Instead of a pumpkin, try carving a watermelon!
Over the weekend, my family and I went over to a friend’s house to carve pumpkins. I was a bit late, so by the time I got there, most of them were already done. Jena asked whether I wanted to carve a pumpkin, or a watermelon from her garden. At first, I was going to do a pumpkin, because I’d never heard of carving watermelons–at least not for making jack-o-lanterns.
But, then she sat down to try carving a watermelon, herself. It didn’t take long for us to realize why this was a great idea! Instead of scooping out pumpkin guts and throwing it in a bowl, we could scoop out the watermelon and eat it! So, I grabbed another watermelon, and proceeded to scoop out and eat the tasty insides.
When I was done, I had a hollowed-out green oval/cylinder shaped thing to work with. I sat for a few minutes, trying to think of something green to make it look like. My first thought was a Mountain Dew can, but I decided that it would be too hard to try and carve all of those letters into the small watermelon. Then, I thought of a turtle, and went looking around the house for turtle faces to imitate.
Luckily, Xander loves turtles, and I found plenty of possibilities. I finally settled on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, from the cover of a video game. Most of the TMNT faces that I saw kind of needed visible teeth-separations to look good, but I found one that had a good enough facial expression without needing tooth detail.
I started by drawing on the watermelon with a pen, which allowed me to correct mistakes by wiping off the pen with a wet paper towel. I’m not very artistically inclined, so I really didn’t expect it to turn out very good. I was very close to giving up and going with a standard pumpkin carving style, rather than trying to make it look like something in particular. I also came very close to asking Xander to draw a ninja turtle face, for me, because that boy is a great artist, and I’ve seen some of his ninja turtle drawings before. But, I actually managed to draw a face that I was happy with.
Then carved it out with the pumpkin carving tools. I couldn’t decide whether to cut out the whole ninja turtle mask part, or to just cut the eyes out. Dallin suggested cutting out the eyes, then the whole mask, and then putting the eyes back into place with toothpicks. I knew that they’ve done the toothpick thing before, with pumpkins, so I trusted that he knew what he was talking about.
The final product turned out better than I thought it would! It’s easily recognizable as a ninja turtle, and I think I consider it my best pumpkin carving, ever. Jena’s carved watermelon turned out great, too! It’s cool to see this different color scheme: green with red inside, rather than the standard pumpkin orange with yellow inside.
Here are some close-up pictures of the carved watermelons, as well as some pictures of the watermelons next to the pumpkins that our respective families carved/painted:
We all had lots of fun, and look forward to doing it again next year! We will definitely be carving both pumpkins AND watermelons again.
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November 1st, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Wow, what a neat idea to carve watermelons.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Fun with knives and children!! (As always.)
Seriously though — that’s awesome. I like. I have never watched a single episode, seen a single movie, or read a single comic book of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I recognized the one on the left :)
November 4th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I love TMNT! I’m gonna pretend that’s Donatello you carved there, because he’s the geek-turtle. That totally rocks!
December 1st, 2007 at 1:24 am
@Ryan Somma:
Hehe yeah, I always liked Donatello for the same reason. I only used Leo because his facial expression in the photo I was drawing from seemed like it would transfer easier/better to the watermelon.
However, since they’re all cartoon turtles, and are [almost?] identical without their bandanas and weapons, the watermelon could really pass for any of them.
In fact, with a regular candle burning inside it, the bandana would probably end up looking orange, which would make it Michaelangelo.
To get a purple bandana, like Donatello, I’d have to burn something other than a regular candle inside. Hmm. I remember from high school chemistry class that Lithium makes a green flame, but I don’t remember any other colorful flame formulas.
[ok, I couldn’t resist…] A quick Google search for ‘purple flame’ gave me the following one, which sounds like fun but wouldn’t produce a long-lasting flame like a candle:
Maybe Clint’s grandfather’s cult would have some purple-flaming candles I could use. I remember watching/hearing/reading something about it, at some point, and they mentioned something about a “Violet Flame”.
Boy, I over-thought this way too much. Oh, the burdens of being a geek!
December 1st, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I was just about to mention the Violet Flame . . .