Stories about creative experiences, people and places - art tutorials, observations and learning.
Search This Blog
Gourd Art
Last week, I rediscovered a few gourds "drying" in our garage... In fact, I was searching for them after doing a doll making workshop where we transformed gourds into doll bodies, with the addition of polymer clay and apoxie sculpt. I have researched a little to identify the gourds I have - they seem closest to the water jug shape gourds.
The gourds we used in the workshop were Chinese bottle gourds.
my gourd doll - a flower child /hippy fiddler?
Workshop dolls - Christmas sprite by Jane Lambert , and my doll
Flower doll also completed in the workshop by Lee Hennequin
Balloon seller - gourd art doll by tutor, Janice Laurent
Working with gourds made me very curious about the history and cultivation of gourds. A gourdis a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae or the fruit of the two genera of "calabash tree" . The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. Likely one of the earliest domesticated types of plants, subspecies of the bottle gourd have been discovered in archaeological sites dating from as early as 13,000 BC (found in Peruvian archaeological sites dating from 13,000 to 11,000 BC and Thailand sites from 11,000 to 6,000 BC.[5) ]
Gourds continued to be used throughout history, in almost every culture throughout the world.European contactin North America found extensive gourd use, including the use of bottle gourds as birdhouses to attractpurple martins, which provided bug control for agriculture. Almost every culture had musical instruments made of gourds, including drums, stringed instruments common to Africa and wind instruments, including thenose flutesof the Pacific.[10]T Gourds have had numerous uses throughout history, including as tools, musical instruments, objects of art, film and food. (From Wikipedia). There are many wonderful gourd artists worldwide One of my favourites is John Hernandez,whose gourds are beatifully painted, highly polished and embellished with sewn pine needles. I also admire the work of Serena Kovalsky whose gourds are organic sculptures ... here is a video of some of her amazing work.
Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.
There are many songs about fruit cakes - not all of them referring to the Christmas cake we know and love.It is really surprising to learn via Google that there are 89 listed songs with references to Christmas cake or fruit cake - not all of them complimentary. Probably one of the most famous folk songs about Christmas cake is Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake (a favourite sung by The Irish Rovers). This first recorded comical Christmas song was written by C Frank Horn in 1883 in Pennsylania, as a variation of an Irish folk song, 'Miss Mulligan's Christmas Cake' . The chorus might give you the hint that Miss Fogarty's cake was not for the faint hearted or those who suffered from a weak stomach. Chorus : There were plums and prunes and cherries, There were citrons and raisins and cinnamon, too There was nutmeg, cloves and berries And a crust that was nailed on with glue There were caraway seeds in abundance Such that...
This week I've been working on fish and sticks .... The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or my husband or from off cuts gifted to us from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks. Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...
Current Workshops Offerings Thinking of a workshop for your group in 2022? Art Doll Workshops : - Garden Thread Dolls (one day workshop - WoW -(Woman of Wisdom) - embellished stump doll with either cloth head or clay head. This is an a rt doll workshop .... either offered as a series of workshops or 2 full days days! - Message/Story Stick doll - doll made with found objects and upcycled cloth. ( one day) - Elemental totems - stick doll variation , with sculpture ( one or two days, depending on surface decoration of fabric) TEXTILE AND MIXED MEDIA WORKSHOPS Temari - embroidered wrapped balls in traditional style. - Dipping Into Tea - tea and embroidery on canvas with photo transfer on fabric. ( two days) work by Judith Bee, workshop participant. - Tea Bag sculpture : ...
.jpg)
What sweet little dolls! I am always delighted by the cleverness of the creatives such as yourself.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing, and for the links to other gourd art. Lovely xx