Returning to Blogging - New Pumpkin Pictures

 After a few years away from blogging, I am returning.  During the time I wasn't blogging, I have had some health issues and have spent a lot of time caring for an aging parent.  There was so much going on that I really had little time for art and creativity and less for blogging.  I had to make a choice between using my limited spare time to create something or to try to blog about what I was doing.  I chose to drop the blogging because being creative is what keeps me feeling grounded when everything around me is causing a lot of stress.

It has been a while since I used Blogger, so it might take me a few posts to get the hang of all the techniques.  I hope readers will bear with me while I catch up.

I was also experiencing some creative burn out.  It happens, especially if someone is trying to do variations on a theme.  For some time, I have been making papier mâché pumpkins.  So far I have made seven of them.  All except the last three have been posted on the blog.  I am posting the pictures of those pumpkins on this post.  

On one pumpkin, I was experimenting with making a more human face and teeth.  As one of my friends said, "This pumpkin really creeps me out."  I made the teeth myself out of paper clay and painted them.  In case readers are interested, you can buy plastic teeth on Amazon that look more realistic.  I chose to make them myself because I wanted to see if I could.

I was experimenting with some different techniques and materials on these two pumpkins.  They look much different from the other pumpkins mainly because I was trying out using house paint rather than acrylic paints.  I had read on the internet that some pumpkin makers were using house paint.  In some ways it makes sense.  The house paint is probably going to be more waterproof and less susceptible to ultraviolet damage than craft acrylics.  However, there are not a lot of choices in orange colors of house paint.  I found the paint to be overly bright.  Some artists have tried to tone it down by painting over the orange and wiping off black paint. I decided not to try it for those pumpkins painted bright orange because the color seemed to be expressing what I was feeling at the time.

One pumpkin appears stressed and about ready to go completely around the bend.  I made that one at the time I thought I if I could just power through everything I would get through the situations.  The jarringly bright colors, wide eyes, and the huge smile seemed to say how I felt as I tried to put on a bright smile everyday and just keep going despite what I was feeling inside.

The experiment for the last of the latest pumpkins was on reverse painting glass eyes.  I had not tried anything like that before.  When you look at the pumpkin in normal light, the eyes seem depressed or melancholy.  It seems that somehow I had once again managed to input how I was feeling into the pumpkin as I came to realize that the situation was not going to change any time soon and I was going to have to change my lifestyle and schedules to adapt to ongoing situations    However, when I put the pumpkin out for Halloween this year and used bright color changing LED pool lights to light it up, the eyes look very fierce in some colors and as if the eyes were on fire in bright yellow or orange.  So all in all, I still consider the project a win, even though it looks somewhat more depressed than I would have liked.

So one of my adaptation is to make something other than pumpkins for a while.  I still have an idea for at least one more, but it may have to wait a few months for me to begin on that.  I have been working on some other projects, and I have been working on other skills. I have another project to show you next blog post.

A new project has begun and I will be blogging about it in the next blog post.  I used to blog twice a week, but for now I am going to stick to blogging once a week.  I felt a lot of pressure to put on material twice a week.  I am hoping that starting slowly will help me stay on task.  So check in next week to see the new (non-pumpkin) project.