by Newport Scott

Created on: October 29, 2008   Last Updated: August 06, 2010

When looking directly at your carved pumpkin, it is definitely cooler if the center of the pumpkin is left solid enough to hide the burning candle behind it. Ever see a pumpkin with a giant nose and you find yourself staring directly into the candle? Leave some uncarved space in the middle-center of your pumpkin that will block the direct candlelight. Let the light pour through more indirect openings.

You are probably going to make a mess so have extra newspapers to lie down and carve outside if you can. Have a bowl ready to hold all the pumpkin guts you will have to scoop out of the pumpkin's center. Cut off the top first, but at a good wide angle pointing towards the pumpkin's center so it will fit back on later. You will need a decent knife or carving tool, but whatever is fine and this is all common knowledge, right?

Try to do a face or design that you have never done before. It's Halloween every year, so go ahead and try out new ways of expressing your particular brand of scary. So yes, please be scary. Try to let less light through. Use angles, triangles, teeth patterns, fangs, scary eyes, strange scars, thin lines, and eyes within eyes.

Or go the other direction and be funny, cute, or superhero in style. Everyone can draw a smile so one small happy pumpkin couldn't hurt your patch. Big pumpkins are great, but a lot of smaller carved pumpkins can provide a whole family of creepy. Is creepy scary?

If you really are not sure what to carve, consider starting off with a pencil. At night, know one will notice your original pencil markings. You can change your original idea several times before drawing your blade.

Usually lines will look better if your cuts are either parallel or smaller at the surface growing wider as you cut towards the pumpkin's center. Each pumpkin has it's own thickness. The angle of your cuts against and through this thickness should be again either the same or smaller towards the outside pumpkin skin. Feel free to remove as much of the inside skin or layer as you like. The little light you let through will become brighter. Try doing this the opposite way on a practice pumpkin, because this reverse effect can also have its place.

If you are going to buy a pumpkin, considering getting several including the above mentioned practice pumpkin. There has always got to be some lame pumpkin, which is either scarred or deformed, to begin with and will probably not cost very much. You may be able to turn this imperfect reject into an advantage and create a masterpiece, but there is nothing wrong with just getting a practice pumpkin or two, which you know that you are not going to display, just to test your ideas or better your chops. Try that this year.

Have fun, pretend to be the greatest of all pumpkin-carving artists and create something new to you, which is just maybe a little terrifying. Good Luck.

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