Thinking
Outside of the Box-Why
Carve a Pumpkin When
You Can Decorate A Gourd?
By Suzanne Urban
Carving pumpkins is a
wonderful tradition and
the warm glow that
flickers
through a pumpkin's wide
grin always enhances one's
Halloween décor.
However, this year I was
handed a very odd-shaped
gourd by one of our
favorite first grade
teachers at the elementary
school where I work.
"Let's
see you do something with
this!" she boomed.
She'd just returned from
an educational pumpkin
picking and hayride trip
with her class who
delivered
beautiful round pumpkins
to our desks in the
office, but I also
received
this swan necked,
watermelon speckled
round-bottomed gourd as
well.
I could've carved this odd
looking piece of
vegetation but instead I
chose
to add to it also I didn't
want any preliminary
rotting setting in as it
sat
on the front desk under
hot lights.
The long swan neck stymied
me until I realized the
long swan neck looked
like the long pipe stem of
a witch's hat so I
gathered some supplies:
1 styrofoam paper plate
Two small styrofoam balls
One medium size styrofoam
balls
A package of paper clay
Acrylic paints
Raffia for hair
Acrylic paints.
Masking tape
Toothpicks
Glue-2 part epoxy glue and
glue gun
Skewer or other thin rod
First I cut a hole in the
center of the paper plate
and slid it over the
swan neck area down to the
crown of the gourd to see
if the hole was large
enough. Once the hole size
was adjusted I painted the
plate black on both
sides.
I used the top
of a lid to draw a circle
where I was going to paint
the
face-it's not necessary to
paint within a boundary,
but it was my choice to
delineate one.
I chose to mix black and
yellow which makes a
ghoulish green and added
some
blue to the face. Then I
popped in some red into
the mixed paint for
cheeks.
I painted the long stem
black, when dry I painted
some orange patches with
black stitching on the
stem. I also painted a
patch on the plate. The
plate
faced downward on my witch
as it gave a more witch
hat shape than if it were
face up.
The mouth was black dotted
with white teeth and again
a slightly darker red
for the lips.
I smashed one side of the
little styrofoam balls and
inserted a tooth pick
and glued it to the flat
side. I covered both balls
with paperclay, once dry
I painted them white,
placed a dot with a black
magic marker then added
the
"Spark of Life"
dot of white in the black
pupil.
With the larger styrofoam
ball I flattened one side
and added a toothpick
and glue gunned it then
covered with
paperclay and and painted.
I selected the area I
wanted to place the
eyeballs and nose on the
face of
my witch and used a skewer
to poke a hole into the
gourd. I cut some of the
tooth pic off as I found
it easier to slide into
the gourd and added a dot
of epoxy to the back of
eyeballs and nose to
secure to gourd. I then
added
nostrils to each side of
the nose let dry and
painted the nose.
The raffia was glue gunned
to the underside of the
hat, it didn't matter if
some of it was covering
the hole as once I slid it
on I trimed away the
excess.
I applied tape to where
the hat hole and gourd
stem meet and painted tape
black.
Voila! my witch! What one
doesn't see in the
accompanying picture is on
the
way to work I picked up
some sponge rollers and
rolled up her raffia hair!
This gourd creation proved
quite sturdy as twice
she's been accidentally
knocked off the front
counter by two teachers
who were signing out for
lunch. She even flew
across the room and
survived!
Have fun with your own
gourd creation and always
remember to think outside
the box this
Halloween season!
Suzanne Urban is a
figurative doll sculptor,
painter and
designer who resides
Milford CT. Her work can
be seen on www.smirkinggoddess.com
