Another year, another batch of those short-lived art forms that are carved pumpkins. This year, much to my delight, the kids did theirs almost entirely on their own. We also tried something new that worked pretty well--Saral Transfer paper. This stuff goes right on the pumpkin, then the design gets put on top of that and you trace the design. When the tracing is done, you peel the whole thing off and have a nice clear copy of your design right on the pumpkin. This worked much better than the hole-punch-through-paper method because 1, the paper would get soggy and messed up half-way through the carving, and 2, there was no real way to determine what needed to be scraped, and what was supposed to be cut without checking the pattern anyway. So, this new way takes some time, but worked pretty well.
The kids picked their patterns and have finished theirs already, so I'll post pictures. Mine will be done tomorrow, and I'll post then--If the complexity of the one I chose doesn't kill me...
Katie chose the great Ang from a show they love called "Avatar." Here's the original Ang:
and her version--and remember, at 8 years old, this is all her doing:
Ellen, ever the activist, did what we hope to be our next president, Barak Obama:
Very nice job by both of them, showing tremendous patience with seriously advanced pumpkin carving.
So, updating now with my pumpkin, I chose a pretty ambitious project and after 2 hours tracing and a full 6 hours carving, I'm only somewhat happy with it. I think I just didn't quite scrape deeply enough where it's scraped, or maybe the pumpkin is just too thick. I'm hoping it will pop a bit more when it has a chance to dry and therefore thin, but it's not bad. I hope you at least recognize Van Gogh's Starry Night.
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