When I am preparing to illustrate a gourd the first thing I do is clean them of their skin and then I feel them to make sure they are as smooth as I can get them. As I go through this process I to get to "know" the gourd and an illustration comes into my mind that fits the gourd.
I cleaned and caressed this little gourd with the straight stem (most stems are curved) and it gave me nothing . No matter when or how many times I held it and pondered upon what it was to be nothing came. So it was put up on the shelf to wait until it would tell me what it wanted to be.
Not too long ago a friend came to town and we met at Camilla's Kaffe on Aspen street for breakfast. As we chatted Linda asked me if I knew what had happened to this artist she knew who had done this beautiful pastel painting for her and was she doing anything. (This artist is me.)
I explained that the artist was well and that I had just completed the illustration for the 2009 Mike the Headless Chicken web and poster and that I was teaching a colored pencil class. I have a photo of the MTH design on my phone so I whipped it out to show her and since there was a shot of one of my gourds (Fairies By Day & By Night) I told her about that endeavor and gave her a peek.
She was very interested and said she would like a gourd rattle; not too large and would I do one. Well you bet I would! And what do you think popped into my mind. The little gourd... this is it! It was waiting to be a rattle for Linda.
It is sometimes strange how inspiration comes.....sometimes a tiny hello that is sweet. Now those are the ones you need to listen to.
So here we go on our journey of the Little Gourd. How to accomplish this rattle? I don't know. Yeah the web. Okay that was good. I have to cut the top off and clean the insides out. How to do that. Well I went to the garage cuz I knew where my dad's old jig saw sat on the shelf........
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