning I was groping around in the bathroom. You know how it is. I was getting ready to throw some water on my face so I could go for a walk before it got too hot. It's suppose to reach the high 80's today.
I was ready to wash my face when I saw something move under the felted soap in the tray.
Mind you. The Prospector's gone to town for some hay. The dogs were asleep in the Living room and I'm just standing in front of the sink... WITHOUT MY GLASSES ON.
I see movement under the soap. I got this "hair on the back of your neck" feeling and reached for my glasses. Yes, the warm weather is waking them up. THEY'RE BACK!!

How such a small thing can illicit such fear in me I will never know. I'm not afraid of snakes, mice, rats or wild animals but this little creepy crawler sends me into fits of fear that use to be almost debilitating.
No one was here to help. I could have called my husband to come home and dispatch this "monster" but he would have killed it and laughed at me. I was on my own..... and I couldn't let it crawl away, disappearing into the recesses of my bathroom only to show up in my bed tonight.... COULD  I?
Well,I want you to know that I pulled myself together and did the right thing. I went and got a glass jar. I moved the soap holder and , thank God, it didn't bolt away or JUMP ON TOP OF ME. It just sat there.
I carefully inverted the jar over the spider and it didn't move. It just sat there. Maybe something was wrong. Maybe SHE? was having babies right there under my felted soap. A little nest found... I don't know.... but, I'm sorry. That's just not going to happen in my bathroom.
I moved the jar and she crawled onto the side of it. I was doing well, but shaking a bit. I quickly slid the lid on and flipped the jar over. Now, she was moving. She was not happy.

This is what I call a BIG spider. I categorized spiders into: small, medium and large. This was large. Well, not as in "Tarantula" large, but definitely,"house spider" large.
I took her outside. Laid the jar in a flower pot....

She didn't move so I shook the jar and out she came.... Into the big world of wonderful places to hide and good things to eat.
I told her that she could live in my garden for as long as she liked but she was not to come back into my house. I told her to spread the word.

Goodbye little ( well, not so little...) one. Live long and prosper.
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I still have some places to tell you about on our trip to Reno, Nevada. I don't want to bore you with  a travel log but I do want to talk about the Keck Mining Museum at the University of Nevada, which was a wonderful place to visit.

Gourds and Garden Work

Yesterday I spent most of the day at Amador High School in Sutter Creek. The Art's Council put on a really fun group of classes called "Taste of the Arts". and our gourd group gave one of the classes.

We told them about our group and invited people to come join us.  One of our members, Christie, was the "ring leader" for the day and talked about the history of gourds, how they are grown and some of the techniques that we use on the gourds.
We let people pick out a gourd that was already cleaned, stained and ready for artwork.

We showed them some of the gourd art from our club.

Gave them some ideas and a table full of paints, feathers, and all kinds of embellishments. Then we let them have fun. We answered questions and helped when needed.
These folks just had a great time. They didn't hesitate to create some "gourd art" of their very own. Here are some of the results.

If you are interested in this just  Google "gourd art" and take a look at what is out there. Make a birdhouse for some lucky bird this summer. Gourds have been used for utensils, bowls, water carriers, birdhouses, baby rattles, instruments and many other useful items long before people bought these things at the local goods store. The American Indians used gourds for everything.They are easy to grow if you have HOT summers and the plants are beautiful.
It was a full day but we had a good time and gave some folks "A Taste of the Arts." Maybe we will see some of them at our next gourd meeting.
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Today, The Prospector and I spent the day outside. We are getting rid of our lawn. It's the right thing to do. As much as we enjoyed the lawn, it took too much water from our well every summer and the gophers thought that it was  a really fun place to build there condos. By the end of last summer it looked like a bombed out war zone and it was time to have a cease fire, so..... NO MORE LAWN.

Just pea gravel and a small garden area that will be as "zero scape" as possible. I really will miss the lawn but not the water that is required to maintain it. I will post a photo of the finished area in a few weeks.

The tulips are blooming.

And the goats are happy. The sun is shinning and "...all's right with the world." The goat boys are getting along.
Brownie doesn't play with them when they rough house and butt each other. He keeps his distance. He seems to have lost weight  and is still very subdued. He is eating both the grass and their hay so I'm not too worried.
Today they were in the south pasture and all laying together under the big oak tree. I think that things are going to be OK now. The beautiful weather has brought peace to the farm. Brownie is healing and the goats are accepting him back into their fold. I can't tell you how worried I was that this wouldn't happen. But it seems that things will be all right.

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.

A Good Way to Start the Day.., and the Gourd Project

I love bacon and eggs for breakfast but I try to have a protein smoothie once a day, either at breakfast or lunch. I use orange juice (I like OJ better than milk with fruit), plain (Nancy's nonfat is the best) yogurt, half a banana, blueberries, strawberries and a scoop of protein powder. The fruit varies depending on what I have on the sink counter or in the freezer. I don't' use ice if I'm using frozen fruit. If I have this drink for breakfast it fills me up so well that I don't think about eating anything else until lunch (sometimes longer)
and it's sooo good for me.After breakfast I decided to have a talk with THE GOURD...


Well, look what we have here. The gourd with potential...
It's got such interesting markings on it but it's not saying anything to me. One side is too light and the other side is too dark. I don't see a face, or a pattern. I like the dark section but I'm not sure I want that side to be the focal point. Should I open this gourd up and make it a bowl?.., a basket?,.., or keep it the way it is and add a clay face.., and mosses, leaves or dried things from my hikes in the woods. I just don't know yet.
So I decided that because this gourd was not telling me what to do, I would try to even out the light and dark places by rubbing some leather dye into it. I used brown, green and rose( yes, rose) colored dye and rubbed each in with a clean cloth. First, the brown dye (as a good base) but it brought out the markings too much. I tried to apply more in the light spots and less over the dark areas.Then I rubbed in the green dye and this added a beautiful affect; almost like it hadn't completely dried yet. After I wiped it dry I knew it needed something else. I have this rose colored dye that I never use for anything. I'm not sure why I bought the rose color. It's too "fufu" for serious gourds. They don't like blues and pinks. I have never used a blue or pink color on a gourd that I didn't have to cover with a different color afterwards, so unless I'm painting one with acrylics for an ornament or jewelry, I tend to stay clear of pastel dyes or paints.But, I decided to rub a small amount of this rose dye into the gourd and guess what? It added a warmer, more natural look to the finish. Very interesting. Sometimes you just have to experiment with finishes. If you're not sure and don't want to really mess up a piece you can try the dyes on a broken fragments of gourd..., but remember that each gourd is different and the same finish might come out differently on different gourd skins. Also, these dyes come with an applicator which I never use unless I want to cover the gourd completely and hide the texture. These dyes are very opaque if applied with an applicator and, once dry, they will not rubbed off. The important thing to remember is that dyes are messy, strong smelling and permanent. You need to work with them in a well- ventilated place, wear plastic gloves, old clothes, OLD SHOES and a mask.

I learned my lesson a few years ago. I wanted to cover a small gourd with red dye. It was going to be a Christmas ornament. I went out into the garage with my good clothes on and my black Berkenstocks. Yea... and said to myself. "This will only take a minute. Why should I change into my old stuff. I will be careful." FAMOUS LAST WORDS.I opened the dye bottle, grabbed a rag. and the corner of the rag caught the bottle , tipped it over and off the workbench. It hit the floor and splattered all over my good work clothes and my beautiful black Berkie's.Folks.., there is no redemption for this. Everything within a good five feet was splattered with RED DYE and my wonderful, expensive investment for my, then, aching feet were ruined. I rubbed the dye off of those shoes as fast as I could but they are now my around the farm "gardening shoes" ( and pants) and I learned a valuable lesson about working with leather dyes. By the way.., the concrete floor ,from then on, looked like I had murdered something in front of my workbench . The stain never came out. Now, I have an old rug covering up most of the stain so you can't see the evidence of my stupidity. That was a hard lesson to learn.


So, the gourd looks really nice. I love the finish. It matches a Fall candle I have on the buffet. I sanded it just a bit with a very fine, dry sanding sponge to give it a rustic, softer look. I don't know what's next. I'm pouring over some good Gourd books for ideas and waiting for the gourd to tell me something. Sometimes this takes a while, but I want to have it finished by the 11th of February for our next gourd meeting, so I hope it starts talking soon.

Sylvia's Farm

This is one of the most beautiful places I know of in the outskirts of Sacramento and it's where we were invited to have our annual summer Gourd Club Potluck. Well, it's almost getting to be a TRADITION. The weather was delightful! We all arrived at 10:00 a.m., greeted by Sylvia and her husband. We unloaded food and supplies, said our hello's and then got down to business.

We had a "show & tell" for new pieces that had been completed since the last meeting. Only two of us finished our puppets but there was other really interesting and beautiful gourd art on display. I introduced GOURDO to everyone and he immediately fell in love with the little goat puppet.
Our president helped us start a mask, from cutting a chosen gourd in half to deciding what we will want to do with it and placement of the eyes, nose and mouth. You kind of have to plan ahead on these masks so you have an idea what you want before you start drilling holes and adding features. The "puppet lady", who taught us to make puppets last month, brought a mask that she had completed. That would be the wolf in the bottom middle picture. Scary isn't it? She was even surprised that it turned out so downright menacing. I think she did a great job on him. He was a good example of what we could do with our "half of a gourd". It gave us motivation. We worked all morning on these masks.

Around noon we had a delicious lunch on Sylvia's back porch. She used real plates( not paper ) and different colored hankerchiefs for napkins. What a great idea..., and then, with our tummy's full ,we took a tour of her garden.
Sylvia's gourd patch goes on FOREVER and she has many different kinds of gourds growing beautifully for next Springs use. They need to dry all winter, or at least 6 mo's, and sometimes up to a year, before you can use them for artwork. See the sweet baby gourd in the bottom left corner?( click on photo for a close-up) Those will be good for pins and ornaments. They're so cute! The photo on the bottom right shows just some of her dried gourds. She had a whole barn filled with drying gourds too. She is the quintessential "crazy gourd lady", only she's not crazy at all and she will sell gourds to anyone in need..., and sometimes she just give you a few on the sly.

Thanks Sylvia. We had such a good time.

P.S. Gourdo wants to thank Madeline of Madeline's Album (in Alabama) for coming up with his name. He forgot to tell everyone that she was the person who gave Farmlady the name that seemed the most perfect for him. Thank you Madeline. It's just the best name and he wants you to know how much he likes it.

On June 15 Madeline posted this on her blog. I love it.
I don't think she will mind if I share it with you.

"Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God."

It's a good thing for everyone to remember, including myself.

Gourds, pumpkins and a bottle of vino

Next weekend is the last show of the year for us.
This one is out in Shenandoah Valley at the Amador Flower Farm .














I'm glad the shows are coming to an end for a while. It's time to do other things..., like TAKE GRANDBABIES TO PARKS, READ THEM BOOKS AND GIVE THEM TICKLES 'TIL THEY LAUGH.

Here's the address, dates and time. You can buy or bring lunch and there are nice clean bathrooms available. (I think that is important.)

This is a beautiful place that used to just sell daylilies. Now they have other plants and a great gift shop and wonderful garden art.
There will also be a pumpkin patch and a corn maze. (Children always seem to have a great time in the pumpkin patch.)

The area has lots of very good wineries and wine tasting is an accepted practice, as long as you eat something with the wine and don't drive right away; there are some very windy roads out there.
There will be workshops, Master gardeners to answer gardening questions and our gourd group doing demonstrations and selling gourd art. I'm only going to be there on Sunday.














These are 3 of my gourd pins that will be for sale there.

Then things should settle down for a while...., so I can go down and spend some time with my grandbabies. I'm missing them and I'm ready.

It's not a Pumpkin!

These are three pieces of gourd art that I finished last year. I have a few blog friends that are interested in what a finished gourd looks like, so I picked these three because they represent the kind of work that I like to do.
The first one is a Kettle gourd that was stained with a brown leather dye, then I wiped it off as much as possible. I applied acrylic paints with a natural sponge, blotting quickly with different colors to give the gourd a stone look. After the finish was the way I liked it ,I waxed it with clear shoe polish. I made a bead necklace which I glued in place along with a sea shell, a stone, a piece of ocean weed and a "spirit"sign that I made with paper clay. I sold this piece in Amador City at the Wine and Art Festival.





















The second piece is a gourd purse, sometimes called a Ju ju purse. You can use any piece of gourd you have handy, but it should be fairly oval or round because you need to attach a piece of leather to the back of it. Part of that leather flaps over to become the top and closure on the front. I twisted the rough ends of the leather together before I added the embellishments.
I stained the gourd, attached the leather hide with a good strong glue , added a shell, some feathers, agates from Oregon and a leather string for a strap. I will be making more of these. They can be worn around the neck if they are small enough, like a spirit bag. This piece is still for sale.









The last one is a birdhouse. I love to make a gourd into something useful and a bird house is such fun to make because it's ...., "for the birds." Most gourd shapes are ok for a birdhouse. It's a matter of preference. I don't paint my birdhouses but you can. I've seen beautiful drawings, bright colors and really lovely art work on some birdhouses. It's a personal choice as any finish is for a gourd. I burned some cracks into this one and added some small stones for the birds to land on instead of small tree branch or stick. I have this in the flower pot just for the photo, but you would want to hang it safely away from cats and other predators .

Gourds are a wonderful way to express your creative soul . They're organic and the seeds are planted in the earth to grow a product that was the original bowl, plate, ladle, container and jewelry of early man.
You must pay attention to the spirit of each gourd.

The saying goes...., "Listen to the gourd and it will tell you what it wants to be." I like that.