I Carve a Meeeean Pumpkin...

Hey there! Did you pick up the October issue of Food Network Magazine yet? I got mine in the mail a couple of weeks ago and immediately turned to the pages showing who is where and found my pumpkin carving. Take a look ...

I've had a few people ask if I actually carved this myself. I've always loved art work and did pretty well in those courses when I was in school. Yes, I sure did :-). There was a room full of us all hacking into our pumpkins. Mine started the day before as a picture. I printed it, then shaded in the dark areas and made a stencil. Here's my starting picture ...
Then I put it over the pumpkin and secured it with tape. Then, I traced the stencil with little pricks from the tip of an Exacto-knife. Next I used carving tools to remove the blank areas of the stencil. If you look in the bottom right of this picture, you can see the finished stencil.
It's actually easier than you think! At first I just carved out the skin to recess the design into the flesh, but when I was done the finishing touch was to run the direction of the carving with the flow of the picture. So, forehead lines across and in the nose area, I followed the contour of the outline. Really helps it look good close up. Shout out to my girl Arti! If you are wondering what she's doing in the background, take a look at the blog I posted last year when we carved these, I called it Carving Out Time for Pumpkin/Burger Time...
That's after I used black ink (that was impromptu and someone went to buy it when I decided it would look better. I rolled most of the ink on, then used a brush to cover the smaller areas. Here's a close up...
Then I decided the pumpkin needed more action all the way around...
This is a long shot ...
Finally when I was done, I took it across the room for it's close up. That's Levi Brown making my pumpkin look it's best!

I did my best to stay out of the way, but knew I'd want to blog about it, so I stepped in between a few shots for a close up under all the lights. Check one side of the pumpkin you won't see in the magazine because of space ...
I took this carving idea from the movie The Shining. I've seen a few pumpkins out there with similar ideas. In the magazine it says I'm a huge movie fan, but actually I'm really a Stephen King fan. He was the first author I bought every book from without question. I've moved on now to other authors, but I love his stories. I fall asleep on a movie in the first 30 minutes if it doesn't grab me lol.

Alright, hope that solves the question of whether I actually carved it or not. Teeheehee, very flattered a couple of people have questioned if I actually did it! Halloween is on the way and I'm working on pumpkin vodka!!