whale and ship pumpkins

Pumpkin season! Usually I just do a traditional gap-toothed face but this time I fancied doing something different. I made these by the method where you don’t actually make a hole right through but instead chip off the skin so that the light shines through a small remaining layer of the white flesh. So what you do is 1. cut a hole in the top, 2. scrape out the flesh, 3. draw the design with a pen or knife, 4. carve off the outer skin in the shape of your design.

I did the whale first and then as it was much easier than I thought it would be I decided to do a ship too. Why I did a whale and a ship I don’t know, maybe I was influenced by the trails on the BBC for an upcoming serialisation of Moby Dick.

It took me only about 20 minutes per pumpkin. Really the only tricky thing is not taking too much flesh out out of the middle. If you take out too much it is easier to accidentally pierce through when taking off the skin.

These were the tools I used (we like red things), I had a bit of a search around the house to see what tools I already had that I could use. The ones I found were: a lino cut tool to carve out the pattern, a knife to cut the hole in the top, and an ice cream scoop to scrape out the flesh.

It was fun to do, next time I’d love to take on something even more detailed. It’s pretty cosy to sit around in the orange light of pumpkins :)