Paper Mâché Pumpkin Part 2: The Basic Face

Current state of the pumpkin.

Please note:  I am only blogging about my project.  If you are trying to make one of these pumpkins use all necessary safety precautions such as appropriate tools, eye protection, and working in a well ventilated area when necessary.   This is not a complete list of safety precautions. 

In my last blog post I wrote about how I made the basic paper mâché pumpkin.  It started with some of the methods I have seen on the internet, but I also added my own idea, which seemed to make it have a more authentic pumpkin shape.  Today, I wanted to go into some of the methods I used to make the pumpkin's face.

Before the paper mâché layers.

Cutting out the eyes and mouth.

Anyone who has ever carved a pumpkin knows that there is always going to be one side that is better for a face than any of the others.  My pumpkin was no exception.  On side is a little higher and perhaps a little smoother.  That is the side I am using to carve the face.  But...before you can carve, you have to figure out the face.  It is decision time.  Did I want a happy face, scary face, sad face, etc?  Do you want it to look like a traditional carved pumpkin or do you want to go fancy on the features?  I decided on an angry, scary face.  The trouble is, I am not that great at drawing.  What does an angry face look like?  I know one when I see one, but trying to draw one was going to be a challenge.  In this case, Google Images came to the rescue.  If you input angry face, you will get many different pictures of angry faces.  Most of the faces are people mugging for the camera.  Perhaps actors or others are trying to portray what an angry face looks like.  Most of them seem to be trying to portray an emotion.  This is probably because it is not going to help a situation if you were to take a picture of someone when they are really angry.  Search words for the type of face you want to see:  happy, sad, smiling, and so on will yield lots of faces to help you figure out what you want to put on your pumpkin. 

Cutting open the top.

Anyway, there are a lot of different faces to choose from.  I would add one caveat here.  I pick the eye shape from one person, the mouth from another, and the nose from someone else.  If you just chose everything from one picture you will end up having it look like that person.  That person may not appreciate it if they should ever see a picture of your pumpkin with their face on it.  Furthermore, since this is a Halloween figure, I exaggerate the features as an added effect.  I am not trying to be realistic.  

In order to portray an emotion, you need to pay attention to what the muscles of the face are doing.  For example, what is the mouth doing?  Is it open and yelling, or pinched closed to keep from saying something.  Are the eyes wide open or shifted in one direction?  Are the eyebrows lifted or drawn in toward the nose?  These are the details that will help make the face look like what you want it to look like.  I make a few quick line sketches of some of the details I want to use on my pumpkin.  When I am satisfied with the way things look, I draw it onto the pumpkin.  I am just drawing general placement guidelines.  I may draw and redraw several times.  It does not matter if I use a marker.  Everything will be covered my multiple layers of paint.

At this point, I have not cut open the top of the pumpkin.  You can see in the second picture that I have marked the cutting line with a series of dots.  I feel that the pumpkin is more stable for cutting the face if the top is intact.  Some people prefer to leave the top intact and cut a small opening in the bottom back of the pumpkin for adding lighting such as a battery operated candle and/or electrical cord as needed.  This pumpkin is made of paper, so using a real candle is not the best idea.  However, for this pumpkin, I chose the more traditional top opening.  More on that after cutting out the face.  With twenty-twenty hindsight, I would say it would have been much easier to cut a small hole in the bottom.

When I have a face that I am ready to live with, I begin cutting out the areas that I want to be opened.  I cut open the marked areas using a craft knife.  I used a sharp knife blade and change the blades frequently.  Cutting through six layers of paper mâché is not easy and it is not quick.  It was a slow process.  I started with the eyes because they were smaller.  Then I cut the out the mouth.  I have been tempted to try a dremel too for cutting, but I am concerned that they go too fast and I might end up cutting more than I had intended.  Maybe one day....

 To mark the opening in the top, I put a compass in the center of the stem and it used to mark a circular opening.  The pencil mark was very light and hard to see, so I added the dots in black marker. It was quicker than trying to draw a solid line all the way around the circle.

Getting the top to fit back on tightly was a challenge.  First off, the open edges where I cut the top had to be covered with a couple of layers of paper mâché.  Even just two layers made the top wider than the opening.   I had seen a recommendation on how to make a top fit using paper clay on the internet, but it did not work well for me. The paper clay was moist and the moisture wicked into the paper mâché.  The edge started to get soggy.  I had to pull all of it off. So it was on to Plan B.  My next trial was to cut a wider opening on the pumpkin.  Then I would add a layer of paper
mâché and let it dry.  Then check to see how the top fit.  It might need a little more here and a little more there.  By building up the paper  mâché a little bit on a bit at a time, I finally have a top that fit well.  Now the work is ready to begin.

Believe it or not, these blog posts take a long time to write and edit.  I would love to tell you all about it in one post, but I have already been sitting at the computer for nearly two hours.  My attention is needed elsewhere.  Next blog post I will be blogging about how to create the teeth and lips.  Check back in about a week.