I don’t have very many Halloween traditions because October tends to be a very busy month for me, but one thing I do make a point to do every year is paint a pumpkin. I’ve never been big on carving – I’m clumsy, so handling sharp objects is not my forte! Painting is much less dangerous.
The past 4 or 5 years I’ve been doing a series of pumpkin paintings that are Disney silhouettes – I featured a number of them in this post, and the Inside Out one and Frozen one that I did after that. But this year I had an idea that took me off my usual silhouette pumpkins and doing something just a little bit different.
As readers of the blog most likely know, I am a huge fan of the citrus swirl and orange bird at Adventureland in the Magic Kingdom. When I saw some of the Disney Halloween merchandise this year, I thought it was cool that they used the Orange Bird in some of it. I mean, it makes sense – his head is an orange, which is pretty similar to a pumpkin. So once I saw that, I knew I had to create my own Orange Bird pumpkin for Halloween this year.
I’m not really making this post a tutorial because it’s pretty straightforward to see how I did it. But here’s a little bit of info about the pumpkins I paint:
- I use fake pumpkins so I can store them with my Halloween decor and reuse them every year. I get the fake pumpkins from Michaels, which come in a variety of sizes.
- I do everything freehand – I don’t print or trace anything, but I do look at pictures online to imitate.
- I draw an outline in pencil first. The pencil on the fake pumpkin doesn’t actually make too much of a mark but more of an indentation that I can then trace over.
- Finally I paint. Some colors only need one coat (like the green on this pumpkin) and some need multiple coats and I have to wait for it to try (like white).
I’m really happy with how my Orange Bird pumpkin turned out! He’s pretty cute, and a great addition to my Disney Halloween decor.
Did you make any pumpkins for Halloween? What did you carve or create?
Leave a Reply