My kids in pumpkin

So, this is a mirror image of what the pumpkin actually looks like b/c I took the picture using Dan's computer. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It looks better in real life, but there's not a lot you can do with a computer camera.

Here's how I did it.
First I found a picture of my two kids. I needed something with their heads close together b/c I wanted them on the same pumpkin. Luckily, I had this one:


Then I loaded it up on to the picnik website. If you haven't tried it out yet, it's a pretty sweet little photo editing website. I cropped it, increased the contrast a bit and then I used "posterize" where I brought the colours down to three and then I brought back some of the original photo in, which I thought would help me in the final stages of creating my pumpkin. I came out with this picture.


Then, I printed it off, modified it a little with a pencil to figure adjust the photo so that there were no pieces hanging mid-pumpkin, taped it on my cleaned-out pumpkin (I cut into the photo around the outside to lay it flatter on the pumpkin.

Then, using my little awl from my $1.49 pumpkin carving kit I found at the grocery store, I poked holes through my picture into the pumpkin to outline the parts I wanted to cut and the parts where I wanted to peel the skin.

I cut the smallest holes first, using a little serrated pumpkin carving knife (from my carving kit); I read that tip here. And then I cut the rest of the cut-out parts, starting in the middle (also a tip I got from that website). Then I peeled the skin on the grey parts. I used a vegetable peeler for some of it, but I found it easier to work with an Exacto knife.

Then I did some contouring to add some more depth, which basically means that I cut the flesh of the pumpkin at an angle. So it's cut all the way through at the lightest parts, but at an angle on the flesh parts, not just peeled skin. Does that make sense? The thinner the flesh, the more light comes through. It's like doing a reverse relief sculpture.