I remember last year, a fellow haunter who goes by the name of Stolloween, posted a link to his pumpkin page where he outlined how he made some really cool looking papier mache pumpkins. I instantly fell in love with them. I printed off the web page and took it to my mom (an ex art teacher at my grade school) and said, "Can you help me make a couple of these?" She looked over the directions and was very non-commital. She had been suffering a lot of health related issues and didn't want to promise something that she might not be able to keep.

Well, I think she could tell how psyched I was by them because she surprised me by starting not one, but two. She had gotten them to the point where she had the basic form of the pumpkin made from the plastic bags and had actually papier mached one of them with 4 layers of newspaper. Unfortunately, she got side tracked and the project stalled. Halloween came and went without the pumpkins. I was disappointed, but there was always next year.

Well, it is next year and due to circumstances that prohib me from making anything too outrageous and huge, I decided to try to finish the pumpkins so that I could at least display something cool this year. So, this page will pick up where my mom left off and I will try to cover the different phases of the building process as I go. My hat is off to you Stolloween. I hope that I can do your process some justice.

Click on the pic for a larger view.

Starting to mache the second pumpkin. Just using a basic mache paste of flour, white glue, liquid starch, and water. You can get the details and beter instructions at Stolloween's page using the link above.

That is all I can do for now. Time to let the first layers dry. Given the high humidity here right now, I am putting mine in a closed room with a dehumidifyer. It might be slow, but I have plenty of time. Besides, I can start putting on the final layers on the first pumpkin that already has 4 layers of mache on it.

Day 2

Picking up where I left off, I added about 3 more layers of papier mache to both pumpkins. Before the paste could dry, I mixed up a batch of the mache paste and added drywall compound and cellulous insulation. I couldn't find any instructions on how much drywall compound or cellulous insulation to add, so I just added what "looked right." Basically, I added the drywall compoud to the paste mixture and mixed it untill it was creamy, like a thick pancake batter. I then proceeded to add enough insulation until the mixture was fairly stiff and somewhat dry. It still had enough moisture so that it was workable like modeling clay. If it dried out too much when I was working with it, I simply dipped my hands in water and proceeded to work with it some more. The moisture on my hands was enough to get the clay workable.

The goal was to build up the top bumps of the pumpkin shape. A relatively thick layer of clay was added to the top of the pumpkin and then I used the handle of an old paint brush to dig in the groves and smooth them out. I would also dip the handle in the water while shaping the clay. This helped make the clay smoother and easier to shape. If that wasn't enough, I used the paint brush itself to add additional water and to smooth out the rough spots. I then added a thick layer of clay to the stem of the pumpkin and "pinched" the clay with my fingers to form ridges. I also used the handle to help dig out the groves more then smoothed the whole stem lightly with the damp brush. Now both pumpkins need to dry thoroughly before I can proceed to the next step.

Day 3

Today I was able to unstuff the pumpkins by cutting the bottom out of the pumpkins. I actually didn't mache the bottom part, so it was easy to cut into the trash bag and remove the crumpled newspapers. The only tricky part was cutting through the strings that were used to form the pumpkin shape and removing the wire that ran from the top to the bottom. I also decided to remove the trash bag even though the mache was sticking to it pretty well. One thing I did notice is that the bottom edge was pretty weak. I will have to make sure that I mache the entire thing next time, not just the majority of it.

After all the newspaper was removed, I started to figure out how I wanted to face to look like. Using Scott's pumpkins for ideas, I decided to make templates to get the eyes to have the same shape. I know that symetry isn't really important, but that is just the way I roll. So after a little trial and error, I came up with an eye that looked pretty good. I copied it in reverse for the other eye and then moved onto the mouth. I couldn't decide how I wanted the mouth to look, so I took a pick of myself with the camera and used it to get the basic shape down. A little exageration here, a little artistic interpretation there and suddenly you have a piece of crap! Throw it away and look at something someone else did to get your inspriation. LOL!

After I traced the templates onto the pumpkin, I began to cut them out. I think I need to find a better way next time. I'm thinking Dremel. Anyway... After the parts were cut out, I used frozen pizza boxes and a lot of hot glue to outline the cutouts to build up the third dimension. That's all for now. Check back later for more progress.

Day 4

My goal today was to get the second pumpkin to the same point as the first one. I didn't want to take on too much because my sister and her two boys were visiting for her oldest's 8th birthday. In an effort to try to get her involved, I decided that she was going to come up with face for this one. After a lot of thought, this is what she came up with.

O'yea! Before I go to far, I also wanted to mention a great little tool that I used to cut out the face on the second pumpkin. I wish that I had thought of it before, but my dad had this awesome blade for his Dremel tool. It sliced through the papier mache without any problem what so ever. It even breezed through the much harder insulation/pulp clay that was used on the top for the stem. I had to really fight getting those areas cut with my small pocket knife yesterday. Basically, what took me about 45 minutes to an hour to painstakingly cut with a pocket knife was done in about 5 minutes with the Dremel. ***Note to self: Buy one of those blades!!! They are awesome.***

Side note number two: For some reason, all the mold growing on the inside of the pumpkin was really bothering me. I don't really know if it matters much, but I have a touch of OCD. In an effort to try and curb the growth, I decided to spray a light mist of cleaner in the last picture on the inside of the pumpkins. Hopefully after a couple days of sitting in front of a dehumidifier, they will be mold free. We shall see...

Day 5

Today I gave the pumpkins some facial features. This was accomplished using more of the cellulous clay. I basically just used it to build up the contours the way I wanted. I blended up to the cardboard that was glued in place during the last step. I then set them in front of a fan to dry.

Day 6

I am actually combining a couple days into one section here. These days were more about waiting for paint/varnish to dry than anything else. The varnish I used said that it would be dry to the touch in 10 hours, fully cured in 24. The spray paint I used was practically dry on the first pumpkin I painted by the time I finished painting the second pumpkin. After the black paint completely dried, I used regular white house paint to do the dry brush technique. Although I think they look pretty cool just the way they are, I am going to color them some with orange, brown, and green acrylic paints.