More information about tattoos

Upon further experimentation, we found that using the tattoo machine and transfers on a rainy day demanded another way of getting the image onto the gourd. Dabbing it with a damp cotton ball or pad made a blue mess of ink that spread over the lines, sunk into the gourd wall, and generally was a mistake.

On a damp day, it was better to using the hard surface of a boning tool (a bookbinders tool) or smooth hard edge of the back of a spoon to rub the image onto the gourd surface. There seemed to be enough moisture in the air to effect the image transfer lines.

This is a boning tool, also called a paper creaser for the newer generations unfamiliar with letterpress printing and bookbinding. It's probably sold in the paper craft / scrapbooking areas of a art/craft store. The back of a spoon or other smooth but hard tool would as well. The point is to rub the layer of tattoo stencil off the backside of the paper onto the surface without tearing the paper.








Keep experimenting; keep cross-connecting tools. All fields of expertise have specialty tools and supplies that can be used with gourds. Be open!


....and keep coming up with cracklin' good ideas!

A Gourdy Tattoo

Many people have not learned how to draw. Until the skills can be attained, there are ways a budding gourd arteeEst can enjoy the pictures and shapes they find desirable. There is the old fashioned carbon paper, which is hard to find these days and smears easily when it IS used. Graphite paper is useful, but the tracing skills have be honed since flat paper on a curved surface can be challenging. Then, of course, there is the question of intellectual property and using someone else's work. An easy, and inexpensive, solution to that problem is to use works already in the public domain and therefore copyright-free. Dover Publications is a popular resources for public domain images. Always use images in the public domain folks, or cite the source.

In the Gourd Garage Day this week, a tattoo machine was tried as an alternative to tracing. As a way of marking a gourd, it was easy. We used images from an old papercutting calendar, made the tattoo, transferred the image with a wet sponge onto a scrap gourd, woodburned the image, cleaned off the lines, and cut a pin out of the main gourd. The woodburning volunteer says it was easy to tell what had been done and what still needed to be done although to observers it was hard to see what was what. Once the tattoo ink had been washed off with water, the result looked liked it had been burned without any aides.

The process is below...A Cracklin' new perspective! 

1. Straight out of the box,
the learning curve was minimal

2. The images feed into the machine
much like a fax machine would
accept printed materials.

3. We tried several types of images.

4. Dampening the tattoo with water.

5. You can see the used tattoo paper,
and the pads we used
 to wash off the ink.

6. Here's the resulting pin
cut from the scrap gourd.

Alcohol Ink Exploration2

Dark sky, tree-lined water's edge.

Plain alcohol leaves white spots for stars, and add a halo
to woodburned stars.

In addition to the alcohol ink bowl exploration, we tried to use the inks as a paint palette. Small gourds had poppies, beach scenes, and night skies put on them using layers of inks. Color applied on top of color. The layers built up an image of sea water waves, rocky coastlines, or tree-lined water's edge. Using polyacrylic makes the colors sing. The concern, and wonder at this point, is whether or not (or to what extent) the color will keep absorbing into the gourd over time and fade. That is an experiment that only time will present. Sharpee color, as demonstrated in earlier posts, does fade over time. Would that happen with the amount of pigment left behind when our homemade inks dry?

Alcohol Ink Exploration1

The Crackled Apples and the Dappled Apples have been experimenting with making alcohol inks using Sharpees, a process very common online and certainly not a copyrighted process. the beauty part of these types of inks is the speed at which the alcohol dries off and leaves only the pigment behind, producing striking splashes of pure color. The usual ways to apply alcohol inks is daubing, dribbling, and spattering. When the wet edges of colors meet, there is a marriage of unique shapes and tints. This is illustrated in the bowl exploration done in one of the Dappled Apples' Gourd Garage Days (held on Wednesdays). Notice how the colors move from one to another. Once sealed with a clear acrylic, the visual pop will be stunning!

Thanks to the Virginia Gourd Lovers' Society curious minds;
Crackled or Dappled - those apples like to explore!

The rim for this bowl will a natural hemp or possibly string.