about them sketches

So before i made my paper leaf dropping last week, i had been beating myself up for not sketching as regularly as i used to.

Years ago, i would sketch almost everyday, going through maybe 3-5 sketchbooks a year. Drawing/collaging while watching tv, talking on the phone, riding on the bus, blah blah blah.

Today i still have the one sketchbook started in 2003 and it is still barely filled. Mostly just skimpy [half-assed] drawings in there that i forced myself to do. It nagged at me all the time since i was pretty stuck on thinking i got to draw everyday because that is what all artists *should* do. But i just had no desire (or not enough discipline) to dwell into those blank empty pages.

Instead, i found myself mindlessly wrapping the dried gourds. Just wanting to cover up the raw dirty-looking surface and make it like new again, not really caring where i was going with them.

While wrapping one of them, i noticed some scrap wire pieces lying around. So i grabbed those and started twisting them into loops for more wrapping to do. What came out were those paper wings and this guy here:


Japanese mulberry paper over wire and clay, about 5.5" across*

I don't know why it took me so long to realize that i've been sketching all along. If i knew i were, i would be making so many more of these in the last couple of years! I didn't know where the heck they were going so i couldn't allow myself to spend too much time on them and of course, no wasting of those precious Japanese papers! nooo, gotta be painting and making masterpieces all the tiiime!

It's funny stupid how the mind works sometimes.

Bend, Mind, bend. Bend and twist like your paper wire sketches...


*Please note that this little guy has a little genitalia. Either that or that thing that hangs in the back of the throat.
(Ma, don't be embarrassed to look. Click for larger image.)

the forgotten one

dried gourd wrapped in Japanese mulberry paper, 2.5" x 5" [work in progress]

Forgot to include this in my picture of the baby gourds line-up.

red bit

Come to think of it, i don't think it was mulberry paper that i first experimented with. But it was some kind of Japanese paper similar to it (one that is often used for woodcut prints) that had a more smoother surface.

I happened to have a big pile of these left-over scraps from these circles that i was cutting out to be used for pages to make a round book. So that is why there are these curves and pointy ends seen in the layering of the paper on the gourd. Actually, the edges of the layers are more noticeable because of the pencil marking from the outline of the circles that i drew to cut out.


Well, okay. So the acrylic easily scratched off so i decided to just take it all off and cover it with the Japanese paper scraps. But as it is with my tendency to save bits and pieces of things, i left a bit of the red so i could also remember how i got to where i am now.

baby steps

So, first, I had to leave the gourds alone to be dried. Depending on the humidity, it takes about a year or so for them to be fully dried. Every so often while they are drying, i would need to clean off some smelly moldy build-up on the surface.

You can see that on the bottom of the dried gourd (above) three dark spots where mold was starting to grow. If i didn't clean it off in time, it would have eaten through the gourd.

I have tried using gesso and acrylic paint but you can see below that both do not stay on very well:




So that is when i started thinking of other ways to treat the surface. And what better way than to use my beloved mulberry paper that i have neglected since taking a break from printmaking?

More on those paper-wrapped ones tomorrow...

baby gourds

1.5" - 3.5" in height [click for larger image]

The gourds are lined up in chronological order from trying them out in gesso and acrylic paint to covering them in paper and woodcut print.

More details later...