Friday, September 26, 2008

Dying gourds

I tried shoe polish, I tried watercolors, and the results were less than I'd hoped for. Now, I bought myself some specialty "ink dyes" designed specifically for gourds (only in America :), and they are beautiful. I feel like my dream of several years ago of creating beautiful gourd-based containers is finally coming true. Not that they're that great yet, but I'm feeling hopeful. Here are my first experiments:

First gourds

Do you ever find that when you are learning something new, you think it's a small subject, and then you start to scratch a little and you find that it goes on forever and ever and that there is so much to learn. I guess it's what makes life interesting. Anyways, I'm learning about woodworking (since gourds are really not so different from wood), about sanding and drills, about dyes and waxes, and I can see that pretty soon, probably about photographing crafts...
Posted by Liz Castro at 4:08 PM
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2 comments:

  1. beautiful work Liz! I especially like the middle one with the handle...but I love the colors of the last one too...the girls thought it was a picture lifted from someone else's website as an example of what can be done!
    so true about finding a hobby and then the whole underground community that goes with it~~makes me appreciate the human race just a little bit more! I'd be interested in what the base for the paints are that you're using....oil? water? and what are you doing with wax? ahh...so much out there to learn......
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  2. This is impressive! The pieces you have pictured are beautiful!
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