Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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  gourd   is 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 witho...

 No progress on my exhibition pieces in the last few days, as I had another deadline to meet today. I am one of the artist contributors to a book which is being published at the end of the year. The "coffee table" book will have amazing artistic photos of beautiful meals created by a chef accompanied by images of textile/fibre art inspired by the relevant fruit or vegetable . As you can see, I was allocated 'mushrooms". I had all sorts of great ideas of art dolls with mushroom hats and I made a number of drawings and patterns.  However, when I made a sample mushroom cap to practise the "hats", I liked the little mushrooms.... so, in my workroom, just on the shelf above, I spotted a small gourd. Surely everyone has gourds on their shelves just waiting for  an opportunity to be used in an art project? This gourd became the base, on top of which I created a rocky earthy surface with air dry clay, with the addition of embedded pockets of handmade felt. The em...