Pumpkin Carving – Part Two

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Projection kits have gotten popular for pumpkins lately. To project the pattern from the pumpkin onto a wall you’ll want to carve a small pattern into the pumpkin. You also need to carve it backwards if there is any text involved, so it will project the correct direction when you are done.

Pumpkin carving can be as intricate of a process as you would like it to be depending on how complicated the pattern you select is. Many people carve a basic pattern, which will yield black where no pumpkin is carved away, and bright yellow where the carving has been done and the candle shows through. There are two other shades that can be achieved with careful carving though. The first is light orange, which will show through if you carve away all of the skin off of the front of the pumpkin and some of the meat, the more you carve, the lighter the orange will look. Dark orange will show through if you remove the pumpkin meat from the inside, leaving the skin alone on the front side.

Once you pick out a pattern that you like, you will need to transfer it to the pumpkin. First, tape or pin the pattern to the pumpkin. You can push a thumb tack through the paper along the patterns lines, you’ll need a lot of holes to see the pattern clearly. This is a lot of work, but it will be worth it when you are done and you don’t have to guess where to carve any of your lines.

Check back soon for part three of this blog.

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