Pumpkin art - pumpkin carving

Sunset, Oct, 1994 by Lauren Bonar Swezey

In the days before Halloween, Bob Worick is hard at work baking eyeballs. Not real ones, of course. These eyeballs are clay. It's all in preparation for that one night of the year when goblins, witches, and ballerinas flock to see his ghoulish display of carved pumpkins--35- to 40-pound creations that come alive with an eerie glow.

Worick is a pumpkin artist--one of a hundred or so we heard from when we asked readers to tell us about their art. The works shown here are the cream of the crop. They aren't your typical jack-o'-lanterns with triangle eyes and big, toothy grins. These are true--albeit perishable--works of art.

Paul and Diana McCabe have been carving their pumpkin pharaoh, King Tutkin, for 12 years, refining their technique each year. "We began carving King Tutkin after visiting the Tut exhibit in Seattle," says Paul. They started out using a traditional cut that went all the way through the flesh. Over the years, the McCabes' imaginative work has evolved into the fully carved image that you see on page 93.

Their Halloween project is a family production. "Diana is the artist who carves the face," says Paul. "My son, Ian, and I skin the rest of the mask and scrape out the insides of the 80-pound pumpkin." Thinning the interior allows the pumpkin to glow. On Halloween night, they strap King Tutkin to a hand truck and take him trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.

Pamella Nesbit, of Sebastopol, California, has turned pumpkin-carving into a party. It all began several years ago when her friends, the Gordons, showed the Nesbit family how to use wood-carving tools to sculpt pumpkins. Last year when the Nesbits, Gordons, and friends got together for their annual pumpkin party, they carved more than 70 pumpkins into scary, funny, and exotic faces and Halloween scenes. "There's nothing quite so exciting to a bunch of ghosts and witches as when they walk into our yard and discover fairyland fight before their eyes," says Nesbit.

Carving remains the most popular method used by pumpkin artists. But Norton Roitman sculpts his pumpkins with modeling clay purchased at a crafts store. Since the method requires no cuts, the pumpkins last for a month or more (cut pumpkins last for three to five days).

Before starting, Roitman puts the pumpkin on a coffee table and looks at it face-to-face. "I turn the pumpkin around and look for its expression," he explains. "Once I find it, I lay the foundation of the facial structure by applying a single color of modeling clay." First he warms the clay in his hands to make it workable. After applying the base coat, he adds layers of other colors to enhance the expression. Roitman uses beads for the eyes and pipe cleaners to fashion the eyebrows and mustache.

Tools of the trade

These pumpkin artists' carving tools are as varied as the artists themselves. The McCabes use linoleum block print-carving knives--a tiny one to score the design, a flat one for thin cuts, and a rounded knife for deep cuts. Worick uses woodworking tools. And Stefanie Tome uses a common art knife with interchangeable blades, available in an supply stores. After outlining her design with an inkless pen or a knife, Tome scrapes the skin from the face of the pumpkin with a flat, square-tipped blade. For cuts that go all the way through, she uses a pointed blade.

Step-by-step pumpkin carving

Bob Worick, got his start carving wood capos for flamenco guitarists. Somewhere along the way, he began carving pumpkins. "I create humanlike scary faces. I don't know where the ideas come from--friends? I just like to do things that make the pumpkin look weird or diseased," says Worick.

Worick uses only dark orange 'Big Max' pumpkins because of their thick flesh. First, he makes a stand with three wooden dowels to hold the pumpkin. (You can also use three wooden shims nailed to a board, or just flatten the bottom of the pumpkin.)

"Unlike many people who completely sketch their designs on the pumpkin first, I wing it--just carve as I go. The only thing I do is pick out the positions for the clay eyes first. They're never symmetrical." He marks the positions, then carefully carves out the cavities and forces the eyeballs in.

While carving, Worick suspends a 15-watt light bulb in the hollowed-out pumpkin: the pumpkin lid holds it in place. That way he can tell how deep the cuts are--the deeper the cut, the more intense the light.

The triangular- and round-headed carving tools are most important. The triangular blade gives a narrow, wrinkled look and is useful for sketching out a shape before making a cut: the round-headed tool is for deep, less delicate cuts. Worick uses a knife for large, flat cuts.

He makes tongues from pumpkin pieces cut from the bottom of the lid. For special effects. Worick may add an earring and have rubber creatures crawling out of the mouth. He also uses diluted acrylic paint over the teeth and gums for contrast.