The Art of Pumpkin Carving

With Halloween coming up, I thought it would be fun to have some relative posts. For those of you who don't know, I dabble in the arts recreationally. I love painting and sculpture but really don't take as much time to do it as I should. That makes Halloween extra fun for me - I like being creative with my pumpkins and try to push the skill and nerdy limits each year.

I have no idea what I'm going to do yet but you better believe it will be amazing and probably have some sort of geek cred. Here are some of my past masterpieces:

An ode to my favorite team and Alma Mater

I clearly like Portal...

I think anyone can make fun pumpkins if you take the time to be thoughtful about it. Here are some of my tips for easier pumpkin carving:

• Be mindful when picking your pumpkin - get one that is big enough to easily fit your image and has a flat face.
• Make it easier on yourself - when cleaning your pumpkin, do extra scraping on the inside wall of the side you are going to carve. You can easily thin out the wall which will make carving a lot easier. 
• Have your image ready. Print out or rough sketch your image and then try to trace it over to the pumpkin. It's pretty tough to free hand on a round surface, especially if you're not artistic. This will give you a better idea of how it's going to fit too.
• TOOLS - I can't state this enough. Pumpkin carving kits can be helpful but it's likely that the tools are cheap and will fall apart. Get a variety of pumpkin specific kits. Amazon is a good spot to look since people leave reviews. Also don't be afraid to think outside the box here. I often use kitchen knives, pottery tools, regular tools - anything I can get my hands on to make the job easier.
• Be creative - scary faces are fun but I love that my pumpkins were unique. More and more people are changing up their pumpkins from using multiple pumpkins in one piece, painting, or using glow sticks to incorporate fun colors. If you're not creative but want to do something fun - search around the web for fun ideas.

I really loved last year's pumpkins, but I know I need to step out of the box this time. Any suggestions for me? With certain video game releases this month and movies that I loved this summer, I have an idea or two...

Some of us Cinnamon Geeks are going to get together to carve our pumpkins later this month. Something tells me you'll be hearing about it.