Mr. Pumpkin Gourd

The other day I shared a pic of my little pumpkin in her Halloween costume and now I'm gonna show you another one of my pumpkins....one that I painted. Excuse the marketing ploy but I have the fun job of offering arts & crafts classes to the community. I love meeting with potential new instructors and have them show me all the really cool and crafty things they do, then I get to sign up for our own classes and show you what I made! We have one instructor that paints gourds, several of them she turns into birdhouses. This one in particular is Mr. Pumpkin Gourd. Of course, I brought my camera to class so I could show you step by (almost) step.

We started out with a plain ole' gourd.

Next, I gave it a good white base coat.

Then I brushed on the orange paint in downward brush strokes.

She showed us a technique (sorry, I forgot what she called it) where you pick up another color on one side of the brush and create a palette.

Using the palette, I created streaks, equally spread apart.

Next, was the leaf. I first painted the leaf a solid green (that's one step I forgot to capture). Then I used the same technique as above with 2 different greens.

Then I applied it to the leaf.

Time for the face! (Again, I forgot to take out the camera for a couple of these steps.) We had shapes cut out for the eyes and nose and we traced them on our pumpkins with chalk then free-handed the smile. Once I got everything drawn on, we began painting.....the most nerve-racking part of the whole project!

We added a few more details to make it pop a little more. But wait! I'm not finished yet!

I took it home to let it dry over night. Then I brushed on 3 clear coats, added the raffia and leaf and ta-da!!

The is the pumpkin that the instructor painted. It's a tad bit better than mine....haha.

The Office Quote of the Day:

When I needed salespeople for my new paper company, everyone here turned their back on me. Am I going to ask them to beg for forgiveness? No. Am I going to ask for a big, crying apology? No. Am I going to ask them to slit their wrists for me? No. I just want a tiny microscopic version of that.

~Michael