Red Poppy Gourd Birdhouse

This birdhouse was a special order from my blog friend Alice over at Inspired Tokens. She has a lovely blog as well as beautiful ETSY items..... http://www.inspiredtokens.blogspot.com/ .

I've painted this design before and also showed it once on my blog but I thought this time, we could take a look at what the gourd looked like before it was turned into a birdhouse.

At this point, my husband Chris drilled several holes in the gourd, in the top neck section so the gourd can be hung, the bird hole and 3 drainage holes on the bottom. I then sanded the gourd, put sealant on it, sanded again, painted, sanded and painted again. I know, there is a recurrent theme of sanding on this one, for some reason the skin on this gourd was very flaky and needed several sandings.

I've basecoated the gourd with a light green/white mix and at this point, I'm ready to sketch on my design.

After I drew on the design, I started just basing in some of the colors.....looks pretty sloppy, doesn't it??

Because reds are such a transparent color, I basecoated with a mixture of orange and red.

So that was how the gourd all started....now here is the finished gourd. Many more applications of red, orange, fuscia (yes fuscia) were added, to build up the color of the poppy just the way I wanted it.

On this particular gourd, I've used a new mix of orange and yellow for some really pretty highlights. I liked it so much that I wrote it down so I could remember to use it next time I paint this design.

I do that a lot actually and it is a great thing to do whether you paint or are involved in any other type of art form, if you are trying something new and it works, write it down so you remember next time. Funny, especially with designs I paint over and over again, I started out thinking I would always remember what I did....not so. I write it all down so that each new time I paint a familiar design, I pull out my notes and they help me remember what I did before that I liked or disliked enough to write down.

All I needed was a signature and this gourd was done. Alice, I'll be shipping your gourd out at the end of this week. It has one more step to go through, my husband will spray it with its protective coating tonight and as soon as it is dry, it will be in the mail.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of how your gourd was painted!!!!