Painting Gourds

I am going to be doing some fun painting on Gourds within the next few weeks and doing a little tutorial for you as I go along, so you can paint along with me.

Gourds go way back and were used by primitive people for eating and drinking vessels. Gourds are also called, “Calabash.” You can put a towel inside them and add biscuits or tortillas to keep them warm. Gourds are useful and decorative.  Fill them with candy, homemade cookies etc. and give as gifts.

 I will list some of the supplies that I will be using, so get you some supplies and get ready to have some fun. You can buy Gourds on the web or locally.

 

 

 

I will be using the, “Traditions” paint line from DecoArt and some of the mediums that go with this line. You can get the starter kit that’s on the site right now. Also you will need a bottle of Varnish, Multi-Surface Sealer and Blender/extender mediums.

Optional: the Traditions brushes #6 and 8 filbert. These brushes have soft bristles and will do pat blending nicely.

http://www.traditionsartistacrylic.com/
http://www.decoart.com/

I will use my regular Americana line to do the first base-coat.

Add some Multi- surface (MS) sealer to any yellow Americana color. I used Marigold and some other yellow mix (any yellow will do). This is just to cover the brown Gourd. If you are not sure how much MS to use, just base-coat the gourd with one coat of the sealer and then do two base-coats of yellow.

 

 

I am never in a hurry so I let the gourds sit overnight (you can dry with hair dryer and continue). I then made some mixes with the Traditions (your choice) and gave the gourds two coats, drying well between each coat. You can stipple some other color on top like I did on some of them. Let these sit over night before putting the pattern on.

 

We will use basic shapes to draw some fruit and leaves on the Gourds. You can search the web for coloring pages (If you really need a pattern). Search for, pears, grapes, apple shapes etc. We will keep it simple in the beginning.

 

The large Rooser you see has a basic base-coat and later on I will be painting on him also

 

Until the next post, get ready