Green Man Pumpkin - Part 6 Painting and Mounting the Eyes - Part 6

 I have been working on the pumpkin quite a bit, but paper mâché is not a quick process.  I added the final layers of paper mâché to the inside of the pumpkin and around the large opening for the face and the opening for the light at the bottom.  I also added some of the last layers of paper mâché to the face.  

After all that, it was time to start reverse painting the eyes.  I wish I were better at it, but I think there is a lot of room for improvement.  Anyway, the first photo is the eyes viewed from the front.  The back of the eyes look quite a bit different.  

I will go into how I painted these eyes, but I suggest you look online at other people's online tutorials.  I found a few different methods for what materials to use and how to paint the eyes.  Some methods use acrylic paints and others used multiple colors of fingernail polish.  I chose to use acrylic paints as I had them in stock.  Using multiple colors of fingernail polish would have added about twenty or more dollars to the project.  

These eyes were painted on glass cabochons.  Cabochons are domed glass circles.  You can find them at most craft and scrap booking stores or websites.  However, I did not use those, I used the inexpensive ones that you can find in the home decorator sections of many department stores and dollar stores.  These cabochons are not perfectly round, but they work pretty well.  You just have to sort through them to find two similarly shaped ones.  Using the less perfect ones is a saving of several dollars.  

The domed glass surface reflects the light much like a human eye.  I did not have to paint in the highlights.  The bright hot spots are just reflections off the glass.  

This picture shows the flat back side of the eye where the painting takes place.  The first thing to paint in is the pupil.  Getting the pupil in the center of the eye is the most difficult part.  Not only do the pupils need to be in the correct place, but they also need to be the same size.  This is not easy for me, especially if you are working with smaller eyes.  I found the small, rounded surfaces hard to hold.

I tried a method numerous times that I saw on the internet.  It seemed to work for larger eyes, but did not work as well for smaller ones.  One way was to put a drop of black paint on the center back of one eye, and then gently touch the back of the other eye to it to create the pupil on the other eye.  Theoretically that works and alleviates the problem of trying to get the pupil in the same spot.  In practice, it ended up with me, my work area, and the glass cabochon smeared with black paint.  I gave up on that.  The failing may be with my stiff fingers rather than the method, but it is not as easy as it may seem.

I found the center for the pupil by using some graph paper.  I find the point on the graph paper that I want to be my center.  I put the cabochon on the paper and line it up so that the center sits on the marked point.  When properly aligned, I trace around the cabochon and cut out the paper and place it on the back of the eye. Using carbon paper, I transfer the mark to the eye.  

I dipped the flat bottom of a wooden skewer in black paint.  Before touching the eye, the skewer is pressed against a paper towel to remove most of the paint.  Then I lightly touch it down on the marked center.  The mark will be faint, but enough to determine the circle.  After that, I paint the pupil in that circle with a small detail brush.  

The next step is to paint in the black ring that indicates the boundaries of the iris.  I have found that you cannot just paint the flat back of the eye for this.  For it to be visible on the other side, you have to paint a small amount on the side of the cabochon.  Let the paint dry before continuing on with painting the iris.  

After the black paint is dry, I mixed Cad Yellow and Hunter Green for the yellow-green color surrounding the pupil.  The color is painted in a series of irregular marks.  The green part of the pupil is solid Hunter Green.  I painted the green while the yellow was still wet, blending in and out of the yellow.  

Once all the paint was dry, I painted the entire back of the eye with some exterior satin acrylic sealer.   The paint really needs the sealer.  It is a very thin coat and tends to scratch off easily.  Once the sealer is dry, it is time to mount the eyes.  The eye holes were initially cut larger than the eye.  This is because 

that once the holes are cut, they need to be covered with more layers of paper mâché over the raw edges.  This is not an exact science.  Sometimes I may have to make adjustments to the size of the eyes and sometimes have to carve out some of the layers of paper mâché with a craft knife.  It can take a while to get it like you want it.  

Once the eye holes are right, I mount the eye to the back of the eye hole.  Once the eye is positioned like I want it, I use a bit of blue painter's tape on the front of the eye to hold it in place.  Next, flip the mask over and use hot glue around the eye to glue it into place.  When the glue has cooled, remove the tape from the front of the eyes.  

This is as far as I have gone on this project so far.  I have not yet had time to add the lips and paint the inside of the pumpkin and the back of the mask, which is the next step.  It is a holiday weekend here, so I don't think I will get it done until after Monday.  But next week's post should show how I mount the mask to the pumpkin.

I hope you will check back next week to see the progress.

Building the Green Man Pumpkin: The Beginning

As I said in my last blog post, I am working on two long-term projects.  I am pausing blogging about the carousel for a short time in order to get the other project under way.  While I do not have a time crunch on the carousel project, the pumpkin needs to be completed by Halloween.  So, I will be blogging for a couple of weeks on that project, then going back to the carousel project.   

Some of you may have seen pictures of the Green Man on signs or pictures of them in books.  (You can also see plenty of examples in Google Images.)  Basically, a Green Man is anthropomorphic figure that represents the spirit of vegetation.   Usually, he is represented in summer when everything is green and in full growth.  My intention is to portray the Green Man near harvest time, when the growing season is coming to a close and the fruits and vegetables are at their peak and autumn is just beginning to come into season.  I will have to see how it goes when I get that far.  I have concept of what to portray, but I will allow some of the details to develop organically as I go along.  But the first step is just to begin, and that is where things are today.

I am starting at the very beginning of how I make a pumpkin as it has been well over a year since one.  If you are interested in my other projects, scroll back through the blog posts or look at the blog at folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com

This is a mold of a pumpkin.  I created this mold by covering a real pumpkin with strip paper mâché.  Then I carefully cut the paper mâché off the pumpkin and then put it back together again.  You will see the method for this later in this post, so I won't go into that here, other than to say that when cutting the mold off the pumpkin with a craft knife, I nicked the live pumpkin in places, and that caused the pumpkin to rot rather quickly.  If you plan to make a mold from a real pumpkin, you might not want to use it as part of your decorations afterward.

Another option to use for a mold would plastic pumpkins, which are more likely to be available at other times of the year.  Or make your own pumpkin shape.  There are plenty of ways to do that, and I have used that for some of my paper mâché pumpkins.

In the photo above on the right, the pumpkin mold had been covered with a layer of Press and Seal.  Press and Seal is found in the plastic wrap aisle at many grocery stores.  This product will protect the mold from moisture, and the paper mâché will peel off from it easily when the project is finished.  It is very thin, and slightly tacky on one side.  If you use smaller strips, you can coat the pumpkin with it without having too much of a build up from the material.  

This is one of those Styrofoam heads that you can find in craft stores.  From past use of this mold, I have found that the features need more definition before starting to paper mâché.  The features that are on the base then to flatten out over multiple layers of paper mâché.  I built up the nose, lips, and cheeks with masking tape before covering it with the Press and Seal. However, I did not do a lot of buildup for the lips, just enough to show their placement.   Over different projects I planned to use different expressions, so I only wanted to have a slight hint of them for placement purposes.

When covering with the Press and Seal, it is important to have all of the strips overlap in order to keep out moisture.  The product stays in place well.  Most of the time I can leave the film on the mold and use it a second time before I have to remove and replace it.  

I am working a little ahead on this project, because it takes so long for the paper mâché to dry.  It will cut down on the amount of time between blog posts.  

This photo shows the pumpkin mold covered with four layers of strip paper mâché.   It is ready to be cut off of the mold.  I only use four layers for this part of the project because there will be many layers of paper mâché to come to put it all back together again.  More on that in a later post.

I will end here today.  Next week I will blog on how I get it off the mold and how to put it back together again.

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.

I Finished 3 Pumpkins for Halloween 2021

This year I set a goal of creating three paper mâché pumpkins for Halloween.  I started in January, but was only able to find time to work on them now and then.  I was trying a new type of flour paste mix that had thin-set mortar admix in it rather than water.  I had to have the windows open for ventilation,

which was not exactly comfortable in January, but I kept working on the pumpkins.  Since they take so long to make, I tried making them as production work, finishing all the pumpkins to the same level before moving on to the next step.  I have to say it was not as satisfying as completing them one at a time.

I finished the forms, but was so tired of working on the things that I needed to take a break.  Finally I painted them.  The smaller two I painted with latex exterior paint and sealed them with an exterior sealer.   This is my first time using exterior paint.  I was not certain that the colors were going to come out well. 

 

The interiors of the pumpkins were painted first.   After two layers of Gesso as a primer, I painted the interior and exterior flat black.  The opening on the small pumpkins made painting the inside a challenge.  It was hard to get my hand insides.  I came up with a solution.  I taped over the openings for the faces with blue painter's tape, making sure that there was a lot of overlap on the tape.  I sat the pumpkin in a disposable aluminum pan to catch any drippings.  I poured some paint inside and rolled the pumpkin around to coat the inside.  Afterwards, I poured out any excess paint.  After that, I removed the painter's tape.  There was some residual dripping that I had to wipe off with a sponge brush around the openings, but it did not take very long for that to stop.  This technique actually saved a lot of time.

Next, the exteriors of the two pumpkins received a coat of Flat Black.  When the outside was dry I used a dry brush technique to add layers of Vivid Orange.  All in all it had three layers of Vivid Orange.  The first layer made it look as if the pumpkin was made of rusty metal.  I added two more coats of Vivid Orange to get it to a point I found acceptable.  Before adding the exterior sealer, they only looked okay.  The colors really picked up after the sealer.  The two smaller pumpkins should be able to stand up to some time outdoors without fading. 

The larger pumpkin, the one sticking out its tongue, is painted with acrylic paints.  I had put so much work into it that I just did not want to mess it up when I was uncertain how the paints were going to come out.  It is also sealed with an exterior sealer.  It may not be very resistant to sun fading, so it will only be outside for brief periods of time, and preferably in a covered location.  

 The teeth for the large pumpkin were made from paper clay which I made myself.  The tongue was given created from cardboard and wire before being covered in paper mâché.  To give the tongue some texture, I used Golden Glass Bead Medium before priming with Gesso and painting.

Each pumpkin has been an experiment in one way or another.  I have learned something new from each one.  Each experiment has helped me save time.  One of the things that has taken the most time is making the top fit back on once the pumpkin has been cut open.  The little pumpkin with the round mouth has a top that was fitted as closely as possible.  The pumpkin with the hat has a different type of top.  I added tapered layers of cardboard underneath the hat so that the hat fits in the pumpkin much like a wine stopper fits in a bottle.  That was much easier.  However, if I were to make another one, I would probably add a few more layers on the tapering section.  The large pumpkin also has a fitted top, but it did not want to fit nearly as well.  

I have seen other types of pumpkins people have made where they just cut out the bottom and then set the pumpkin down over the light source.  I may try that on my next pumpkin.  It would save hours.  Or I may cut a little flap out of the pumpkin and add a hinge so that the section can be opened and closed to insert a light.  I guess I will cross that bridge when I get the next pumpkin finished.  

Creating these pumpkins has been a labor of love.  My plan is to have a large number of the pumpkins in my yard for Halloween that will build up over time.  Some pumpkins will be original creations.  I may use some Pumpkin Masters templates on others.  The goal is to have a yard full of pumpkins, not necessarily for each one to be an original work. 

Coming Soon: More Pumpkins for the Pumpkin Patch

This past Halloween was pretty much a non-starter due to Covid-19 virus.  I am hoping that 2021 will be a spectacular Halloween.  I want to be ready with some great decorations.This past Halloween was pretty much a non-starter due to Covid-19 virus.  I am hoping that 2021 will be a spectacular Halloween.  I want to be ready with some great decorations. I wanted to show you my two latest paper maché pumpkins.  They will soon be turned into Jack O' Lanterns  for my (hoped for) 2021 Halloween decorations.  I have been working on this project for a while, but I am just now finding the time to blog about it.

I want to have a dozen or so carved or decorated pumpkins that I could use year after year.  However, a dozen of the Funkin type pumpkins available locally sell for about $30.00 each at the craft store.  Maybe I could find them cheaper online, but they are still fairly expensive.  The larger size paper maché pumpkins I did find online were still $5.00 apiece.  That is a better price range, but still, why pay sixty dollars when I can make them all for about $7.00 total.  Even better, I can make the paper maché pumpkins waterproof for just a few dollars more.  

The large pumpkin was cast on a real pumpkin, then cut off in quadrants and then put back together with hot glue and more layers of paper maché.  The smaller pumpkin was cast on a styrofoam pumpkin. I think you can see that the one made using a real pumpkin is much more lifelike.  

I have already cut off the top and finished the edges of the top on the large pumpkin.  That is really the most frustrating part of the entire project.  When you cut open paper maché the layers separate and flare a little bit, so the don't always settle back neatly into exact position.  I have to cover the edges.  Also, I build a rim on the inside of the pumpkin and on the inside of the top to help the top fit on neatly without any gaps.  Picture a sugar bowl and how the top fits on that to understand what I am saying here.

Before I start creating the Jack O' Lantern face on the large pumpkin, I plan to cast a few more pumpkins using this pumpkin as a mold.  The original pumpkin has long since become unusable and gone into the trash.  I would like to have a few more pumpkins in this size before I start making the faces on them.  

Before I start with the layers of paper and paste, I covered this pumpkin completely with a product called Press and Seal.  It can be found in supermarkets in the plastic wrap aisle.  I prefer Press and Seal to regular plastic wrap because it seals to itself.  Plastic wrap works, but can come loose or leave leaves areas where the plastic wrap bunches up.   I will say that the Press and Seal does not have a good cutting edge on the box.  I usually pull off a big piece, place it on a cutting board, and cut it into strips using a ruler and a craft knife.  For a large pumpkin like the one above, I was cutting the Press and Seal into two inch strips. (I place the strips vertically on the pumpkin.)  I know it sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but it makes a much neater surface for the paper maché.  That may not be important in every project, but if someone is going to be viewing the inside of the finished project, then it might be a factor.

It takes about 45 minutes to cover a pumpkin of this size with one layer of paper maché.  I usually only add one layer at a time.  I want to make sure that the layer is completely dry before adding another layer.  You can add two layers, but don't do more than that at one time.   Paper maché can mold if it stays damp too long.  All told, the pumpkin will have six layer of paper maché with additional layers over the edges where the pumpkin was cut apart and put back together.

A large pumpkin like this one will take about six to seven hours of paper maché work, plus several more hours to take it apart and put it back together.  Then the actual fun begins of making the face.  I can understand why some people would rather buy the Funkins or craft pumpkins.  But, if you like working in paper mach, all of that work is just part of the fun.  It is a challenge to start with a flat piece of paper and turn it into a three dimensional project.  I like that.

I put on three layers, then mark and label my cutting lines and any cutting cues for putting the pumpkin back together.  Then, I cut the form off the original pumpkin.  I find that it comes off best in quadrants. (For more info and pictures about this see my post on December 29th, 2020 at folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com)  Once it is apart, I put it back together with hot glue and more layers of paper maché. 

The smaller pumpkin was cast and reformed in the same manner.  I did not cast the stem for this pumpkin.  I found the stem was somewhat of an annoyance while working on the large pumpkin.  I will make my own stem when I cut off the top and open up the pumpkin.  

I mentioned that for a few dollars more, I could make the pumpkins waterproof.  I found that rather than using water to make the flour paste, I could use Thinset Mortar Admix.  It is in the tile section of hardware stores.  If you can find a smaller bottle, you are to the good.  Mostly you will find it in gallon size.  I had some leftover from my stained glass gazing ball projects.  This product also comes in a powder to which you add water.  Either way, it works.

This product is really a liquid latex.  I experimented with it on some small projects.  I made a paper maché ball using the thinset mortar admix. After drying the project, it soaked it in water for three hours.  The paper held together.  When removed from the water and set out to dry, the entire ball stayed intact.  It was amazing.  It will help these projects last for years.  (You can read more on this on my blog on December 30th, 2020 at folkartbycaroljones.blogspotcom)

So my plan for the next few weeks is to make a few more pumpkins.  By that time I will be pretty bored with laying strips of paper, so I will take some time to create the faces and paint the Jack O' Lanterns.  When I am bored with that process, I will go back to making pumpkins.  

Will I be able to make all of the pumpkins this year?  I don't know.  Life has a habit of getting in the way.  However, I will do what I can.  If it takes a year or two years, I will still have a great display.

More Pumpkin Projects

 Updated only affects title

Sorry about the picture placement.  This new blog platform will not let me move the pictures around.  I must say it has ruined the blogging experience for me.

Although I have not posted in a while, I have been busy working on my pumpkin projects.  Since Iposted the last picture of a pumpkin in October, I have worked on four different projects.  These projects take a lot of time, and progress has been slow.  Today, I will be writing about one of the more successful projects. 

I have looked at magazine Halloween pictures of yards covered in carved pumpkins.  They look spectacular.  A yard full of pumpkins is also extremely expensive.  Perhaps they get a discount for buying a truckload of pumpkins.  I would like to do a project with a yard full of pumpkins, but alas, even if I could rationalize buying that many pumpkins, I would not have enough interested friends to help me carve them in a timely manner.

My thoughts turned to using the foam pumpkins.  I could work on them all year.  I could use them for multiple years.  However, the foam pumpkins are incredibly expensive.  The craft store near my home was selling them at thirty dollars each for the small ones.  A few dozen of them is out of the question.  

Undeterred, I move to the next thought about making the pumpkins myself from paper mâché.  I have made two pumpkins from a form I made myself.  This form was made from plastic bags stuffed inside a plastic grocery bag, and then filled out with tubes of newspaper to give it more of a pumpkin shape.  That actually worked, but the pumpkins did not have a real pumpkin shape.  I decided that when pumpkins were available, I would purchase one and I could cover it in paper mâché. 

In the fall, we masked up and went to the farmers market.  We did not stay long.  I pretty much had to grab the first pumpkin I saw that had a nice area for carving.  We did not want to stay long in an area with people in it due to the Corona Virus.  I wish I had more time to hunt for the perfect pumpkin, because this pumpkin was a little large.  I would have preferred something a little smaller.  

So I brought home the pumpkin and covered it in three layers of paper mâché.  The pumpkin was heavy, and I could only work on half the pumpkin at a time.  Also, I had hoped to use this pumpkin for a second project, so I used Vaseline to cover the entire pumpkin before I started adding the paper layers.  My first layer of paper was just paper soaked in water.  That helped insure that the paper mâché would not stick to the pumpkin.   Once the first half had dried, I turned it over and did the second side.  

Using a layer of paper soaked with water is a little more tedious than other methods I normally use.  I would add a little water and paper to an area, then go back and layer on some paper with flour paste.  

This was not just an ordinary flour paste.  I was also trying something experimental with the flour mix.  I am not totally sure that this was worth the effort, but I wanted to make sure that the flour paste was water proof.  Instead of mixing flour and water, I used thin-set mortar add mix as the liquid.  This is a form of liquid latex.  In theory, it should make the pumpkin imperious to water.  (I will be blogging about the experiment to check for waterproofing in my next post.)

Once the pumpkin had on three layers of paper mâché, I cut the layers off of the pumpkin using a craft knife.  I ended up cutting it off in quarters.  I had marked it for eighths, but it came off easily in quarters.  There was not enough flex in the paper mâché to take it off in halves.  The trick is to ease it off so that there are no rips and tears in the layers.  (Or at least as few as possible.)  Another trick is to cut some notches as you take it off.  The pumpkin will go back much more easily if you have the notches as a guide.  

Marking some registration marks is a must.  After you get the thing apart, putting it back together without knowing which piece was next to which piece can take up a lot of time.  I usually mark the quarters on each side of the edges using either numbers or the alphabet.  It really took the guess work out of things.

Once the layers have been removed from the pumpkin, I put it back together using a hot glue gun.  I start with two adjoining pieces and glue them top and bottom to make sure the edges meet properly.  Then I continue gluing the edges and notches until the whole seam is glued back together.  I usually glue each half half, then the other two pieces to create a half.  Then I cover those joins in a couple of layers of paper mâché.  It is easier to do at least those two seams while the pumpkin is still open and easy to reach.  Then, I glue the two halves of the pumpkin together.  There are still two seams that have to be covered on the inside.  Cover them, then cover all the seams on the outside.

Once the pumpkin had on three layers of paper mâché, I cut the layers off of the pumpkin using a craft knife.  I ended up cutting it off in quarters.  I had marked it for eighths, but it came off easily in quarters.  There was not enough flex in the paper mâché to take it off in halves.  The trick is to ease it off so that there are no rips and tears in the layers.  (Or at least as few as possible.)  Another trick is to cut some notches as you take it off.  The pumpkin will go back much more easily if you have the notches as a guide.  

Marking some registration marks is a must.  After you get the thing apart, putting it back together without knowing which piece was next to which piece can take up a lot of time.  I usually mark the quarters on each side of the edges using either numbers or the alphabet.  It really took the guess work out of things.

Once the layers have been removed from the pumpkin, I put it back together using a hot glue gun.  I start with two adjoining pieces and glue them top and bottom to make sure the edges meet properly.  Then I continue gluing the edges and notches until the whole seam is glued back together.  I usually glue each half half, then the other two pieces to create a half.  Then I cover those joins in a couple of layers of paper mâché.  It is easier to do at least those two seams while the pumpkin is still open and easy to reach.  Then, I glue the two halves of the pumpkin together.  There are still two seams that have to be covered on the inside.  Cover them, then cover all the seams on the outside.

After those layers are all dry, I give the entire pumpkin three more layers of paper mâché.  It will look like it was never taken apart.  At this point, it would normally be ready for painting, but that is not the plan for this pumpkin.  I plan to cover it in a plastic wrap and then cast another pumpkin on top of it.  Then that pumpkin will be cut off, and the process will continue to complete it as above.  Using this as a mold, I should be able to make a number of pumpkins.  It might take a while, but by October, 2021 I expect to have several pumpkins, each individually carved and painted.

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.

Making a Paper Mâché Pumpkin

The face on the pumpkin

Today I wanted to blog about my latest project; a pumpkin made from paper mâché.   I have been working on this for quite some time, but paper mâché is such a long, slow process, that I wanted to get a few steps completed before I started putting it on the blog.  Otherwise, I am only blogging about adding another layer of paper and flour paste time after time.  Now that I have some of the basic work done, I hope my readers will join me as I continue to work on this project.  I will start from the very beginning and show all the steps for completing the pumpkin over the next few blog posts.  Today's post will be about the project from its concept and the first steps.  

Pumpkin armature

 with tubes.

Earlier in the year, I had blogged that I wanted to start learning about making molds.  Making Halloween decorations is fun, but they take so long that making them one at a time is very time consuming. I thought that if I could learn to make a pumpkin armature and cast the basic form that it would speed up my process.  If nothing else, I would be something new.  This project may be the start of a new way of building some of my Halloween projects.

Fully covered with paper tubes.

One of the interesting things I have seen while surfing the internet for ideas had to do with Halloween dioramas.  Long term readers may recall that I have made a few over the years.  The dioramas that caught my eye were built inside pumpkins.  Many of the makers were using the foam pumpkins called Funkins.  Funkins are really expensive. 

A divider separates halves of the pumpkins.

The other project that really caught my eye were cast cement pumpkins for the garden.  How much fun would it be to make permanent pumpkins that could remain outside.  Long time readers may also recall that I have made a number of hypertufa stained glass gazing balls.  Hypertufa is a form of concrete that is made with additives that make it much lighter than regular concrete.  I had visions of hypertufa pumpkins in my future.  The pumpkins were cast inside of paper mâché pumpkins.  When the concrete had set, the paper mâché form is cut off the hardened concrete.  It seemed like an interesting idea.  I thought I would have to check it out.  However, paper mâché pumpkins from the craft store are not that cheap either.  For the most part, they are hard to find except before Halloween.  I did find some online at a more or less reasonable price, but the shipping charges really caused the cost of the project to rise.

Then came some good news and some bad news.  A craft store in my area was closing (bad news).  The store was consolidating their merchandise at the store from all their stores into my store for deeply discounted sales.  The store had a whole bin of paper mâché pumpkins for forty cents each!  Forty cents each!  Score! (good news)  I wanted to buy ten, but settled for only four.  I do not have a lot of storage area, and the pumpkins are bulky.  Also, I felt like a lot of people might want some of the pumpkins and that I should not be greedy.  I planned to use these four pumpkins for the hypertufa project.  However, Covid-19 interrupted my plan.  I did not have all the materials necessary to mix the hypertufa.  It did not seem worthwhile to go out for the materials during a pandemic.  (bad news) That project has been put on hold until things get better.  For now, that large bag of pumpkins is taking up a lot of space in my studio.

I still wanted to find a less expensive way to make a pumpkin.  I wanted to make more than one though, so I thought I would try making a mold and casting them.  But first, I had to find a pumpkin.  They are scarce around here in winter when I started the project.  Since none were available, I had to make a pumpkin first.  That is how this project got started; with making my own pumpkin.

I looked online and saw many tutorials on how other people were making their pumpkins.  The shapes they made mimicked actual pumpkins with varying degrees of success.  From the standpoint of representational art, they were a success.  However, many of them really did not look like actual pumpkins.  I decided on one way of making a pumpkin and got started.

The method I chose was to fill a plastic bag with paper and tie off the top.  Then,  I tied it with string in four sections to represent the lobes of the pumpkin.  It really did not look much like a pumpkin.  I tried adding another set of four strings to make eight lobes.  It looked more like a squash than a pumpkin and once the paper filling the bags was squashed down it was not nearly as tall as I wanted my pumpkin to be.  Note to self: if you do this again, next time make sure the bag is overstuffed until extra firm.

I was still not satisfied with my pumpkin's height or shape.  I had to try something else.  I decided to head into uncharted territory and find a way to design my own pumpkin.  I looked online at pictures of real pumpkins.  The major difference was that real pumpkins have many more lobes than the pumpkins I was seeing in the tutorials.  I set out to figure out how to add more lobes. 

What I decided to do was to make tubes from newsprint and attach them to the plastic bag pumpkin I had already made.  Each tube is a half sheet of newspaper rolled into a tube.  The tubes were stuffed with crumpled bits of paper to make them a little more rigid.  Both ends of the tube are folded to a point and taped with masking tape.  After that, each tube was taped top and bottom  to the plastic bag pumpkin.  All in all, I added sixteen tubes.  (Whatever number you choose for your pumpkin, make sure that it is an even number.  More on that below.)  Now it looked more like a pumpkin than a squash.  After the tubes were all in place, I covered the whole thing with masking tape.

The next question was how is this going to help me make more than one pumpkin at a time.  I could put layers of paper mâché over this base, but I would tear the whole thing apart trying to get it out.  I also wanted to see what a pumpkin in this shape was actually going to look like.  I decided that I would add a divider so that the pumpkin shape would be made in two parts.  By having an equal number of tubes on each side, it was easy to divide the pumpkin into halves.  The divider was made from corrugated cardboard covered with foil and then with masking tape.  I marked the divider as sides A and B as well as noting which way was the top and which was the bottom.

After all of that, I covered the entire piece with a layer of Press and Seal (Available at grocery stores and some department stores).  Press and seal sticks to your base.  If you cut the Press and Seal into small pieces (small being relative to your project size.) you can adhere it to your base without having many folds or creases that can show up in your project.

Once the entire project was covered with Press and Seal, I gave both sides three layers of paper mâché.  The next step is important.  Make some registration lines on each side of the piece so that you can fit the pumpkin back together with the registration marks on each side matching.  Then, I used a craft knife to gently cut along the edge of the divider.  Once the edges of the pumpkin were separated from the divider, the two halves were easily pulled off the mold.

I used hot glue to glue the edges of the two pumpkin halves together, while making sure my registration marks matched up.  After that, a strip of paper mâché was added over the seam.  After that, three more layers of paper mâché were added to the entire project.

This pretty much catches up to where I am on this project.  I have made a base that I can reuse to make other pumpkins.  I also have plans to make a latex mold of the base that I can use to cast pumpkins in a different way.  I hope that the next step in mold making will allow me to make pumpkins even faster.

Next blog post I will go how I finished the face, eyes, and top.