Pumpkin Carving

Like many people, I like to carve pumpkins on Halloween. I saw a pumpkin once that was not carved all the way through the pumpkin wall and the varied thicknesses of the wall created a design when the pumpkin was illuminated. I decided to give it try.

Procedure

Select a digital picture of the design to carve and reduce it to a 4 or 5 color grayscale image in the computer. Print the design to produce a template. Tape the template to the pumpkin and slice through the paper with a knife along the color boundaries to impart the basic design onto the pumpkin. Remove the template and start gouging out the lightest areas of the picture with a knife, taking care not to go all of the way through the wall of the pumpkin. To produce the lightest areas, I generally gouge out the wall until it is roughly 1/4" thick. Progressively remove more pumpkin for the next lightest color and so on until only the regions with the darkest color are left. Those areas will not have any pumpkin removed. I use a combination of knifework and my Dremel for pumpkin removal. I recommend wearing old clothes and eye protection since you'll be covered in a large streak of orange goo after using the Dremel. Also take care to put up some barriers so you don't find any stray pumpkin stuck to the walls or ceiling. At least, that's what I do. After all of the major carving is complete, turn out the lights and put 2-3 candles in the pumpkin and light them -- be sure to add adequate air holes on the back of the pumpkin. Once the pumpkin is lit, evaluate the design and fine tune, removing more pumpkin until the design shines through adequately.

Basic steps

Examples

Wolverine

Kirsten

John Kerry for president

Gene Simmons from KISS

Robert