How to carve a witchy pumpkin for Halloween shenanigans

Shakopee Valley News

Most of us have carved pumpkins before. You might be asking yourself, what can she teach me that I don't already know about carving pumpkins?

A lot. 

However, I did not come by this knowledge on my own — I asked pumpkin and pumpkin carving experts, each with years of experience with orange, bulbous fruits (yes, a pumpkin is a fruit technically, so there's your first knowledge bomb).

When beginning my research into pumpkin carving in late fall, pumpkin patches were not open as pumpkins generally aren't ripe at the end of fall. I called around and after a few disappointing phone calls and possibly giving up on the idea of a pumpkin carving tutorial, I reached family-owned Barten Pumpkins in New Prague.

Farm owner Fran Barten said she would find me a pumpkin, though it might be a dark green because apparently that's the color a pumpkin is before it's ripe.

As far as picking the perfect pumpkin (say that five times fast) Barten said there is such variety with pumpkins that you should pick your art first and then your canvas.

They come in different colors, shapes and sizes. Barten Pumpkins alone grows anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 pumpkins a year and the farm is one of many pumpkin patches in the Twin Cities area — if you can dream a pumpkin, it exists.

"They come tall and thin, squatty and fat — some people look for one with the round front that, if you're going to be doing stenciling, might be more in tune to that," Barten said. "Some people look for ridges deliberately. Everybody's personality is different and so are the pumpkins and sometimes they match."

Barten ended up bringing me a selection of pumpkins, large and small, and even squash.

I settled on a big pumpkin that was a little green and some smaller beauties for desk decoration.

Since I knew the pumpkin was going to be a bit green, I decided to do a witch for my carving. I designed my own stencil, which you can download on our website. If you don't want to use my stencil, that's fine, whatever. I get it.

But I digress. I designed the stencil, printed it and gathered my materials, knives and an ice cream scoop.

To start off, I taped the stencil to the pumpkin and outlined the parts I was going to carve out by repeatedly sticking a push-pin into the stencil and the pumpkin. I've used sharpie in the past but then I find that mistakes are not as easy to cover. You can barely notice the push pin marks which sometimes makes carving harder, but just keep the stencil nearby for reference.

I then cut off the stem of the pumpkin by cutting a circular area around the stem. This is so you can get into the pumpkin and scoop out all the guts, which is pretty par for the course of pumpkin carving.

Then comes the long process of cleaning out the pumpkin. You want minimal strings and a flat bottom for a candle. It takes a while but I found that the ice cream scooper, which I hadn't used on a pumpkin before, was pretty effective.

Now for the carving — and the carving expert, the project manager of Pumpkin Nights Chelsea Kasen, whom others refer to as the "Pumpkin Queen."

Pumpkin Nights is a Twin Cities event that started last year and consists of 3,000 carved pumpkins spread out over a half-mile walking path. The event lasts for a little over two weeks.

The pumpkins at Pumpkin Nights are foam to keep prevent thousands of rotting pumpkins in a small space, but with 3,000 intricately carved pumpkins, you're bound to have some good advice for creating pumpkin art.

Kasen recommends planning a design ahead of time with the unique pumpkin shape in mind. Also, the simpler, the better.

"It seems counter-intuitive but sometimes the most impressive pumpkins, especially if they're real pumpkins, are really simple shapes," Kasen said. "We also recommend drawing the design before carving so kind of taking the forethought of figuring out how much space you should have between each of the different shapes, and thinking through the design instead of just going at it with the carving tools. It produces a better result." 

Check.

As far as tools, Kasen said those working on Pumpkin Nights like Dremel tools or industrial sanders to create shading instead of cutting out the entire shape.

Not check. I just have some kitchen knives, but probably that's what most people will have if you're not that into pumpkin carving and likely do max one pumpkin a year, such as myself and many other pumpkin carvers.

I've got my pumpkin, I've got my tools and I've got my advice. The only thing left to do is carve. So carve I do, using the push pin holes from earlier as my guide and watching the stencil to make sure I'm on the right path.

I had some harder elements in my design that I ended up eliminating because I found that in practice, they were too difficult to complete. For the thinner parts of the design, I'd generally cut out a smaller piece and then gradually shave away the sides until it was at the space I wanted it to be.

I took a Bob Ross approach in that, to err is human and to do art is human and so to err in art is human. Also I've found that visible mistakes when carving tend to disappear when the pumpkin is lit and in a dark room — kind of like being in the club.

Luckily, there weren't too many mistakes so I will not be a disgraced pumpkin artist. The broom handle came off a bit, but that's fine. It's not bad, I must say.

I didn't have a candle at work so I downloaded a candle app (millennials, am I right?) and my witch was flying across my pumpkin, thanks to help from Barten and Kasen. Download the witch stencil if you like and send us pictures from your carving adventure on our Facebook page, Twitter (@Shakopee) or tag us on Instagram (@shakopeenews).

And good luck!