So this year I couldn't pass up the opportunity to give it another go. I had to revisit some articles on carving techniques and discovered one sentence which changed my whole approach. One of the articles said something about how small details should be carved by taking away the skin and some pumpkin flesh but not carving all the way through. It also spoke of carving away a bunch of pumpkin from inside out to make the pumpkin walls thicker. This is common knowledge for anyone who does this on a regular basis but for me it was a revelation of sorts. Last years carving was the first I had done since childhood and I had always just assumed that carving all the way through was the way to go. Carving away the skin was almost like doing Scratch art. I also decided to work with a clamp light bulb on an extension cord placed inside the pumpkin while I carved so I knew exactly how much to carve away. I wouldn't advise this for young children or anything as the bulb gets hot but it was a ton of fun for me. Below is my carving for this year. The voting won't be for another month or so.
Every good carving needs a good stating place and this competition requires you send a copy of original carving design. SO below is my design. I never would have even considered drawing such tiny detail work if I had thought I would need to carve all the way through the pumpkin. I projected this design onto the pumpkin surface with an art projector I use for my illustrations, then drew it with a permanent pen that I tested before to be sure it wouldn't rub off when the pumpkin got wet pulp on it.
Fun fact: For some reason I seem to misspell the same words over and over again even when I know the correct spelling. "Pumpkin" is one of those words as I tend to spell it "pumkin". Every time you see that word in this post it was spelled wrong until iwent back to correct it.
2 comments:
Whoa, you are insane! This is amazing, Matthew. You'd better win.
Thanks JEn!! Did you guys grow any pumpkins in your garden? You should deffinetly do so next year and enter the competition as I know you have the creative spirit for this sort of thing. It's so much fun too! While doing my research for the contest I found out that the grand prize winner from last year actually entered the contest for 11 consecutive years before finally winning the grand prize. I hope it doesn't take me that long. I would love to lay out a few weeks next year just to design and carve a bunch of designs so I have a variety to send to the competition. I almost didn't have time this year but ended up making it a priority and I'm glad I did.
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