Work Shop Tour-Day Three

Today is Day Three of the Shop Tour, I hope you have enjoyed looking around and seeing some of my work.

Come with me and we shall see some more of what resides in my crowded shop that may interest you.

As usual, click on any photograph to enlarge for a closer look.

This Gourd in the foreground I call the "Buffalo Gourd", it has a Buffalo that I drew on , then wood burned in and to make it stand out, I carved away all the hard shell around the head to make it stand out in relief.

I next cut some Star shaped pieces of real Turquoise and inlaid them into the gourd and sanded them down flush with the gourd surface and polished them to a high gloss.

Sitting next to the Buffalo gourd are two of my Gourd Bowls that I made.

Here are Two Gourd Art pieces, the bottom one has 4 different Eagle pictures on it

Each Eagle picture is different, I drew them on then wood Burned in each and created a Four Directions design on the bottom.

The Gourd on top is a design I came up with that has Feather Fans wood Burned on it, and a symbolic design of the Four directions.

I also cut 8 pieces of real Turquoise and inlaid them into the Gourd.

This is a Black Walnut Flute blank that I have glued up and ready to shape for a new flute.


One of the Flute Racks I made to hold the flutes I make.



Another Flute Rack full of flutes, with the Hawk Flute laying at the bottom.



A close up of the second Flute Rack..showing a bit more detail.

This is a Buffalo (Bison) skull that I made..using a head of a Cow Buffalo that my friend who owns a Buffalo farm gave me.

I skinned it out and fleshed it..followed by boiling off and light bleaching.

This concludes Day Three of the tour of my shop, I hope you enjoyed our tour and come back often to see what I post and leave your comments.

Geometric Designs and Gems

Gourd Art # 108

Today's post is of another Gourd Art I just finished after working on it for the past two weeks.

The Gourd is a nice Big one,finished it stands 13 1/2 inches tall and is 12 inches wide at it's widest part, and did manage to give me quite a challenge to create it.

The Gourd is not fully round, as most gourds are not, and has a somewhat bulbous shape which lends it's self to a storage type gourd (to keep things in it).

I started out by first drawing on some Geometric Designs and then wood burning the designs in, and then cutting the diamond shaped pieces of top grade Lapis to be inlaid into the upper boarder portion. There are 22 diamond shaped pieces inlaid into the upper boarder and then a boarder around each piece wood burned in and colored with a special Sliver paint.

I then proceeded to color in all the Geometric Designs with leather dye, then there was one slightly bad spot just below the upper boarder in the gourd, so I designed another Geometric Design there and cut another piece of Lapis to be inlaid in that spot where it was pitted.

The next challenge was the top that I had cut off, it had some deep cracks and gouges in it,I filled those places and then drew on a ribbon type design, wood burned it in, then colored with leather dye.

Finished Gourd Art

View from the top

The troublsome top before

Showing top after

Signed bottom

New Gourd Art #107

Today's post is of a new Gourd Art I just finished, it is a full 3/8" thick after cleaning and sanding and stands 15 1/2" tall and is 8 1/2" wide.

I followed my "Creative Voice" from the gourd telling me what it should be, and this is what the result is, a Navajo woman making a pot to put some of the harvest in during the "Harvest Moon" you see over her head.

The "Harvest Moon" is cut from Iridescent Mother of Pearl and inlaid into the gourd, ground and sanded flush with the gourds surface and polished.

I also cut 6 star shapes out of Turquoise and inlaid them into the gourd,ground and sanded flush with the gourd and polished, then a boarder drawn on and wood burned in and filled with Brown leather dye.

The back side of the gourd is a young Native man with his fire and seeing a Thunder bird rising from the fire. The Thunder bird I made by cutting 8 pieces of Turquoise and inlaying them,sanding and flushing to the gourd and polishing.

I used a very light yellow inside the gourd to light it up a little, and with the top off it appears as if a nice warm fire was burning within to light the evening.

All designs are first drawn on with pencil, then wood burned into the gourd and color added with leather dyes and some paint, even the boarders are wood burned in and colored with leather dyes.

You may click on any of the photographs to enlarge for a better view.

Front View of the Gourd Art

Front view with top off

Close up of the Navajo Woman

Back side of Gourd with Native man and Thunder Bird

Close up of Thunder Bird made of Turquoise

Close up of one of the 6 Turquoise Stars on the top
Note: Several of the Turquoise Stars have flecks of Gold in the Turquoise.

Another Update/Gourd Project

Front and top view

View From Top

With Top Off


View Of Bottom

I have to this point finished the top by wood burning in the designs of the 4 Directions and placing in the colors, White (North), Yellow (East),Blue (South),Black (West).

I have also used Waxed Irish Linen Thread to tightly wrap the stem of the gourd to be used as a handle.

After drawing on and wood burning in the Four "Thunderbirds" and surrounding designs, I used leather dyes to color in for contrast and also cut Four Circle of Turquoise and inlaid them into the gourd and ground and sanded down flush with the gourds surface and polished.

Under the Four Circles of Turquoise it is yet to be determined what will be put into that space...I am still listening to the Gourd tell me what it wants...today may be the day for the answer.

Note: I also completed the bottom design and wood burned that in and colored with Leather Dye.