How to Carve a Pumpkin Owl

Happy Halloween!

I've always loved the job of carving the pumpkin for Halloween and it's made more special for me by using a homegrown one. I enjoy tending to them throughout the Summer and carrying those endless buckets of water in the hope of producing something worthy, but maybe small can be even more beautiful..........

I'd like to show you how to create this cute owl using basic cutting tools and a very manageable sized pumpkin!

.

A pumpkin, choose a shape which will make a good owl body. ( This is my crop for the year! )

An owl sketch on paper

A kitchen knife, for cutting the lid open.

An apple core cutter, for making the center of the eyes.

A small scalpel craft knife.

Using a stout kitchen knife cut the lid of your pumpkin, keeping the knife at a 45 degree angle, to allow the lid to sit back in position well.

Remove all seeds and dry, save and grow more pumpkins with next year!

Remove all flesh with a spoon for those lovely pumpkin soups and pumpkin pies.

Now your ready to draw your design on to the pumpkin

I'm using an owl template that I use for my silkpainting designs and thought it would be fun to see it translated on a pumpkin.

You could try tracing it onto the pumpkin, but I prefer to sketch free hand using the drawing just as a guide.

I used a pencil to lightly sketch the owl first and when happy with the shape and size of the design, used a biro to make the lines clearer to carve from.

Firstly, I used an apple core cutter and made 2 holes all the way through the pumpkin, which just happened to be the perfect size for the centers of the eyes.

Then I used the small scalpel knife to cut into the skin of the pumpkin, removing the orange layer but not going all the way through.

Once the eyes were done, it's on with the tummy feathers.

Still using the small scalpel I began by carefully cutting out the scale like curves in the middle section.

Light pressure with the knife gave a good initial curve which I carved deeper into, revealing the different tones.

I then worked the larger feathers on the wings, cutting each feather in half lengthways to reveal the 2 shades again.

I later decided more light might be needed so carved narrow slits right through the skin in the feathery wing areas.

I finished the carving with some small feet, and forehead details and then ta dah.....

The Pumpkin Owl was complete!

I think the Pumpkin Owl looks cute on his perch in the crabapple tree, but looks quite magical all lit up in the dark too.

Have fun carving your pumpkin!