Life in the Fast Lane

The annual ritual to get your ghoul on and create your fiendishly spooktacular Jack-o’-lanterns is nigh. Pumpkins are the gatekeepers of Halloween. It’s your right to slice and pare your way to some gourd-eous and menacing pumpkin masterpieces, and we’re here to help with hints, tips and tricks, e-cards, and even wallpapers and screensavers for your computer to get you going.

Pumpkin Selection
Select a pumpkin that isn’t bruised and ensure the base isn’t damaged. Sometimes the bottom of the pumpkin is thin and can get punctured. If the pumpkin feels heavy and seems slushy inside, select another one.

Tools Required
Nathan Wesling of Pumpkin Way says that you can make do with just about anything you currently have in your home. What he doesn’t recommend is buying special pumpkin carving kits unless it’s for small children who shouldn’t be handling sharp knives. But for an adult, almost any standard knife will work.

You will need a large spoon or ice-cream scoop, a thin bladed knife and garbage bags for your working surface for easy cleanup.

Carving your Freakish Fiend
Cut an opening around the stem in a 5 or 6 sided shape or a circle with a notch to make it easier to reposition the lid. Cut in at an angle to prevent the lid from falling into the pumpkin. Rotate the pumpkin so that you are always carving at a 90 degree angle. Keep the pumpkin steady and don’t cut your hand, as you will need it later.

The hole should be an inch or two wider than your fist to scoop the insides out with your hand or large scoop. Alternatively, cut an opening in the bottom, allowing you to place the finished pumpkin over a lit candle or electric light.

Inspect the surface of the pumpkin to decide the best side to carve the face.

Use a large spoon to scrape the inner walls of the pumpkin clean and smooth. The front wall where your design will be should be scraped to about 1 inch thick to make carving easier. Scrape the bottom of the pumpkin flat so that the candle will sit level in the pumpkin.

Use a crayon to draw the face onto the front of the pumpkin. Use your knife to carefully cut out the individual parts of the face and cut through the lines you drew.

Votive candles in glass candle holders are a safe way to light your pumpkin. Plain white candles will give off the most light. Cut a 1 or 2 inch hole in the top to act as a vent to allow heat and smoke to escape.

Terrifying Tips
Place the pumpkin in a tub of cold water. If the pumpkin has already been carved, place it face down. Let the insides fill with water. The pumpkin will absorb the water and become very firm. If you have fine detail to carve, let your pumpkin soak overnight to firm the flesh up and allow you to do intricate carving.

Once carved, a jack-o-lantern won’t last more that a few days before beginning to dry out and shrivel.

To extend the life of your ghoulish masterpiece, brush lemon juice on the carved areas to help slow down the natural molding process. Coat the exposed areas with a layer of petroleum jelly such as Vaseline, or white glue. Use your fingers for large openings, and a cotton swab for tiny and delicate areas. This will seal in the moisture, extending its life to a week or more.

Try colored tissue paper behind the face of the pumpkin, tacking it in place with toothpicks to create a colored filter, minding candles so it doesn’t catch fire.

Nathan Wesling has some unconventional methods to carve your pumpkin:

How to Carve a Pumpkin with Teeth – Pumpkin Way

Gruesome Gallery
All pumpkins featured here have been carved by the master Nathan Wesling, photographed by Peter Kiar of Chicago. For more gruesome design ideas, visit his website at Pumpkin Way.

About Nathan Wesling
29 year old Nathan Wesling graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in Visual Art. He is currently working on his Masters in Computer Science at the University of Illinois in computer graphics.

Growing up in St. Louis, his mother had made pumpkin carving a major Halloween event for the family. Nathan hosted a pumpkin carving contest in his first year of college which increased in such popularity that it escalated to an annual event, and the development of his website.

Nathan had a student job in the publication office at the university and befriended photographer Peter Kiar who now shoots all of Nathan’s work.

When asked about his unique techniques, he said, “I think the most obvious is my method of shaving off a layer of the skin and carving out the teeth with a lot of depth. Other than that, most of the work is actually in picking out the pumpkins. I look specifically for anything that adds character to the pumpkin like an interesting stem, odd shapes, veins, warts, deep grooves and mutations.”

“Once selected, I spend some time thinking about a face that would fit the characteristics of the pumpkin. Then I carve.”

Asked about his preferences in design, Nathan said, “I guess you could say that I hold some pretty strong opinions on the subject. First and foremost, I am absolutely opposed to carving anything other than a face into a pumpkin. That is like sacrilege.”

“The use of the stem as a nose is a pet peeve of mine. I think that it makes for some pretty nice looking pictures, but in terms of pumpkin carving I kind of feel like it is a cop out. The stems definitely have a lot of character and it is always something that I am looking for when I pick my pumpkin. But I think that there is a difference between picking a pumpkin with interesting qualities and building off of those qualities versus taking that interesting quality and making it the focal point of the entire face.”

“It would be a shame if there was a mass movement toward this kind of carving. Yeah, the ‘average’ carving might look a little more professional but everything would start to look the same. Again, that is just my opinion.”

Why Nathan Wesling carves pumpkins: “Of course I mainly do it just because it is a lot of fun. I also am always trying to improve my technique. By that I mean trying to come up with ways that bring the pumpkins even more to life. But in more concrete terms, I have been looking into producing a line of pumpkin related products for a couple of years now. Things like Halloween greeting cards, balloons, stickers, maybe t-shirts, and maybe even a photo book.”

Downloads and E-cards
Download your very own Pumpkin Screensaver and Wallpapers for Halloween from Pumpkin Way, available for Windows.

To share a pumpkin e-card with a friend, simply click on any of the smaller imaged pumpkins on the home page that you would like to send, fill in your friend’s email address and add a short note.

If you have any questions or would like to contact Nathan Wesling, give him a scream .

Copyright 2007 Life in the Fast Lane. All photos property of Pumpkin Way.

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