Halloween in July
Last year I illustrated and carved pumpkins for The Rise of the Jack o Lanterns. A bunch of artists got together in a warehouse in Buena Park, not far from where I live. You have never seen such mammoth pumpkins - hundreds and hundreds of them. Our job was to draw the images they provided in ink directly onto the pumpkins from black and white printouts.
Then before the display, we got to carve out the designs with linocut tools. What a blast! These are the tools that we used. The red handle has a cap that comes off, and you have all these tips inside that make varying kinds of cuts. Like butter, you carve out the outlines, and scrape more out of the surface for the brighter bits. The deeper the cut, the lighter the effect, because of course, the pumpkin is hollowed out. The others are specialty clay carving tools; some of the loops had little mini teeth, which were perfect for crosshatching and getting texture just right.
The darker areas still are dark from the inking underneath. The inside skin under the pumpkin's outer orange layer is yellow and kind of wet. We had to wear gloves to keep them from decomposing more rapidly from contact with our skin. You have to carve them at the last minute because otherwise you have a problem with mold.
The hardest part was the waviness of the pumpkin surface. All the pumpkins were laid out, and we got to pick out the individual ones that would work for specific designs. If you had to do portraits, you wanted a flat side. It was tricky to incorporate the waves into the design - you had to account for inevitable distortion. You know those fun house mirrors where your image is wavy depending on where you stand? Same thing here. Then two big guys would come hoist these pumpkins up onto industrial benches. And they wouldn't move until finished! You'd better get the angle facing the way you want it or make it work. Some of them were hundreds of pounds.
It's quite a show. Thousands of pumpkins are arranged in dynamic settings with special effects and lighting - I was honored to be a part of the production. They will have displays in New York, Boston this year, and the Los Angeles area. I'm looking forward to starting on this year's pumpkins early this fall.
Check it out http://therise.org
That is beautiful!
Where did you get the tools? Are they self-made?
Thank you. One was made for me by the founder - it is one of the bigger ones with the loop and little teeth. The rest can be bought through dickblick under linoleum cutting tools. The others are clay tools - you can find them under ceramics on art supply websites.
woow, you are so resourceful and original!
I learned from the master, Tom Olton. ;)
Sold on the Leonard Nimoy pumpkin.
That would be logical. Thank you!