Pueblo pottery style gourd - from start to finish

March 28, 2010

Finally completed "Earth Song", a carved and painted gourd done in the style of Pueblo pottery. This piece turned out better than I anticipated and I'm so excited! I took photos of the process so I will share with you here how I did it.

After cleaning the gourd and cutting the top off to create the look of pottery, I drew in the design...

Once I was satisfied with the drawing, I had to determine which parts I wanted to carve out. Once this was decided it took me two days to complete the carving (not all day - 2 hours each day).

I probably spent at this point 2 or 3 days trying to visualize a color scheme. I loved how it was coming along and I didn't want to mess it up with the wrong colors. I finally chose earth tones and painted on the first color...

This was exciting - it was really starting to manifest a personality now...I was going to leave it basically with the natural gourd colors and others that saw it at this stage agreed but then I had a dream that night that it was painted with black where I had carved it out. It looked so amazing in the dream that I decided to go for it...

I was so happy I did. It was the right choice and after all the black was laid in I sprayed it with 3 coats of satin varnish and glued in the vintage glass, turquoise looking cabochons I collected for this project. Ta da! The finished piece!