Have You Seen The Pumpkin Guy?

It’s the witching season and in keeping with the tradition of this blog, I wanted to bring you something which is both unusual and interesting.  So I scoured the web and came across Dave the pumpkin guy.  No, he’s not an orange vegetable with arms and legs.  😀

He is a really talented chap and in a very unusual artistic field.  He creates Halloween pumpkins and more recently gourds too.  Not the traditional kind being carved into grotesque faces, he uses his artistic talent to paint them instead.  Making for a more detailed and frightening result.  You would not want to bump in to one of his pumpkins on a dark night I can tell you.

Here is just a small collection of his creative talent and the full gallery is available for viewing over at http://pumpkin-guy.com/.  Go over and marvel at his craftsmanship.  His site is currently under development but you can see from the wonderful graphics and story book intro that this site is going to be something else when it is completed.  He frequently sells his work at farmers markets and online.  So If you fancy a piece of living art just contact him from his site email on his website.
 

I asked Dave to submit a little piece about his work and painting techniques which you can read below.  I’m fascinated by the whole concept and am in awe at his talent, I’m sure you will all agree when you visit him.

“First, I started doing painted pumpkins about 15 years ago.  Primarily I painted them because they lasted longer than carved Jack-o-lanterns.  Also, I had people ask me to paint up caricatures.  When I first started I didn’t know what I was doing so I tried using acrylic paint.  This was a bad choice because of the waxy surface of the pumpkin.  What would usually happen is that the paint would scratch or just chip off with the slightest touch.  I then found latex fabric paint works well because it holds the surface better and it also stretches with the pumpkin surface as it shrinks over time.  I’ve had some people successfully dry pumpkins in their basement.  Because of the rubber like nature of latex paint the faces shrink and hold onto the wrinkly pumpkin surface – the effect can be very cool.  I’ve tried to airbrush the pumpkins in the past but I’m too messy a person – I just end up getting paint everywhere so I just use a regular water color brush.  To finish them out I like to apply a gloss fixative – it helps to protect the paint and helps bring the colors together.”

“Lately I’ve been trying out gourds for a change – a few of the images up on my site are gourds.  This year I’ve been experimenting with sculpting the gourd and then finishing up with some paint.  I’ve added an image of a gourd I just finished.”

And here he is… 

I love this little fella, the movement in the tentacles makes this work of art, yes work of art come alive.  Dave is genius when it comes to vegetable artwork, I think you’ll all agree.