Finalized Pumpkins

So, here's some pics of the stages of the pumpkins. They are currently on display at the Office of the Dartmouth General Foundation.

This is my favourite one...my roomie has deemed it the 'Cancer Pumpkin'.

Here's a texture shot.......mmmmmmtexture.

Top shot of them as they dried.....the greener ones have a more 'undead' look to them.

This was the second to last stage. I had brushed them with a glue/water/orange paint mix. The orange was added so I knew where I had covered. With the surface already being white, the glue was hard to see, so a heavy tint that would help in the shading was added. They were then sprayed white for highlight ideas and then green for the tops, and then a quick airbrush of a yucky black to give a little contour base.

Pumpkin Update

These are the most recent photos of the pumpkins I've been making. Done with the paper mache portion, I've now covered them with paper clay and begun moulding them to their final forms. I'm very impressed on how easy it is to use and how well it holds its shape. The only question now is how well it will dry to the form and whether or not it will pull off or dry as a large piece and potentially crack off.

Once they are primed, I plan to paint them simple and natural with my airbrush as a practice.

New Tool to my growing Armada of Creation (Registered Trademark Pending)

So here's the new baby to the armada......just wait and see It's a Paasche VL3, sold as a kit and bought from a woodworker in Antigonish County. Originally sells for about $200-$250 Canadian, I got the whole deal for $64, postage in. Haven't sparked her up yet, but it's just a matter of a day......muhahahaha

Pumpkin Spice Goodness

Slept like a log and woke up knowing there was goodness to be had when I reached the kitchen. I gotta say, certainly worth the effort, though the pumpkin spice itself rose to the top and my first sip was rather bitter. Scooped that off the top and everything is heavenly!

Here's the recipe if you want to enjoy the fabulousness of Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Holly Homemaker extension

Tonight I baked Pumpkin cakes and muffins. Why?

Because I found a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and it required 2 tablespoons of pumpkin pie filling. Pumpkin only comes in friggin hug and massively huge cans, 2 tablespoons doesn't even make a dent in it, so there'd be so much waste.

$20 later, I have the supplies to bake. I haven't baked since Junior High School. Hell, I made my 3rd batch of Jello the other day for crying out loud.

So anyways, here's some shots of the finished baked good, and a shot of the Spiced Pumpkin Latte mix. I saved it in the fridge for tomorrow.

I have to say that in a few short hours, I managed to clean my kitchen and bathroom top to bottom, clean the hallway and baseboards, bake all that stuff (without ANY 'kitchen power tool', everything I used was hand cranked or wooden spoon....hell, even the allspice was ground in a marble mortar and pestle), clean out my fridge, make a run to the grocery store and the dollar store, change and re-assign the space of the cat's litter box, rip apart, scrubbed down and reassemble my espresso machine (oh my lord she's a'shining!), clean and restock the cat's feeding and watering bowls - silver platter and crystal no less- and change all the garbage in the apartment.

I think I'm gonna sleep well tonight, if not slip into an exhaustion induced coma.

Little Pumpkins

Another fun thing from Halloween I picked up from STOLLOWEEN. A great Paper Mache artist and he offers tutorials for all of his work for anyone with the desire to recreate his work. I can see why people like me do, and the better portion of the planet don't. Paper mache is a messy, time consuming, tedious process that people like me love. To me, it's a meditation and time to myself that I dn't get all that often with my crazy life, made more crazy by the day.

Creepy Portrait Phase 4

Well I was in the zone and didn't take any pictures until it was done. Previously, the 'eyes' that were cut out was really just a piece of paper with 2 dots on it taped to the wall behind the image. After a quick trip to the dollar store, I picked up a few tennis balls (as well as a huge assortment of other things that I *thought* I needed) that I cut in half, sprayed the inside white and then added a quick dot of black to for the pupil. That's the magic of the whole portrait As you move around the room, the eyes seem to follow you around.....ooOOOoooooo scary.
I sprayed down the white wallpaper with a deep red after masking the face (HA HA! Learned a lil sumthin' from before) and darkened it up a bit.....Ok, a lot. Then I masked the background, and rattle can sprayed the head again to blank it out and re-did it. The left side of the face is a bit too pointy for my liking, and as this is still a practice/fuck around stage, I can still tweak it a bit.
The frame I used is an old one I salvaged from a restaurant I used to work at and was being used as an inspiration frame in the bathroom. Basically a collection of magazine clippings and such, held onto chicken wire with clothespins. The problem is that the portrait is about 1 1/2" too narrow for it to fit perfect, so I'm debating either building a new frame from cardboard/coroplast or making a matte *shudder* for this.
Well, at least the wallpaper look is still there, though muted. To realign that would be a pain in the ass, but not all that much work really. I'll look at that and maybe bring it back up a bit.

That left cheek bone is driving me batty, so that's gotta go. Though the right one has a wicked level of shading on it and I'm quite pleased with it.

Perhaps a bit more detailing on the neck/shirt collar portion. I left that area cause my eyes were going crossed.

And finally, around the eyes needs a lot of work. Not so much the surface, which frankly is fine by me for having NO referance photos, but the actual cut edges need to either be cleaned up a bit OR simply painted black and allowed to be rough.