Painted Large Snowman Gourd

I will be getting to the Santa sled later on in the week ( took a break for the Holiday!). Here is a snowman gourd that I painted for the season. His eyes are a lot different from the one posted earlier. This thick Carolina gourd is 15 inches tall (without his hat) and very large around, so larger eyes were called for. (All the years of putting in various shaped eyes in ceramics is coming in handy!) He is a very popular size gourd, since the body leaves plenty of room for painting.

How do you like that profile? :) He is sporting a nice sized carrot nose that I think he carries off pretty well! And look at how he sits. On some of my bigger gourds, (handmade) boots are needed to keep them sitting upright and solid, but this guy sits tall and proud on his own. I will be doing some gigantic gourds in the near future, and some of those will be sporting boots. The addition of boots can sometimes add another dimension to the piece that works even better with the design.

Renee Mullins is a fantastic tole artist, and this design is no exception. A chilly winter's night scene. The design has characters presented on a large scale which is accentuated by the size of the gourd. The colors were picked to match the scarf and hat. The hat and scarf are not glued to the gourd, so ... the new owner can "re dress" their gourd if he or she ever tires of the pattern!