KatherinePlumer
Elite Cafe Member
Hey everyone. I know I've been a bit scarce... okay totally absent... here for a while. Um, hi, I've crawled back out from under my rock. Along with all the serious scrimshaw, here's a little silliness from last weekend (you blog-readers have seen this already!).
Recently there was a pumpkin carving contest at a local farm. I participated and won last year, so I decided to try my luck again. I'm not much into jack-o-lantern carving though. I'd been scheming about my image for a while, and about a week before the contest I got a pumpkin to practice on. This is my practice pumpkin, a little white one that's orange-colored right under the skin, so the design showed up great! You'll surely know what image I'm spoofing by the time you see the final product!
So the morning of the competition I showed up hoping to find a large version of the same variety of white pumpkin. Ooops, what I hadn't realized was that they don't get much bigger than that. My planned design was way too big, so I used a REALLY big white pumpkin instead, which was a different kind, and then I ended up having to ink it because it was NOT orange right under the skin, and I really hadn't wanted to have to ink it... but I digress. Here's how the day went:
Picking the perfect pumpkin:
"Uh, yeah, sure, I can carry it..." (barely! That thing was heavy!!!)
Five hours of this...
Unfortunately, it just didn't show up very well (sorry, forgot to photograph that part). So I made use of a friend's stash of art supplies and mixed a nasty dye concoction and inked the darn thing. I wish it hadn't stained the background... but that's okay. Still looked pretty cool, I'd have to say! :banana:
Alas, no, I didn't win. I was beaten by a traditionally carved jack-o-lantern. You just never know what'll happen when the public judges things!
I'll try not to to be such a ghost around here! Goodness knows there's lots of scrimshaw to post!
-Katherine
Recently there was a pumpkin carving contest at a local farm. I participated and won last year, so I decided to try my luck again. I'm not much into jack-o-lantern carving though. I'd been scheming about my image for a while, and about a week before the contest I got a pumpkin to practice on. This is my practice pumpkin, a little white one that's orange-colored right under the skin, so the design showed up great! You'll surely know what image I'm spoofing by the time you see the final product!
So the morning of the competition I showed up hoping to find a large version of the same variety of white pumpkin. Ooops, what I hadn't realized was that they don't get much bigger than that. My planned design was way too big, so I used a REALLY big white pumpkin instead, which was a different kind, and then I ended up having to ink it because it was NOT orange right under the skin, and I really hadn't wanted to have to ink it... but I digress. Here's how the day went:
Picking the perfect pumpkin:
"Uh, yeah, sure, I can carry it..." (barely! That thing was heavy!!!)
Five hours of this...
Unfortunately, it just didn't show up very well (sorry, forgot to photograph that part). So I made use of a friend's stash of art supplies and mixed a nasty dye concoction and inked the darn thing. I wish it hadn't stained the background... but that's okay. Still looked pretty cool, I'd have to say! :banana:
Alas, no, I didn't win. I was beaten by a traditionally carved jack-o-lantern. You just never know what'll happen when the public judges things!
I'll try not to to be such a ghost around here! Goodness knows there's lots of scrimshaw to post!
-Katherine