As some of you probably remember, I grew a bunch of gourds this past summer and while most of the really large African gourds are still drying out in the fields and won't be ready to work with until well into next spring, some of the smaller gourds are now fully dried and have been calling my name.
I've been "cutting my teeth" on a few of the smaller (and some of the more flawed) gourds I grew this summer. I've never worked with gourds before and really had a lot to learn. I bought a few gourd books, read a bunch of online tutorials, and watched a gazillion videos about working with gourds, so these first gourds of mine truly were experiments for me. Some turned out pretty well, others not so much, but I definitely learned a lot by just doing it myself (which is good because I have a zillion and one gourds that will be ready for me to do something with soon!)
Anyway, I'll be taking some photos of these first 5 gourds of mine and hope to show them to you in the next few weeks. Since these are the first gourds I've ever made, I don't plan to sell them, but I wanted to show them to you.
Carved Small Gourd Sculpture (for lack of a better name!)
Here is the first in my series of "my first gourds." I really like how this carved gourd turned out. It's pretty small (about 5 inches across and approximately 4 inches tall). The top of the gourd had shriveled up while it was in the field last summer, but the base was ok, so I just cut the top off and worked with the base. It's not really meant for anything (not a birdhouse or a bowl or utensil) but just a sculpture of sorts. It's a really sturdy gourd and was thick enough for me to try some simple carving on it. I also used ink dyes on it for some color and finished it with satin polyurethane.
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