All About Gourds!
Course description: Bobbie Yokum has been working with gourds over a long period of time. She likes the variety of things you can create with them. Most recently, she’s made some basket type gourds with leather weaving, and some cute Christmas ornaments and decorations, too. She particularly likes gourds made into bowls with a leaf rim.
Gourd arts and crafts involve creating objects using Lagenaria hard-shell gourds as an art medium. Gourd surfaces may be carved, painted, sanded, burned, dyed, and polished. Cut gourds can be made into birdhouses, baskets, utensils, cups, scoops, bowls, etc.
Typically, a harvested gourd is left to dry over a period of months before the woody surface is suitable for decorating or cutting. The waxy outside needs to be washed before use. If cut, the seeds and dried pulp need to be scraped out of the interior. The more motley they are, the more interesting the patterns on the gourds.
The result can be both functional and ornamental.
Come learn many/all of these techniques, and apply them to a gourd you will take home and enjoy.
Since this is a first time workshop, it has a special price…. a great deal!
Artist Bio: Bobbi Yokum has been creating all her life. A veteran of ALL the Emandal ArtStays, she’s pretty well mastered every class she’s taken! Her mediums are many…. her interests, vast! From quilting, to basket-making, mosaic, to leather braiding….. wreath-making to writing….. to name just a few of the varied endeavors she embraces. Her intricate and unusual designs made from postage stamps can be found throughout the country.
Here’s Bobbi working on her Birdbath during one of our ArtStays in 2023.