Art technique: Shadowing

There are many ways to put an image on a gourd, or any surface for that matter. We'll explore several traditional techniques I learned at the School of Design at North Carolina State University under the tutelage of George Bireline. George was a thoughtful and wizened artist who, not only produced intense pieces of visual commentaries of everyday and traumatic events, would answer questions with questions, demanding critical thinking on my part. I hated it at the time because all I wanted was an answer to my question so I could move on with my work, but in the end self-reflection and exploration has made me a better researcher and innovator.

As the first technique for getting an image to live, let's explore shadowing. [This is different from showing shadow or highlights.] Shadowing is following a previous line with an neighboring line, again and again and again. With each line, the subtle differences and changes will produce a natural pulse to the overall image. For this example, we'll use a feather.

Feathers have regimented vanes, as is shown by this drawing from the University of Waikato. There is a shaft and vanes that extend from it like marched soldiers. They would have to be sturdy against bending in order for a bird to stay awind. Flexible feathers would be too floppy for bird to maintain altitude. However in art, movement is critical and producing movement with line and color is how artists convey action.



In this simple sketch of a feather, the shaft is curved, and the vanes are certainly not regimented. However, as a stand-alone image, it moves! In fact, it appears to be waving in the current of multiple directions. That effect is done with shadowing! Begin with a main curved line, making an elongated triangle at one end. Once the shaft is determined, make several curved lines extended from it that move from the end to the tip.

Once there are several secondary lines in place, the vanes, all the rest is nothing more than filling in with additional lines. DO THIS: begin at one vane, make a second line that tries to mimic the first vane line, but not so completely that it becomes a mirror image. It will basically follow the vane line, but dance to it's own drummer (so to speak). The handout at the right illustrates the process.

There will be times when space runs out between vanes, and those areas are filled in with short lines and become part of the diversity that make the magic. If this is a woodburned image, a rounded tip produces a primitive line whereas a chisel tip offers a more refined line. My advice for artists using a chisel tip: work the lines from the shaft outward since it is much easier to start dark at the shaft and lift the tip toward the end to make a lighter burn mark at the ends of the vane.

In this image I use a round tip which tends to make lines that look the same coming and going, and it is apparent I do not use a high-end woodburner. I generally encourage people to test new concepts on the low end at first until it becomes plain that better tools are worth the effort. Try this technique on a scrap first, as I did. Then move on to a whole gourd as the I did with the feathers on the gourd bowl.

Picture of the finished bowl to come!

Keep it Crackin' by dear Apples,
cam

Tea in a Gourd?

My sister shops at a natural products/fair trade store in an adjoining town. Yesterday she came home with a surkrize (a family word for surprise), a Fire Gourd.  "Really," says I, "What do you mean?" She brings her hands from around her back and presents me with a small, mug-sized, gourd with interesting dark hued images on the outside surface under the finishing sealant. It is an organic and fair trade Fire Gourd from EcoTeas, made in Argentina,


Reading the tag that came with the gourd, I saw that this was indeed intended for drinking once it has been cured with yerba mate, an herbal tea 'packed with antioxidants."  I think this must mean once the instead is cleaned out according to their process which is 1) filling the gourd halfway with yerba mate and top off with boiling water, 2) soak for 24 hours, 3) remove herb and scrape gourd pulp from inside, 4) repeat the process a second time, and 5) give it a final hot water rinse.

The process relieved my mind a bit because when I looked inside, Yikes! This wasn't just white gourd pith, it was colored and musty/sooty. However, if an antioxidant herb is soaking in boiling water inside the gourd for 24 hours, twice, I can see how that would not only separate the lining from the wall of the gourd, but perhaps imbue the wall with fungus-fighting properties?

Caring for the gourd between uses is the regular gourd procedure: 1) dump grounds out [don't let anything sit inside for periods of time], 2) clean with water, no soap, 3) dry upside down [so moisture doesn't puddle at the bottom], and 4) store in dry, well ventilated location [so moisture doesn't settle, surely].

I think what I have questions about is the last line which states "It is natural for the gourd to sweat through its pores during use." Through the surface sealant?  I needed further information. I went to YouTube and found a demonstration - this made sense. Further, if the gourd is used and then cleaned and dried I can see how it could be used for tea.  Makes me want to try it...maybe.

Thank you sister of mine!  

You cracked my point of view and let me see beyond 

what I thought I knew!

CAM

Passing Time

I have a collection of hourglasses in one my school offices that measure anything from one hour to 30 seconds. Seven of them look like this one, except the sand color varies. I bought them at Kohl's several years ago and enjoy them except for the fact that they seem fragile without a base and grab arms to turn them over.

Lately I've been wondering if I could make what I need from the handles of dipper gourds. I can remember growing dipper gourds that seemed to have long, skinny handles. I believe using a canteen gourd would give me the top and bottom base and be the stable foundation to hold the handles as shown in the sketch.









10-10-14
Here are three of the hourglasses (from left to right): 9", 11" and 6". I need to find the dipper handles. Curvy and irregular would be best to maintain the perception of time as a moving target.

I need to do some investigating..MMMmmm...



A Cracklin' fun time!
CAM

1-15-15

Got some success at the Virginia Gourd Festival!  The gourd grower vendor had some long handle dippers with skinny handles. These will make terrific arm braces for the sides of the hourglasses. There are some twisty handles that will add a margin of interest and luckily my hourglasses are different sizes so certainly I can manage to work the right sizes with the right hourglass.

The tops and bottom bases will be painted to match the hourglass sand. They are the leftovers from cutting out other gourd products. I'll probably pinch off the pointy ends that serve no purpose, but the curved nature of the gourd remnant will serve as a good cradle for the top and bottom, and will provide a stable surface for attaching the dipper handles.

So!  We're crackin' on this project!
CAM



2-2-15

A visit to the local Hobby Lobby garnered more hourglasses - different shapes and sizes. With this added number of naked hourglasses, I have begun to wonder about altering the plan a bit since I will not have enough long handled gourds to use as the vertical supports for the two bases holding the hourgalss. What about wires or some other sturdy support system? In this image of antique hourglasses, there are wire vertical supports. In fact some only have two supports, not three. The hourglass on the left has a wooden case-like structure that hold the hourglass inside. A whole gourd could be made to house one of the hourglasses!

To sum up, we have a handful of gourdy possibilities for this project:

1) make bases, top and bottom, from the gourd scraps
2) make vertical supports from the necks of long handled gourds
3) make vertical supports from twisted cords of wires
4) make a hourglass 'house' that will hold the hourgalss and allow for front and back viewing
5) make gourd caps to fit the top and bottom bulb and attach giant pincher fingers that will hold it stable and the whole affair it turned
6) make a center collar from gourd at the ceenter and position it onto a pivot that would swing the hourglass over

So, some options. Time to put experimentation to work!  Let's get crackin"!
CAM

Cat in Williamsburg

A discovery was made at the Heritage Commons retirement village in Williamsburg, VA. All of the residents' apartments have a wooden ledge outside their 'front door' where they can arrange seasonal decorations or otherwise make a welcome statement for their visitors.

Coming off the elevator to the 4th floor I was greeted by three cats, suspiciously gourd-like in their bottleneck gourd shape. Naturally I stepped closer and investigated.  Sure enough, these three cats were different sizes of painted bottleneck gourds.  The base paint was black, sponged ivory, and what appeared to be starched felt ears (or what was left of ears). This one on the table ledge was the mid-sized one. A big one sat on the floor under the ledge, and a miniature bottleneck cat hung on the door wreath.

The close-up shows some of the details: the broken stem, the mangle and missing ears, the interesting eye treatment, and the sponged face and belly. Very simply done, but dynamic. The initials on the bottom say BV or BJ--hard to tell due to scrapes and fading.

However! I am cracklin' with ideas about making my own cats-you can see the beginning of my gourd cats in an earlier post titled, Storage Solutions for Gourd Parts.

Keep Cracklin'!
CAM


Work on this project has taken several turns. First, there are many versions of cats in gourdland by many talented gourders. A quick image search in any search engine will locate cats, cats, cats! It is gratifying to see so many interpretations of the same subject....added proof that people can work with the same topic to produce different results. As I point out to my research students, why plagiarize when using individual talents results in a personal product?

However, a discovery I must share with you is Betty Finch - a remarkable gourd artist working with this natural product to make gourd people, animals, and pets. Her innovative use of gourds to mimic muscles, limbs, and postures is worth celebrating. Anything I say about her work pales against the cognitive skills she must have to recognize the proper gourd curvatures and dimensions to fit into the anatomy puzzles of her art. I have captured one of the pieces here,
Cat Lady, because it includes cats however I highly encourage a visit to the FinchGourd.com website.


I am cracklin' with inspiration!
CAM

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!