Prepping for Pumpkins.

This Saturday evening we've been invited to a pumpkin carving party. It's the Canadian Thanksgiving crew, so you can bet it will be competitive, well organized, and most importantly...there will be prizes.

I am, however, feeling a little bit of pressure given that I am the only art teacher of the bunch, and the only one checking out of reality for a year to attend Art school.

When I think of my pumpkin carving past, my favourite would have to be the Bob Dylan pumpkin that Patrick and I carved.

My biggest failure - losing to Meghan in a family competition at the ranch. Sorry Meghan.

The obvious thing to do would be to arrive at the party, template in hand, ready to carve. You can either search for actual pumpkin templates, or create your own. When Patrick and I carved 'Bob', we simply found a photo with a lot of contrast, and converted it using the 'cutout' feature in photoshop. We then printed the picture on our ink jet printer, lay it over the pumpkin, and traced the outlines on. This sounds very easy, but there are always those decisions to be made (similar to the printmaking process, regarding positive and negative space), along the lines of, "How do I cut out the shaded side of the face, and still manage to maintain the eye within it?". Trust me, it hurts your brain.

Lately I'm more of the simple, but creative school of thought. 

Here are some ideas I've found, that just about anyone could pull off (and pull off fairly quickly at that).

A little to 'girly' for my taste, but clever. image.

Bert and Ernie. Who can't relate to these pumpkins? image.

A Bunch of Pumpkins making a bonfire. Guy Fox day anyone? image.

R2D2- image.

A Pumpkin Village. I'd have to say it could be improved if a little more architecturally diverse. image.

My Favourite. Squeemish. image.

And how could I not include this one? Are we missing hockey yet? image.

Leave a comment and let me know which one I should carve. Better yet, send me your ideas. I'll let you  know on Monday which one I chose.