This is my first whack at pyrography (wood burning on gourds).

This giant gourd -16" in diameter and 52" around. (Note the stovetop in the background)

Here is the cleaned gourd with the design printouts in place for sizing. The first set of hounds have been burned into the gourd.

Pippin checks my progress. She was really caught up in sniffing the gourd.

More hound motifs have been burned in.

The nice thing about working with a huge gourd is that you can just set it in your lap when you work.

The bad thing is that it takes forever to get the designs all drawn/burned/carved in.

The hound outlining is finally all burned in.

I LOVE this new burner. It's so easy to use and you get alot done quickly.

The top motifs are finally finished.

I needed to balance out the top with a dark design and the hound pairs reminded us of a photo we have...

This photo - Luca and Pippin sleeping in a tangled pile. The design seemed appropriate.

Done with the basic design.

The next step will be to carve out the hound bodies for the stone inlay.

And the first hound carving is done (it didn't take too long).

Close up of the carved area on the first hound. This one will be red.

There are 12 total hounds to do. I'm going with 4 colors repeated 3 times.

Grinding down the inlay, followed by polishing.

The dust is toxic, so I always use a respirator, safety glasses, air filter, fan, apron....

I do the same thing when carving the gourds, as the gourd dust can cause nasty sinus infections.

And you thought this was a 'sit on the sofa' type of hobby...

This is a closeup of the inlay after its ground down and has it's first round of polish.

I'll do the finish work and sealer after all the other hound inlays are done.

So now the first of 3 red inlays is finished. The other hound in this pair will be a deep blue.

The first 6 hounds are carved out - one in each motif pair

Hmmm, the green came out sorta blue-ish in this photo.

The inlay has been added to each motif and will cure until tomorrow.

I may just get the inlay done on all the hounds over the weekend.

You can see the inlay sticking up on the gourd. After it cures I'll grind them all level so they don't stand out.

After all the inlays are done I'll go back and do the edging/borders in gold/copper leaf.