Peeling Up the Past

My dear Crackled friends, life is busy and productive and exiting right now!  The gourd studio organization has yielded 23 woodburners!  Who knew?!  Well, I should have since it IS my house for gosh sakes! The continual drive to move on to the next great gourd idea has left piles of stuff in such confusion that when a woodburner was needed I'd just buy another one. Same with pliers, and screwdrivers! But, I offer some news to you that may be helpful at some point.

I had new overhead lights installed in the garage which brightened up the space like nobody's business. The different was striking!  However, the lights also made dark corners visible and what did I behold near one of the drill presses but that a quart can of paint had toppled over and dried solid on the floor, lid and all.

The beauty part of it was that since it was latex, so I could use a chisel to pick at an edge until it curled back. At that point I could grab a firm hold on the edge and peel the whole thing off the floor in one piece, lid and all.

So, the crackled lesson? There is the obvious conclusion that a garage should never get into such a state from the get-go. A more subtle, yet potentially vital conclusion, is that the best way to deal with spilled paint (even craft paints?) is to let the spill dry completely and then peel it up, especially if it sits on a nonporous surface.

Dolls or Seeds?

While looking up books on Amazon about black holes and peacocks (I know, I have eclectic interests!)(by the way, the newly released book, Strut, the Peacock and Beauty in Art, is going to be amazing!), I came across an item called Russian Doll Gourd Seeds. I was struck by the image and since I have always been enchanted by sets of Russian dolls, I just had to order...until I continued on the ordering path and realized WHOA! this wasn't about dolls at all, but about a package of 10 seeds. No mention was made that in order to get to the doll part a person would have to grow, dehydrate, clean, and THEN paint the gourds.

These are nothing more than miniature bottleneck gourds...and just seeds at that, even though the ad implies the dolls are the purchased item? I know, I know, read the small print always but a customer would have to know quite a bit of gourd culture and how-to to get from seed to dollie!

I like the dolls though, don't you? Makes me want to try them with some of my stash in the shed. MmMmmmmmm...I might be able to do a face, and perhaps some holiday images of holding a pumpkin, or tree ornament, or Easter egg.  Another project in the making!

Flip-Flop Dolls

Don't you just love fall? The air gets more comfortable and the time for tying up loose ends comes together. I have begun to order books for next spring and stow away baskets and signs from the local market.

I have also begun working on my flip-flop dolls...those amazing two in one dolls that flip over from one doll to reveal another: bride/groom, blonde/brunette, ballerina/football player. I have collected the gourds I want to use -- miniature bottleneck gourds with similarly shaped and sized head and belly. My own stash fell a little short this year, so I contacted another member of the Virginia Lovers' Gourd Society and luckily got another 20.

These dolls are in one of the books I've written, but having a step-by-step online tutorial has merit as well. I hope you try these for yourself!

Sharpees on Gourd Surfaces

Sharpees can be a quick way to put images on a gourd. I use them for ornaments and bowls when I want colorful calligraphy. There have been some lessons along the way however, and I am happy to share those with you.

This experiment and subsequent lesson has to do with polyurethane and Sharpee ink. First of all, let me tell you I am a BIG fan of Sharpee and use them over paint most of the time. However, there are two problems that arise: not all finishes will mix with Sharpee easily, and Sharpee ink fades over time.

In my experience Sharpee ink bleeds with Miniwax Polyurethane. Even if I use a brush and apply the thinnest coast possible so the ink won't run in drips, the brush becomes colored with the ink. Brushing over the existing brushed places just makes the ink ever-so-subtly blend over the background and image. The fix to that has been to use spray Poly lightly, let it dry, spray again, then brush. Many steps, but it works.

The other problem has been the fact a gourd will absorb the ink color over time. If used to fill in woodburning images, the colored part begins to look like little dabs of ink were applied here and there while most of the image was left plain. Only regular blue tends to stay more visible, but only in blobs.

Customers have brought back gourds with elaborate art on them that after years have faded to nothingness. A little time spent redo-ing the Sharpee on top of the finish brought the gourds back to life with happy results, even after another couple years.

To fix both of these problems, I have started to apply poly first (this works with spar varnish, polyurethane, acrylic, or floor polish--spraying or brushing, the application technique does not seem to matter), let dry and apply the Sharpee design on top of the sealant. The color stays true, is permanent, and has no fading.

The 12 year old back

The renewed back

An example of how Sharpee color fades on a gourd surface can be striking. This gourd angel is about 12 years old. You can see from the rear shot how faded the color had become. With new color, the original vibrant look is renewed. So, as a lesson in process: Put Sharpee colors on AFTER the initial coat of sealant. That keeps the color from soaking into the gourd and fading over time.

The renewed front

Hope this Crackin' Good lesson helps you!
CAM

Storage Solutions for Gourd Parts

Sometimes I get frustrated with the small pieces of gourds, tools, rim materials, and the other detritus that accumulates around the gourd studio. Not all of it is waste; some can be put to really good use if I can save it in an orderly way. Enter the multi-drawer storage unit used by woodworkers for nuts and bolts. I highly encourage use of these things. One drawer is collecting stems and miniature bottleneck gourd heads for the cats I make.

Drawers hold stems and gourd parts,
rim materials, glue sticks pins, nails,
picks, and lures....all the strange bits
and pieces of a gourder's artistic life.

Rubbermaid, 10 drawers. I bought
two of these several years
ago, and forgot them!

Stems serve as tails on the backs of these miniature
bottleneck gourd cats. Finished cats to come!

Micro Bowls

In an effort to make fairyhouse sized gourd bowls, I have been using the belly of miniature bottleneck gourds. This particular one has a crackled rim. It was made by using pliers to squeeze off the edge to get the irregular appearance.

A chisel tip on my inexpensive
woodburner made the wheat image.

Gourd Fairyhouse is Moving Forward....

See the fairyhouse move forward. The Gourd Great Room is made, the sketch for the finished project is presented as a plan for the whole thing.

See the Finished Gourd Book!

The Research Book of Days is done! Check out the post to see the finished project.

Gourde Pliable

At the Dollar Tree check-out.

While walking the aisles of my local Dollar Tree and moving to the check-out counter, what should I come across but this handy dandy water bottle. As a multi-language label, the water bottle name translates to "Gourde Pliable". It is a collapsible container to carry liquids while doing outdoor activities. Gourds were, and in many areas are still, water carriers and dippers. It still catches me by surprise when I see the connection between gourds and modern products.

CA Mohr

Shaping Gourds

As reported in inhabitat, Andrew Mowbray, has been growing gourd building blocks for a couple years. Check out the article link to see other images, especially the one with green gourds banded with the box sides they are being molded within. The unique difference with Andrew Mowbray's molded gourds is that his concept extends beyond the art and beauty of the gourd to a product that could have a utilitarian purpose. My question would have to be about expansion. Since gourds are living, when released does the amount of expansion hinder the stacking potential?

Although approaching gourd-shaping from a new angle, these notched, stackable blocks follow a long established tradition of gourd altering. Plastic molds have been used to shape faces as documented by Suzanne Cook's article and photograph. Dan Ladd has been producing remarkable gourd art with classic shapes in the Greek tradition for quite a while.
His molds are porous which reduces the accumulating moisture that can happen with plastic/acrylic molds.

Of course nothing is as simple as tying a rope or wire around a gourd as it grows. In fact, just letting a gourd grow against a chain link fence will imprint the link pattern onto the gourd. Gourds are fluid, a natural work in progress and will shape themselves to accommodate their surroundings.

Let's try an experiment this summer with several different possibilities!



CA Mohr

Gourd Book of Days

This semester I am working on a book of days for the research lessons I teach. There are 8 packets with several handouts each of the information a researcher needs to know to do more than a retrieval project.

The first couple months of 2014 was spent locating origins of book of days, their authors and purposes. Being a gourd Crackled Apple, I naturally thought of using a gourd. This was initially inspired by a gourd book I found online at the The Center of Book Arts. It appears to be a canteen gourd with a string that links one end of the gourd to the other. The strings carries round disks of paper with Asemic text. Creator Diane deCreeft followed the theme of book as a container of knowledge. Read the article; it's worth the time!

For my 44 lessons divided into 8 packets, I wanted to use a system of paper circles that, much like a vegetable steamer, fold on themselves. See how the individual flaps interlace and close upon themselves? If I use binder rings like the ones at Hobby Lobby (which we now have in this area!), there are color coded sets of circles for the packets' handout information....the bare minimum per circle of course, but still carrying the vital knowledge.

With the rings positioned through the gourd, around the rim, the sets of handouts can be folded in and out as needed.

To cut 44 circles of poster board, I used a die cutter from school. The circle die is the rubber/metal ring block leaning at the right side of the cutter. It sits on top of the paper and slid under the handle before the handle is brought down on the block to cut into the paper. Now to make the packet label and lesson circles!

 That will keep me crackled for a few days!
CAMohr






May 28, 2014
While working on the lessons, the project continued with an apple gourd because as stated in the Smithsonian article Why Students Give Teachers Apples and More From the Fruit's Juicy Past: "Held up as the paragon of moral fastidiousness, teachers, particularly on the frontier, frequently received sustenance from their pupils." 

Apples were the sustenance! Even after agricultural ways had been left behind by most families, apples remained as the gift and, thereafter, a symbol of getting into the teacher's good graces. This information makes the choice of an apple gourd for the research book of days a good choice.

The apple gourd below has no stem.
I want to find an R to use as a stem/handle.

The gourd interior is rough with bits of dehydrated
pith and debris still clinging to the sides.

After a rough gutting with a grapefruit spoon and sanding sponge,
it is ready for the decoupage treatment using references
from encyclopedia books, in APA format of course!

I scavenged a couple scholarly tomes that were meant for the discard pile
in the dumpster and tore out the reference pages.
Using these citations, I decoupaged the interior of the
gourd to reflect the need for citing sources correctly
-- a lesson in Packet 7 about Plagiarism.

I'll get back soon so...

Stay Crackled everyone!

CA Mohr

July 21, 2014
I'm back with progress on the gourd Research Book of Days!  After finishing the interior, I produced the 8 packets of lessons. Each set has a cover with the title of the packet, along with a circle for each lesson within the packet. Sets were put onto rings in preparation of attaching to the gourd 'book'. Each set of information has a different color. The 7th Packet - Plagiarism is photographed separately below to show more of the individual pieces of information. The handouts were distilled to present the bottom-line pieces of information necessary to complete a successful research project.


The exterior of the gourd book has been decorated with various terms associated with research and the lessons found within. Obviously, this process would work for any book of days...or a novel. The ringed set of circles could be chapters of a book!

Now, on to making the holes to attached the Packets and finding the R knob for the lid handle. Where would I find something like that anyway?  MmmmMmmmm.....

Almost done...Better get crackin'!  
I want to get going with the gourd fairy house and the summer clock is ticking.
CAMohr


August 24, 2014 - final installment to the gourd book post
Like any gourd project, the ending seems so close and yet so far. I made 8 marks along the rim for the lessons rings. Hobby Lobby had 12 rings for a couple bucks. I used a 1/4" drill bit to make holes and  looped the lesson units through the rings and then the holes. To make the holes align better with the lid notches, I leaned all the rings to the right. That one decision nestled the lid tighter to the book bowl.

The lessons are ringed and overlapped as the leaves
on a steamer overlap, with the first lesson packet on top.
Notice how the rings all lean to one side -- that ended up
making sure the lid was stable once the notches were cut.

The gourd was sprayed with several coats of poly acrylic. Usually I brush on spar varnish or some other durable sealant, but since this book will be used indoors and probably just kept on a shelf, three coats of spray is enough. The handle ended up being a tree charm I purchased at a flea market. I decided to go with the 'tree of knowledge' metaphor. I believe this book of days is a fine ending to a semester of thinking! I am encouraged to try other gourd books.

A crackin good time!
CAMohr
GourdGal

Gourd Fairyhouses

May 30, 2014 
There are some interesting gourd fairyhouses happening right now by amazing artists: Vidya, Anne at A Little Fur in the Paint, and my current favorite by Dianne Lordan which is a labeled drawing of a gourd house. These, and MANY more, inspire me to try my hand at making a house. I have begun with a base which is a kettle gourd I initially painted white, but I think the decoupage with the rose giftwrap paper will be the way I continue in addition to attaching an attic and side rooms.

oH NO!!  Another work in progress!  The studio just moves on, a little bit here and a little bit there.

We keep crackin' here in the Crackled Apples Gourd Patch!

A collection of gourd rooms attached to a gourd
great room with a series of stairs and doors. 

CA Mohr



August 24, 2014
It's been exciting to begin this fairyhouse project. Initially, the gourd shape concerned me since I was working with a preconceived idea of what a gourd house would like. It took a while to step away from what I have seen, and go toward what would evolve with the materials at hand. With that in mind, this is what I'm thinking:

This gourd fairyhouse would be a community of rooms attached together. An inspiration for this comes from the
Montezuma Castle in Arizona -- a 20 room dwelling. The drawing shows 5 gourds attached to each other by a series
of doors and stairs.

Front/side

Back

I began with a great room which was a large kettle gourd with an open front, windows on the sides and decoupaged with the rose giftwrap to maintain the girlie-fairyhouse feel. I suspect the other rooms will be variations of this design: windows and a floral/fauna decoupaged exterior to be different and yet work together visually. I made it a point to eyeball the windows instead of measuring a precision-ed grid of squares. By drilling four small holes in each of the window corners, I could get my jigsaw blades into the window space to cut out the shape. FYI: this is especially helpful when the gourd wall is thick.

Now, to choose the gourds for the extra rooms and snake gourds for the stairs!

Hmmm...this may take some crackin' powerful thinking....
CAMohr

   

Some Gourd Jokes

One kettle gourd consoles another,
"Don't waste your time -- She's for the birds."

                       

       

A snake gourd at the bar is told,
"No more buddy, you can't hold your liquor."

Two bushel gourds walk into a bar.

Trying the Woodburner

I've added a couple woodburning apples to sidebar links for beginner tips and techniques as newbies test the waters. Overall, nothing beats repetition -- so, just doing it a lot should be the goal.

The Sue Walters video quilt project is a good way to test the versatility of the tips that come with whatever woodburner is purchased. I say this because not everyone is going to invest in a gourd pyrographing set-up right off the bat. BUT, all woodburning devices come with a couple tips, or at the very least with one that screws on and off.

Explore all the possible options is the way to get the most out of what is at hand!

CA Mohr

Growing a Gourd House

Meadowbrook Gourd Farm has an interesting video that shows the lifespan of gourd plants as they grow over a shed to make "a gourd house".

Quick Woodburning Tips

Pyrography Online offers several handy tips for woodburing...many would apply to gourds as well as wood. The biggest #1 tip is the fact that the slower the burning tip is move the darker and deeper the line. That sound obvious, doesn't it?  But in many instances a gourder will forget that and move too quickly. A remedy to that of course is using a burner that burns at a higher temperature.

The color reflects the frequency of use!

I use a lower end model of woodburner from my local big box store. It come with basic tips, one of which I use regularly -- the rounded tip. Burning gourds will find this time accumulating sticky gourd debris. To keep it clean, and therefore burning as efficiently as possible, I keep a wad of steel wool handy to rub it against. As long as there is no layer separating the metal from the gourd surface, the job gets done.

Why do I go with inexpensive? I have an established look to my work that would not be possible with the sleekness of a high-end tool. Many people have lovely pieces of burning equipment and do FABulous work! With the lower end, I can buy several, hang them at the workbench with a different tip and move from one to another with ease.

Birdie Innovation?

What a surprise it is to find pieces of innovation in obscure places! While working on a project along with my students last semester (my topic at that time was bobbleheads), I was demonstrating how to find trademark and copyright information at the online US Patent and Trademark Office. Lo and behold if I don't find a patent for a gourd birdhouse!

My question has to be, What was the patent for? The concept of using a gourd as a birdhouse or using the hippie image as the birdhouse design?

  

This is a close-up of the patent text. 

Hanging holes and hanger, 
drainage holes, mouth
as the
 birdhouse entry hole
 -- like many gourd birdhouses!

The patent spec sheet is to the left with an up-close view above showing that patent 173,440 is for a birdhouse. I find it hard to believe the patent office would think no one has ever made a birdhouse out of gourd before this....which leads me to consider, was the patent for the design of the birdhouse?

Keep innovatin' and stay crackled all!

1,200 Year Old Innovation

Photo by Travis Rathbone for the Smithsonian Museum

Yes, we Crackled Apples think we're pretty spiffy with our ideas and newfangled ways of doing things with gourds but there is a long history of crackled gourd people. The Smithsonian reports in their recent December 2013 issue that the Chimu empire of the Rio Moche Valley in northern Peru had gourd telephones. Looking like two tin cans on a string, the Chimu connected two gourd ends together with a twine to communicate within palaces.

The Georgia Gourd Guy is putting together a collection of gourd history. Some articles still to come are magical gourds and gourd snuff. There is a lot to learn about gourds and their fascinating history!

Keeping talkin', keep learn', and by all means stay Crackled!

From Seed to Sell

As an overview, here is a YouTube that lays out basics. This video is the Virginia Lovers' Gourd Society's outreach to the curious general public. As a start, it can inspire your questions.

Welcome!

Welcome my dear Crackled Apples -- the blushing fruit of the gourd world who innovate new approaches to gourds, and the uses of gourds in art and craft. Sometimes we just slap ourselves silly with new ideas! Join us on this journey of wonder and splendor!