Carving pumpkins is on the oldest and most fun traditions of Halloween. It’s a time to get creative and get your hands messy pulling out pieces of pumpkin and saving seeds for roasting, planting or just playing around with. Many people remember the anticipation as a child of choosing the perfect pumpkin and thinking for quite some time about what to do with it. The options are endless and nowadays folks are taking every liberty possible in designing some amazing pumpkins worthy of an audience. Here are some ideas of how to use your pumpkin and make the perfect carving this year.
Traditional faces
Make a happy face or a sad face. Maybe your pumpkin man is scared or perhaps it’s a pumpkin girl with long eyelashes and pursed lips. Whatever you decide traditional faces are always a hit and popular especially with younger kids who don’t have the skills necessary for more complicated patterns and cutting techniques. The hardest part of this is trying to decide what kind of expression you want your pumpkin to show off. Think about it and draw out a couple ideas on paper first before you put that carving knife on the pumpkin.
Intricate landscapes
If you’re an artist and have a steady hand to work with you might just be able to pull off a landscape design. These pumpkins portray a place and are done with such precision that the knife lines look like brush strokes or pencil marks not that of something sharp and unforgiving. The best way to approach this is to find a photo that you really enjoy then sketch it out on tracing paper first so you can figure out where you’ll make the cuts and shallow out sections to create shadows and depth for detailing.
Painted creations
Use paint to create your masterpiece. Oil paints seem to work the best as they adhere to the pumpkin’s surface and give the artist a solid base for their work of art. Paint a whole, solid pumpkin or paint an already cut out creation, the choice is yours.
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Impersonations
Instead of just any old face make your pumpkin look like someone famous. This is really fun because people can guess who it is and if you do a really good job you’ll have people laughing each time they walk past your pumpkin. Place it on the doorstep so all the trick or treaters and their folks can see it. Make it more of a caricature by accentuating whatever features are most distinctive for true comedy. For someone like Jay Leno that would mean making his chin even longer to draw the eye’s attention directly to it.
Create a scene
Use your carved pumpkin as part of a larger scene. Carve numerous pumpkins and arrange them so that collectively they illustrate a story or scene of some sort. A popular choice is a collection of elements that create a graveyard or a haunted house look however you can be as creative as you like and make all the elements weave together. This usually take some advance planning and drawing out on paper to make it work properly.
When you go to the pumpkin patch or grocery store to purchase your perfect pumpkin this year think about all the possibilities of what you can turn it into. Whatever you end up choosing have fun with the carving process and proudly show it off to friends, family and neighbors for all to enjoy.
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Carving Pumpkins | Halloween | PumpkinPatch