1 Answer

Let your creativity flow! You can choose to paint them however you would like! I have read some sites that say do not use bright colors, just use browns and greens! I don't think it matters. As you can see from the picture above I have a blue birdhouse that got taken right away! My inspiration for my blue birdhouse was a blue egg. I simply painted a light blue and then added darker colors as I got towards the top! The top of the gourd looked like a bird to me, there fore I painted him! You can see the details in the picture below!
My larger bird house will are in two large pictures below. Somehow I envisioned a horse so I painted the top like a horse head. The rest I saw as a kind of stucco house, so I painted it accordingly with ivy leaves on it. I got a little whimsical on the back and painted "Mr. and Mrs. Bird" looking out their painted on window. As you can see there are no rules and what ever works for you works!
If you want to keep it simple like I did in the first bottle gourd just paint your gourd one color. Then take your paintbrush and put a glob of white paint or black paint on your brush. Gently tap the the brush over your left index finger so the paint makes a splatter effect on the gourd. Oh yeah.. make sure you have the gourd in a place where other stuff can get splattered too! ( did you see my paint splats on my first picture? live and learn!)
I like the splattered effect!
If you are lucky enough to have some thing to hang your gourd on you can paint the whole thing in one sitting. If not you will have to wait for it to dry before you can turn it over and paint the other side. No you can't hold it while you are painting. Your hand will cramp up!
Please give your gourd adequate time to dry! If you like a lot of color you might have to give it two coats!

http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-make-gourd-birdhouses