The McClure

On Saturday Liz and I were out aimlessly walking through Columbia Park when we saw some pumpkins out the front of the hall. On a whim we stuck our heads in and found it was full of families carving pumpkins!

Turns out that a community group (Friends of Columbia Park) was putting on a fantastic event for the entire neighbourhood. Come in, pick your own pumpkin and carve it using the tools provided. And while you carve, you can drink hot chocolate and warm spiced cider and eat freshly baked cookies!

Naturally, they were delighted to host strangers from another land who had never carved pumpkins before. So we carved, we ate and we talked. The kids were very helpful and they gave us tips on cleaning and carving.

Since this was my first time at this, I thought I’d document the process.

Starting with a drill hole, I made the first incision:

Now the pumpkin is fully gutted and cleaned (boy there was a lot of mess in the room after almost 100 pumpkins cleaned):

Now I had to think about what sort of face I wanted. I decided to go with one of the monster faces of my childhood – the Cyberman from Dr Who (the 80s era model). At this stage, the eyes were done and I had started on the mouth:

After the basic face was finished, I added the distinctive tears to the Cyber-pumpkin:

I thought the final product worked quite well. It captured the basic essence of the Cyberman: familiar and yet slightly menacing in its lack of expression. I took a picture of it lit up at night:

The last piece is the handle -shaped headgear. If I get to add that, I’ll post a new picture.

Overall, it was great fun and I’m looking forward to the Halloween party this weekend. Liz was more creative with her pumpkin, and I’ll close with hers:

How do you choose the faces you carve in your pumpkins?