Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin sculpting

pumpkin sculpting with my daughters

Art Pumpkins: American Gothic

 Here is my second American Gothic pumpkin for the Jack-o'-Lantern Spectacular. The first one, drawn by another artist, had its face (or more specifically, the farmer's face) eaten by a squirrel. I created a replacement, but it was eaten by a deer. Here is yet another. I haven't seen it lit up.

It's a little hard to see in the photo, but this time, I gave the farmer a widow's peak and fangs.

Those are the phases of the moon framing the image.

Clinton and Trump Pumpkins

Here are two pumpkins, both drawn by Edward Cabral, and carved by me (because they needed to go out for the show but Edward wasn't around).  Edward did a great job, and I hope my carving skills did them justice.  In my humble opinion, the eyes on both really sing.

artists: Edward Cabral and Mark Tabler

artists: Edward Cabral and Mark Tabler

White House Pumpkin

White House Pumpkin. Artist: Mark Tabler

 Drawn and carved for the Jack-o'-Lantern Spectacular at Iroquois Park

Wyoming Pumpkin: unlit vs. lit

Wyoming pumpkin

Drawn and carved for the Jack-o'-Lantern Spectacular at Iroquois Park. This is, at least so far, my favorite one I've done this year.

Trump pumpkin

I made this smug mug with alcohol ink and acrylic paint.

Wyoming Pumpkin drawn but uncut

Wyoming pumpkins - Jack-o'-Lantern Spectacular

Here is the first pumpkin I drew for this year. The cowboy is based off a Charlie Russell painting (I did a report on him my junior year in high school and have had a fondness for his artwork ever since.)

I took the photo from two angles to try to work around the awful glare.

Jack-o'-Lantern Spectacular preparations

Lots of pumpkins and artists hard at work. I think I took this photo on the first day of drawing (Sept. 21).

Balrog Pumpkin

I did this last weekend. I can't wait to see it lit up!

Millennium Falcon Pumpkin

This is one I did last week

Frodo Pumpkin

Here is one that I drew, but since there was a rush to get it out on display, somebody else did the cutting.  She did a good job!  I am very happy with how this pumpkin lit up.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind Pumpkin

My Brain While Drawing on Pumpkins

I probably would have this same idea of how my brain is working on pumpkins, even if I had never seen the movie "Inside Out."


Brain area 1: "All right, I need to use a two-dimensional medium to create an image that gives the illusion of three dimensions. And people have to be able to tell what it represents."

Brain area 2: "OK, I will work with you on this. I have some technical information on your materials."

Brain area 3: "Hold on. You are trying to create the illusion of the 3D image, but you are working on a rounded, lumpy surface. So the surface is already 3D."

Brain area 1: "Huh, you're right. Brain area 3, you be in charge of moving the head around and shifting the eyes and getting that parallax-stuff going to compensate for distortion."

Brain area 2: "This is effed up. I bet you could just use a can lid to draw circles."

Brain area 1: "Store that for later, area 2. Just keep track of the paper towels and rubbing alcohol and stuff. Hey, area 3, let's draw a long rectangle with a little bit of single-point perspective."

Brain area 3: "But this is a curved surface…and you want to taper it downwards, even though it is on the upward curve of the spherical pumpkin? Brain area 2 is right, this really is effed up."

Brain area 4: "Hey, what are you guys—oh, shit. I don't even want to know what's going on here. I'm going back to bed."

Brain area 1: "I drew the rectangle while you weren't looking, Brain area 3. Tell me how you think it looks."

Brain area 2: "I have some alcohol, want me to wipe it out..?"

Brain area 3: "Huh, that might work. Keep going and I will re-evaluate."


And so it goes as a committee process for three to seven hours.

The Shining Pumpkin

Here is a photo from before it was quite finished. I still had to cut around the bottom of the door and the lettering on the sides ("all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy")

Martian Pumpkin, Flying Monkey Pumpkin

I cut these the night before last for the Jack o' Lantern Spectacular

Flying Monkey Pumpkin

Halloween post - action report

The French policeman and the wizard

We participated in the St. Matthews Halloween parade in Grandpa Len's neighborhood, then trick - or - treated there. It was quite cold and breezy. We would have been out longer were it not for the biting chill. Then we stopped at Mimi and Grandpa's new place, and on the way home we hit some pretty heavy snow showers.

Here is a pumpkin I carved Thursday night:

I took him over to my daughter's 5th grade Halloween Party on Friday morning, along with three more pumpkins for them to carve.  I think they had fun with it.  As you can tell from the photos, the boys tended to have more of a heavy-handed approach, with pumpkin destruction becoming an art of its own.

These boys are performing brain surgery on the one I carved:

The girls were more likely to aim for a more classical style of pumpkin sculpting.

 This one looked rather elegant:

In the evening we went to Len's and participated in the 65th annual St. Matthews Halloween Parade. Although it was coooooooold and breezy, and only my wife seemed to be dressed appropriately for the weather, we waited for the costume contest. My oldest daughter won a prize of $20 for her wizard getup.

costume contest

a wizard in the cold

After that, we trick-or-treated around the neighborhood.  Enthusiasm waned more quickly than it would have were it no so frigid, but the girls both still had baskets full to the top with candy.  Some people were giving out generous portions.

During the day I watched the movie "The Awakening," which had a lot of creepy parts but, as I had heard from reviews, a silly ending.

It was a good day.

Spookifying our house

Pumpkin horses carved

The horses I drew last week, carved today.  They are probably not going out tonight, but maybe in the next few days.