Gorgeous Gourds!

Last art day, we met at my house and started working on gourds. I didn't count my harvest, but I've had two pallets of them drying over the winter. By now, the outer skins are almost all rotted off.



With some water and scrubbing, plus a dip in some bleach solution to kill the mold, they look much better, and are ready to begin working on.



After cleaning them, I used the dremel tool to cut a shape in this one. On the other two, I cut the top completely off. One of those was beautifully mottled, like fine old parchment, so I simply sprayed it with urethane and called it done. With the little one, I'm making a yarn basket component that's anchored to holes I drilled around the edge. But the one with the side cut was destined to be the yardafact reliquary.



On art day, we all picked our gourds. Catherine's friends Linda and Dwight were in town, so they came too.



I had already cut and primered the gourd for the reliquary, and Katinka was in town, so she painted .



And it came out great!