"And that's why, thanks to Mickey, we have cake every morning"

 Did I mention that I made a second pumpkin for Halloween?

The pumpkin, carved

For the past three years I've been carving pumpkins to commemorate a celebrity that passed away in the past twelve months. In 2009 I did Michael Jackson, in 2010 I did Dennis Hopper, and last year I did Macho Man Randy Savage. 

This year I decided to commemorate one of my favorite illustrators, Maurice Sendak. He's best remembered for Where the Wild Things Are, but when I did a google search I found plenty of WtWTA pumpkins and I wanted to do something a little more original. Another of my favorite books of his growing up was In the Night Kitchen, which has some amazing drawings and is also totally weird. I decided to depict the iconic picture of Mickey holding his jug of milk from the final page of the book. I also decided to try another new technique. This time just scratching away the skin of the pumpkin to let the candle light glow through the meat. It was a pretty tedious process. 

Fresh Air did a great retrospective show on Sendak when he passed away which included clips of Terry Gross's interviews with him throughout his career. I highly recommend listening to it, and you can do so here.

Lit up!

The best part was hearing a small child exclaim to his parent as he walked up to our house for candy, "Look, it's the boy from my book!" 

R.I.P. Maurice. 

"He slimed me, Ray"

For this year's pumpkin I wanted to try my hand at "pumpkin sculpting." I've always admired pumpkins created this way but never actually attempted it myself. After watching some youtube videos and marveling at the pumpkins of Ray Villafane, I decided I was ready.

He's an ugly little spud, isn't he?

For my subject I decided on Slimer from Ghostbusters. His body shape and exaggerated features seemed ideal for a pumpkin, plus he's an old childhood favorite of mine. (Sidenote: we just went to see Ghostbusters in the theater here in Portland and were once again blown away by how good that movie still is. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was meant to be on the big screen)

The process is incredibly time consuming, though I imagine it goes quicker the more times you do it. I think a major failing on my part was not picking a pumpkin that was already suited to the shape of his face. This would have made the important features like his cheeks come out even more.

As you can see I can coffee with Slimer this morning

I think that the pumpkin came out alright, but isn't immediately recognizable as Slimer, which is kind of a bummer for me. I really wanted to nail it my first try.

Big stupid grin

Below you can see what he looks like lit up in the stairs leading up to my attic. This is the darkest place in my house right now. 

Gotta remember to get some candles before tonight

I'm not giving up on the process though. Its too bad pumpkin carving only happens one month out of the year. Any suggestions on what else I could carve in this style?