Gourd Pitcher

By Jake Spurlock
Category: Art & Design, Gardening
Time Required: 4 hours
Difficulty: Moderate

You’ll hear me say it not once or twice, but perhaps a couple of hundred times: "Gourds are Nature’s Pottery, with nearly endless possibilities."

I am a professional gourd crafter from Michigan where I grow my own gourds and craft with them for individuals, shops, and galleries. I love sharing my art with others, and I hope bringing my gourds to Make:Projects will start a gourd crafting movement here on Make.

I aptly entitle this gourd I crafted: "White Tailed Pine Gourd Pitcher." I had lots of fun with this particular gourd and decided to take photos of the process. I’ll take you from painting to woodburning, and from carving to the finishing touches.

This particular project is not an extensive or detailed DIY, but rather I want to just scratch the surface of how I take a simple dried gourd and transform it into a piece of art. Of course, I can’t help but tell you how I did it all with lots of tips sprinkled throughout.

I show how to clean gourds on my YouTube channel. Watch how to clean the outside of a gourd here:

Parts
/
Tools

Dye Applicators such as cotton swabs
Liner paint brush
Rotary tool with carbide carving bits
Small round paint brush
Woodburner

Steps

Step #1:

After cleaning and sanding the shell of the gourd I painted pine trees around the top half. I first made leafless trees and then with a liner brush I painted on the needles.
TIP: Liner = Thin Paint. Whenever you are painting with acrylic paint, and you want a thin line, (such as pine needles) you need to thin the paint to an ink consistency.
After making the pine needles I filled in the branches with a bit more green. I applied this with a minimal amount of paint on a stencil brush and pounced it on the tree branches.

Conclusion

This is not a DIY project, but I do list most of the tools and supplies I used for this gourd. I want this project to be a source of inspiration for you to go ahead and and start creating your own gourd masterpiece!