Pumpkin baby ... baby pumpkin
Friday, October 31, 2008 at 10:58PM Okay. There was a change of heart, although it came very late in the day.
Work has been gruelling the last couple of days and there was no strength left when I came home, but the little darlings gave me enough hugs and kisses to bribe me into taking them trick or treating to three houses,and make me carve a pumpkin, with some great help from friends!
After the witch beguiled me with her smile and the little devil drove me nuts with her details, we went to Mitr's and K.'s place to carve a pumpkin.
A few thanks first :
1. To a baby boy A. who graciously picked this pumpkin from his school
2. To the boy's parents for leaving that pumpkin by mistake with Mitr and K.
3. To Mitr and K. for graciously letting us use their table for the "step by step" carving guide on that pumpkin
4. To San for being very patient with me today
4. and to Jr. and little one for pushing their tired and sick daddy to get back into the halloween spirit, no pun intended!
Now for the step by step instruction:
Take a pumpkin (the larger the better!), spread a garbage bag or some newspaper on the table before you start.
They sell stencils or pre drawn patterns along with carving kits (a book with 12 patterns, a scooper to get the goop from inside the pumpkin and two serrated carvers, one coarse and one fine all come for 5$).
However, the better thing to do instead of sticking the stencil on the pumpkin, would be to free hand draw the pattern on the pumpkin so you adjust the picture to scale. This takes some practice. In our case little A. must have picked a pumpkin he could handle with his tiny hands and that made it challenging to draw any elaborate pattern and then carve it. (the smaller the features get, the more difficult it is to separate the pieces and get them out!)
Do not use a sketch pen to draw. Use a permanent marker! Once you are done with the drawing, slice out a circle on the top and clean out the top.
Then scoop out the stuff from inside and make sure it is clean! If you leave beind the fibrous stuff, you will not be able to pop out the carved bits easily..
Then delicately start pushing the carving blade straight down (perpendicular to pumpkin surface) and start moving along the pattern. Once you finish a section, gently push the piece out and keep going. Remember, slow and steady...
Then slice out the inside on thick sections of the pattern so there is some translucency and put a candle inside!
Granted, this years piece was not even close to the ones in the last few years, but this is all that we managed in the 15 minutes at K and Mitr's place. (previous years stuff here, here, here and here!
Next year, we will give you a Mona Lisa...
On a side note, they should move up Halloween ahead by two weeks. All this global warming is making every halloween worse than the previous year when it comes to the weather!
.
Reader Comments (8)
You seem to be pretty much multi talented!!!
Happy Halloween !!!
sundar:
desi women:desi men::golu:pumpkins
good job, dude! where's the sundal?
a belated "happy deepavali" to you. (actually, not really belated considering where we live - we have the celebrations at the local temple this evening)
- s.b.
Wow! In 15 mins, did you say? Thats amazing Sundar! Thanks for indulging your readers! 2006 pumpkin was in honor of me? Boo indeed! :)
Hi Sundar,
What wonderful pieces of art, to say the least!!! Gosh, makes me wonder what other multifarious activities you have the time for!!! I saw the the carvings of the last few years as well and I loved the spider and its web the best!!! Stupendous really!! I can't believe that your pumpkin didn't win the award!
Awesome! Wow, 15 minutes!Pretty. That's amazing, the kid that I work with and I spent a good half an hour just taking the guts out of the pumpkin for a good half an hour! And our pumpkin was very plain, triangles for eyes and nose and after a lot of begging from her end a zigzag mouth!
Sundar-
Thanks for dropping by and giving us a quick demo on pumpkin carving. The way you quickly drew the house on the pumpkin showed sheer skill and practice, very impressive. I think we will be better prepared next year.
Sundar, just looking at your sweatshirt makes me want to wear socks and fix myself a mug of hot chocolate. Brrrr! There are times when I even turn off the fan in Chennai because I'm cold.
Sundar,
coll carving! Here, appa came to the kids' rescuem when amma was hard-hearted enough to say that she had no time to carve pumpkins! He carved out images very reminiscent of the "drishti" pumpkins in India, but the kids were happy!
M